Say No to School Bullying
Anyone different is ostracized in the elementary school yard. And words hurt. Tiny hearts break easily. I know. Here’s a story I was told recently.
“Please, can I stay home?” A 12-year-old boy with freckles begged his mom on the way to school.
She gave him a sympathetic look, wishing that this year would be better for him; that her son would finally stop crying himself to sleep every night.
Shaking, the boy, David James Bell, closed the car door and headed into school as slowly as possible. He quietly said a prayer, just as he did before every school day. When the day started, he sat at a desk with his name tag on the front, his name written in crayon. He breathed a sigh of relief as he opened his new set of colored pencils and blank notebook.
As he started to design a Power Ranger, hands tugged his hair, hurting his scalp tremendously before slamming him into his desk. The pain was so intense his head burned. A migraine began as he ran from the classroom. As he ran, a kid yelled “faggot!” at the top of his lungs.
When he reached the bathroom, he collapsed on the floor. His physical pain didn’t even begin to compare with his emotional heartache. He was starting to believe that his name was now Faggot and his soul was worth nothing.
Boys will not just be boys. Girls will not just gossip. Kids die from this. Kids hang themselves. And those who do survive often have unimaginable scars that don’t heal for years, if ever.
I know because I was one of these kids. From fourth grade to sixth I was the one in the corner who everyone picked on, left out and occasionally spit on. I was always the last one chosen for a teammate. Twenty years later, dating is still hard for me. I rarely go out on dates for fear of rejection because when it happens I fall back to that time in my life when all my peers really did reject me, and the tears fall like rain in the night sky.
Five suicide attempts later, I have survived and am still breathing. I do look forward to the days ahead. But the life got sucked out of me when I was young and it never fully returned. As a high school student, I learned just like Bell did that it didn’t matter what shallow people thought about us. It only ever mattered if we accepted who we were as a person. When we did, others followed.
“I finally did realize my self worth and took control, but it took a long time, even longer for me to believe I was worth even more than that. I had to fake it till I made it,” Bell told me.
Men will not just be men. Women will not just be catty. Adults die. Adults hurt so badly they die by their own hands. We tell our kids time and time again to treat others with respect, but our actions speak louder than our words every time.
Twenty years later, Bell is a full-grown man with freckles and long, reddish-blonde hair. Two years ago, on July 4, he was settling down from hanging out with his friends at a club. He noticed his tabby cat was missing and searched for her at the neighbors’ house where they were having an adult party.
An hour or so later, their hands tugged his hair as they pulled him out of his house, hurting his scalp tremendously as they slammed him into a concrete driveway. Others joined in, putting in blow after blow. Fist after fist. Pan after pan. The words “faggot” and “cocksucker” echoed in his ear until he lost hearing.
His husband came to his defense, but he only suffered the same fate. They were both left for dead.
The attackers invented a new defense when the police showed up. Assuming he was a pedophile because he was gay the cops cuffed DJ. The detective took him for a brief hospital visit and then off to jail, where he spent weeks for a crime he didn’t commit, and years waiting for justice to finally be served. His physical scars mostly healed, but his emotional ones took more time.
Even the most broken heart can eventually heal. The wounded soul can find release. Those who have suffered greatly can turn around and release others suffering just as greatly. DJ and his husband struggle every day regaining their finances and physical health and dreams that were shattered to pieces that fateful night. But that doesn’t stop either of them from being kind people. David James Bell-Fair is the warmest person I know. He sings for No More Homeless Pets. He touches lives every day with his ability to spread jokes and smiles to everyone he meets. And while he and his husband relive the worst night of their adult lives every day, they do not succumb to hatred, bitterness or a desire for vengeance.
And this is the attitude we have as adults if we want to end the cycle of bullying and violence. In every classroom there is at least one bully. But in every classroom there are also future heroes, whether they were bullies or bullied themselves or just silently watched, who will overcome the scars they caused and scars they received and use what they have learned to better help others.
Special thanks to David James Bell-Fair and Dan Fair.