"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."
- James Baldwin
Dear Internauts,
I was bullied as a child.
For the most part, my bullies were other children.
There is a bitter taste to my recollection of their faces, for early on I learned to look my assailants in the eye. This only served to exacerbate their ill will toward me. However, there are so few real moral victories in childhood as we learn that our most immediate instincts are often declared socially inappropriate, so my attempts were aimed toward holding my own smug sense of inner fortitude against their smug sense of competitive superiority for as long as possible. There are, after all, only so many times it is humanly possible for one elementary aged child to shove another to the ground before recess ends. At which point, the shoved may take their own turn as king of the hill in the arena of the classroom. My arrogance—founded upon a marginally advanced reading level and the confidence afforded by having two supportive, loving, academically encouraging parents—led to a need to constantly prove how much smarter I was. I'd easily bought into the lie that it is only the unintelligent who resort to violence and name calling, and only then against those they secretly agree are truly better than themselves. I'm not sure if anyone actually told me they were intimidated by me, but at least in my young mind, that narrative served as grounds for surviving even the worst sorts of juvenile abuse I would face.
Thankfully, I never had to deal with the constant threat of physical assault that so many young people do from their peers. When such altercations did occur, they were the result of a heat built up over at least several days. The much more common issue was the threat of attack. The names and jeering required much less effort and offered a lower threshold possibility of punishment from authority. If I responded in kind to being spoken down to or ganged up on with insults, even in the most innocent fashion, anything I spoke could be just as easily used against me as anything to which I was responding.
I don't recall ever saying to any of my haters that I knew I was better than them, but maybe they knew that I believed it. I believed it more than I believed much else when it came to my own identity, and it was that belief which allowed me to thrive inside the classroom more than much else (besides, perhaps, the expectations I felt on my shoulders from the adults).
I learned to loathe the word incident for how much weight adults could attach to it. Besides that sounded too much like accident, which made its use seem dismissive, when I looked up what the word incident actually meant, I realized it didn't much describe anything at all. It was as if every problematic occurrence in my young life was being summed up with ellipses. The student did something or other, etc... to the other student and well, y'know....
Such incidences happened a lot. In particular, I remember fifth grade. From my perspective, this one guy had treated me like dirt from day one. Constantly telling me how stupid I was, how ugly, how poorly dressed, how uncool, how worthless, how unlikable, etc... (ha). If I was on the computer and he wanted to use it, I'd be pushed from the seat. Same if I was on the swings at recess or about to use the slide. If I had some book, or ball, or pencil, or whatever in my hand and he wanted it or even simply wanted me not to have it, it would be slapped from my grasp. Far as I could tell, there was no situation wherein if this guy thought he could get away with shoving me aside or throwing me to the ground or calling me whatever vile new name he'd concocted, he'd take advantage of it. And as for any kind of retribution, I couldn't see him getting in trouble for any of it. I did as I was told by every adult, and reported every instance I could to my teachers, school staff, the administration, family members. But of course it did no good. The result of my "tattling" was only a heightened danger from the one I'd reported, to the point I legitimately feared for my safety and would go out of my way to hide from this kid. For whatever reason, our teacher just couldn't see what I was facing or didn't seem to care, even when the bits or paper, rocks, or pens were being chucked at me across the room right in front of her eyes. Maybe I'd have been able to concentrate a bit better in class if I didn't have to play goalie for my face. Granted, that was at least some variety from when he was seated right behind me and he'd enjoy switching from kicking my chair to stabbing me with his mechanical pencils.
One day, I get called in to talk about the situation. Finally, I think, I'm being taken seriously. The truth will out. Hallelujah!
Yeah...not so much.
I walk in to find four chairs arranged by the rug. My teacher in one and next to her the other guy, the bully, the bane of my young existence. Next to him, however, was a woman I didn't know. Maybe some kind of school guidance counselor I'd never seen around before or an FBI agent come to take my statement? Nope. This, as I soon found out, was the kid's own mother. Told to sit at the one lone chair opposite those three, I felt before I realized that this was not going to be the kind of reckoning to which I'd been looking forward. Oh no. My fifth grade self was on trial. Representing myself. Already declared guilty, with only the sentence to be levied. My dress code appropriate polo-collared neck felt the noose begin to tighten. My darker senses on the nature of life and justice began to confirm themselves all too well as I slid my khaki-covered butt onto that plastic seat.
