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Bullying Is No Longer A Right Of Passage

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By DANIEL HILL

Special to the Tribune

Published: June 15, 2008

What do you want to be when you grow up? A school shooter.

Not the answer you would want from a kindergartner, or anyone for that matter. However, some of our youths are growing up to be exactly that, and a report released by the U.S. Secret Service in 2002 concluded that bullying played a significant role in many school shootings.

Most students will tell you they want to be a teacher, doctor, lawyer, nurse, firefighter or, my personal favorite, a police officer. Most of our kids will grow up to fulfill their dreams or some variation of them, but a few go the other way and end up in jail or prison.

For some, it's a personal choice they will make or a lifestyle they will choose. But for others, dreams are denied, and they have no choice. They go through childhood being teased and ridiculed.

Some are beaten, while others endure years of emotional terrorism - or both. They no longer have a choice as to what they want to do with their life. Society has chosen their destiny for them - humiliation and ridicule. They are now labeled as a freak or misfit, and that label will most likely stay with them throughout their school days.

Most of us have fond memories of middle school dances, proms and teammates. But some students will never go to a school dance or take a date to prom.

Many will never play sports or know the sense of pride derived from being part of a team. Many will drop out of school and not get the education they desperately need to compete in today's work force.

Who can blame them for wanting to drop out of school? How many of us would go to work every day expecting to be assaulted and battered or humiliated in some way? No one would put up with that, and neither should our kids.

The eerie picture painted above is a reality for far too many of our children. However, there is a solution. Bullying has been around for as long as there have been kids and school. And the dominant paradigm that bullying is a right of passage or simply part of growing up is foul.

It is time that we, as a society, put a stop to bullying.

The first step is to take a stand against bullying. Change has to start somewhere. All Americans should stand up for what is right.

Although he was referring to racism, another social disease, this quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks directly to one of the root problems of bullying: "We will have to repent in this generation, not only for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."

Sometimes by saying nothing we speak volumes. It is time to speak up; no more standing in silence while these heinous acts are perpetrated every day on our nieces, nephews, friends and families. We, first as a family, then as a community and finally as a society, must stand up for ourselves and stop bullying now.

This is where you come in. It takes everyone doing their part for the paradigmatic shift we need to end this social disease. It can be done.

Remember years back when you went to eat at a restaurant and there was an imaginary line that separated smoking from non-smoking? Fast-forward to today, and I can't imagine trying to eat a meal with someone smoking next to me. All it took was the will of the people and the passing of legislation.

Well, our Florida politicians are leading the charge, adopting anti-bullying legislation this past session. Now it is our turn.

Many community leaders and I will be speaking at the Center for the Arts at Wesley Chapel High School on Wednesday during The American Dream Congress. The program this year is entitled "Bullying: Beyond the Schoolyard." Registration starts at 8 a.m., and it is free to all.

I hope to see you there.

The writer is a Zephyrhills police officer and school resource officer.

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