Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.
-- Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC

On any given day, children in schools and throughout neighborhoods are bullied. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that 1 out of every 4 children is bullied and that such bullying is mental, verbal, and physical. Our natural inclination is to either jack the bullies up by their collars or support the victims by infusing them with skills and strategies that will keep them from getting bullied. However, research indicates that a multidimensional approach is better, one that includes constructively activating and engaging all the bystanders silently and unresponsively watching the violence. Teaching bystanders – other kids, teachers, and parents – intervention skills is critical to maintaining learning and living environments that are safe, caring, and optimal places for our children to grow into conscientious citizens. Bystanders are key to creating these environments by acting in ways that will alleviate pressure and violence.

Likewise, each of us experience incidents of bullying in our adult worlds, and like our children, most of us don’t have the skills of intervention to make the bullying stop. In many cases the bullying, or discrimination and harassment, we experience is monstrous and just punishing the bullies or using our coping skills to protect ourselves from the bullies is ineffective. We still run or hide when the bullies come looking for us. As with our kids, the oppressive incidents we need to fight require each and every one of us who stand by be galvanized, organized, and in motion to defeat the bullies we face.

Never in more that 40 years have the tyrants we face today been more bold in repudiating justice. Never have they been more indifferent to our call for fairness and decency. Our bullies are overt and in our faces as they place our children in jail on vindictive charges, disregard blatant acts of hate, disparage working single mothers, and feel free to bombard us with self-serving, paternalistic, fundamentalist beliefs and babble. And while many of the incidents are not directly inflicted upon us, if it happens to one of us, it can happen to each of us. Thus, it is imperative that we not just watch it happen. We who are watching from the sidelines must do something.

But what do we do and how can we do it?

So glad you asked. First, we’ve got to join arms. We have to know the fights were up against require more than one, two, or a few people carrying the signs, making the speeches, and marching down the street. The fights we’re fighting require numbers, large numbers. And even if we don’t agree on every point, we’ve still got to stand united; there’ll be time enough for whittling down the fine points. There is strength in numbers; they can make a difference and positively impact the outcome of an issue.

Next, we must tell the bully to stop. Firmly and clearly we must tell our oppressors that what they are doing is unacceptable and they must discontinue the crap they’re doing at once. Bring out the facts, quote them correct and impassive theory and law.

Then, we do what we’ve done – support, encourage, and comfort the victim. We’ve been to Jena, we’ve been to DC, and now we’re going to the Louisiana state capital to appeal to the Governor on behalf of our children. We act as “villages” to all the children in the community, and we counter the erroneous beliefs and babble about our lives with our truth in song and spoken word. We’ve done a great job at supporting those who are hurting.

Lastly, we need to make sure we tell on the bully. Tell a person of authority. Because the D.A. and judge in Jena wouldn’t stop, would not listen, would not be reasonable, we told Congress and Congress ate some assets out and called for an investigation of federal and state judicial system practices.

None of these steps is easy and so many of us will choose, have chosen, to stay on the sidelines out of complacency and fear of retaliation. After all, who among us wants a noose on our doorknob?

However, in order for our children to be more than victims and bystanders, in order for them to experience and enjoy the fullness of life, we must be examples of conquerors. Each of us must take positive action to end the injustices perpetrated upon us by standing up to the brutes that try to intimidate and disenfranchise us. We owe it to our children to make the bullying stop.

We owe it to our children.

Get equipped. Act now.

Sadiqqa © 2007