My crime was told to me as this: in second grade, this woman, mother of the other child in the room, had visited for the day. As was common practice for the small private school, parents would often come in to help with special projects or talk about their work or volunteer in some other fashion. On this day, I was told, eight year old me had marched up to the front of the room, pulled on her sleeve, announced in a loud voice that everyone in the class hated her son, then called for a vote from everyone in the room on the matter. With my vast charm, I buoyed up a rallying cry from all my fellow students, the classroom resounding with the collective animosity of twenty-five or so young voices all aimed at her poor boy. This day of vast injustice laid a kernel of rage inside her son, and from that day forth this rage grew into an unstoppable inferno, for which the only outlet is, of course, an understandable dislike and occasional act of harmless ribbing toward the monster from his past—namely, me.
Any illusions I'd had about ending my suffering were dashed. The great diplomacy I'd pictured, wherein he and I would talk out our differences under the intermediary grace and wisdom of our teacher, went poof! This handshake in my head had instead become an iron grip around my neck. Not only was I to look into the face of this fellow student whose torment had driven me to tears nearly every day for months, but I must look at both my own teacher and his mother, these two grown adults, as they all stared me down—the criminal, the monstrous ring-leader. How dare I act like I'd been wronged? After all, was I not facing just punishment for the years of grief I'd caused to this wounded soul? No, not even just punishment. It was not enough.
My teacher thanked the mother for coming in and her son for being so brave to share this story. When they'd left the room, she made sure I knew how shocked and appalled she was at what she'd heard. How dare I blame this innocent student of hers for anything, when it was I who was the great mastermind of his inner torment? How dare I come to her day after day spinning tales of violence and intimidation when he was suffering so under the weight of my abhorrent behavior? She was tired of the disturbances I'd caused to her classroom and hoped that there would finally be peace, now that the truth of the matter was out.
He and his mother were brought back into the room, and I was told to apologize for what I'd done. The part of me that carries this memory would maybe like to think that I stood up for myself, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. Far as I remember, I said sorry and he told me he forgave me (we were at a Christian school after all). For the life of me, I couldn't recall that day in second grade. I certainly remembered being bullied by him back then as well, but pretty much all the guys in second grade bullied me. They were proud of his maturity and his bravery in coming forward about this painful memory. To this day, all I can recall from that day his mom came into class is exactly the details she told me three years after. Nothing changed in his behavior toward me from then on. If anything it got worse, and I knew there was no use in telling anyone about it, especially any adult.
There have been plenty of studies of memory done to discredit the heavy use of witness testimony in criminal court cases. After I was robbed a few years back, the investigator in charge of the case had me look at a series of pictures of faces, despite the fact that the guy with the gun was wearing a mask the whole time. Thankfully, I'd taken psych 101 between fifth grade and that moment in the hotel, so I could pick up on how heavily he was trying to persuade me toward certain faces at least a little. Honestly, it felt more creepy and pathetic than action-drama conspiratorial. But then most everything about that night felt creepy and pathetic.
Originally, I was planning to write about bullies because I thought it would somehow relate to foreign policy. I still feel like this blog can hold its title as a music blog mostly because my songs tend to be based on whatever I've been caught up with a lot at the time. If it's running around my head enough, when I get a bit of music going, the lyrics tend to follow in kind. Thus, when I write songs about love or faith or friends or weather or national identity or the rise of artificial intelligence in a post-truth society, it's because that's what's been screaming so loud trying to crack my cranium of late.
A few weeks ago, I heard a military rep declare a particular bombing mission to be a complete success. I live in the jingoist capital of the western world so that's nothing new, but this wasn't just any typical bombing mission. (Or maybe it was. What's typical anyway?) See, they were aiming for leaders of a terrorist sect in this village. The bombs killed civilians, though. Men. Women. Children. All civilians. (I emphasize civilians, because human being isn't a label that garners enough sympathy for it to matter to anyone.) This is nothing new, since we're not really at war with any particular state, so our war crimes are allowed to be vague. Thing is, some of these civilians were American citizens. Oh no. Now, there might be an issue. Because us American citizens only care about American citizens in these sorts of stories. Now, maybe they're a bit more sure about who got hit and who died, but at the time of the report, they were only kinda sure that maybe some of the bad people might have also possibly been hit too. So, the rep said because of that possibility, they can still declare the mission a complete success.
