Bully Idea

Well, it finally happened, somebody actually made a documentary of how bad bullying has become in our schools. I'm not talking about name calling or teasing, I'm talking about outright abuse. I have a unique outlook on the subject as I was a victim of bullying as a child. One thing is for sure, I have neither remorse nor pity for the retribution I enacted upon the perpetrators of these assaults. I can recall one incident whereas a classmate held me down while two more threw snowballs at my face while standing over me, I was able to kick one of them in the face and I knocked a tooth out of his smug smile. Just to prove how out of balance our school system can be, I was suspended for 3 days and the boy with the missing tooth (the principal's son) was touted as the victim. I realize that I sound hateful and bitter, but keep in mind this was not the first time, nor was it the last by any means. After several years of dealing with this problem and even changing schools due to a transfer with my father's job, I seemed to be a marked target. Constant bombardment of bullying seemed to be like a fawn being continuously harassed by a wolf sensing fear and weakness. One day I had enough and during a school assembly I was sitting, listening to the guest speaker and I felt a sharp pain in my neck. I spun around to discover a classmate holding a pencil with a newly broken lead. I put my hand on my neck to feel for the broken piece and found it was stuck in my skin too far to pull out. To say I raged would be an understatement. I grabbed him, threw him to the bleachers and proceeded to beat him in the neck screaming "NOW YOU KNOW HOW IT FEELS". I'm not condoning my actions but I can tell you that it put an immediate stop to the barrage. This last encounter sounds as if it occurred in junior high, right? No, I was a Junior in high school, and a member of the football team. I was never punished for my reaction but it would not have surprised me if I was.
I do not tell you these stories to invoke sympathy, I tell them to convey the severity of the problem. As many victims of bullying have had, I had a "Kill" list. This list contained the names of the people I wanted retribution against and even had a corresponding list of the method for which I wanted to enact it. Of course, I never acted on this list but the day I heard about the Columbine incident, I actually understood what would drive a person to that level of vengeance. I was very fortunate that I had a very supportive mother and father and they taught me to not care what other people think of me. I feel their support was the only thing that kept me from hurling into the chasm that was my anger and hatred. I could have easily acted on my impulses and caused serious injury or death to one of these individuals but my Christian upbringing and moral senses kept me from committing the unthinkable.
Later in life I became good friends with one of my former enemies and I once asked him why he harassed me so incessantly. His answer astonished me. He said "because everyone else was doing it". Really? Is that what caused my pain? I would hazard a guess that not one person even knows why they did this other than that someone initiated it and they just did what everyone else did.
When did individual thought become discouraged? When did we decide that rocking the proverbial boat is an unforgivable offense? We tell our children to be accepting to diversity, but when we see someone that looks or acts just out of our cookie cutter normal pattern, we, even as adults, reject them and persecute them. I often find myself doing the same thing, judging without knowing anything them.
I find myself often making fun of myself just to disarm a would-be teaser. I'm old enough now to not take offense when I hear an off color comment, however when I'm walking away from a situation to prevent a confrontation and I'm insulted to my back, you can bet I will pull an about face and there will be an opportunity for that person to recant their statement.