The following has been going around a while, originally posted by a Boston minister after the Superbowl Win Parade(s).
That being said, the kind of anti-Muslim rhetoric, legislation, action, and environment which has swelled up in the United States has grown far beyond what is tolerable. This is the severest of understatements. We cannot continue to treat those who speak in the terms of ethnic cleansing as if they are talking about common sense security procedure. The executive order travel ban is not only blatantly racist, but it is misleading and contributes to the culture of racial hate and fear at the core of the militant right. In the same fifth grade year as the earlier bully story, I saw an act of abominable violence set this nation's foreign policy down a path from which it may never recover. I speak of course of when the US Army first started bombing Afghanistan and almost immediately began an unending war on children, families, and hospitals. While we blame mental illness and violent themes in the media for true plans and acts of terrorism, we allow our liberty, our sanity, and our national identity to be hijacked in the name of protection against a foreign boogey man we ourselves created.
The Vice President has referred to Iran as the biggest supporter of terrorist groups. I propose that in fact it is the United States which is at fault for the current state of terror hype in the world.
When asked why certain nations were blocked in the travel ban and not others, one of the main reasons cited by this administration is that the nations from which major terrorist groups actually originate have better record keeping than these other seven, majority-Muslim nations. Further, the majority of attacks and possible attacks which occur within the US have mostly come from those who are already here and already citizens. So let's be clear, this is not a protection against possible "bad guys", but against the unregistered, the unrestricted, the unaccounted for.
The US government is not at war with terror. That's a catchy slogan, but the truth is what it has always been. The government is at war with a loss of its own control over its people. Remember how the White House knew about Mike Flynn's naughty behavior for three weeks before he "resigned" but only did anything once the public found out? Remember how the NSA was definitely not spying on us until of course they were once the "criminal" whistle-blowers like Snowden blew the story open wide? Remember how everyone goes crazy about how important it is to vote and how much your vote matters and go vote go vote go vote until you do and it doesn't matter because screw the popular vote, the electoral college chooses for you, nerd.
The kind of paranoia that thinks a wall, mass raids by ICE, and storm troopers asking for your papers is good immigration policy is the same kind of paranoia that thinks the best place to stay safe and warm is in a gold-plated bunker by the light of the nuclear reserve. It's the same kind of eyes that look at history through a lens which can ignore Teddy Roosevelt's lust for war with the Philippines because he was "such a badass". It's the same kind of foreign policy that forgets you only make room for a Third Reich when you try to make an example of those you've crushed with the Treaty of Versailles. It's the same kind of gung-ho nationalism which says the best thing for the populace to do after a national tragedy is go shopping. It's the same kind of fanatical racism which leads to internment camps and the Trail of Tears and box cars or slave ships full of bodies deemed dispensable.
It's the kind of compromise you learn to make when you're taught justice is two adults staring down an eleven year old telling him that the only side of the story that matters is the one of those in power.
It's the future of a country that hasn't got one.
It's the epitaph for a species of cannibals.
This past week when I did some temp work of twelve hour days delivering flowers in the snow, I knew I would never want the job of having to manage all the different routes and drivers and packages and orders. But I also knew that no matter what happened on the warehouse end, everything came down to the moment those flowers left my hands. The smile. The laugh. The confusion. The wonder. None of that was possible without me and other individuals like me delivering on what was paperwork a step or two above us. I'll try to remember that. Will you?
There is no just doing your job. There is no just following orders. There is no just walking by.
Because no matter what a government or a nation or a sect or any institution declares or orders or does, it is in every individuals hands—yours and mine—what actually happens in this world. From the soldier with their trigger to the doctor with their prescription pad to the pedestrian and the change in their pocket. It is us, people, one to another, who make up our world community. It is us who decide the course of the future. It is us who define what words like truth, justice, liberty, equality, and hope actually look like on the daily.
And it's up to us to be there.
Thanks for reading,
Odist
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