by Marie Borrazzo

Created on: April 24, 2009   Last Updated: May 08, 2009

Bullying is Socially Rooted as we Teach and Train Bullies: What will it take for us to stop?

A social epidemic and in a sense a spiritual cancer seems epistemic throughout the root of our social fabric. The essence of this epidemic is the persistence of bullying rooted in the demonization of others based on differentiating characteristics, namely sexual orientation.

For the sake of presenting this article in an abbreviated form, I am going to merely speak of bullying in terms of children and schools. Readers do not assume bullying only occurs in schools or that it only impacts children. For the sake of providing clarification I am providing an expansive definition to include all aspects of bullying. Our society at large is not only responsible but we are also victims of bullying whether by direct or indirect consequences.

Bullying is defined as persistent unwelcome behavior that is unwarranted or invalid criticism, nit-picking, fault-finding, exclusion, isolation, being singled out, being treated differently, being shouted at, humiliated, excessive monitoring written or imposed. Workplace bullying shares overlapping characteristics with respect to schools including cyber-bullying such as documenting or berating employees via e-mail or other online communication modality. In schools the most persistent type of bullying is name-calling, teasing, exclusion, violent physical contact, threats, and cyber-bullying.

I was recently e-mailed yet another article which you can read at http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/23/bullyingsuicide/ind ex.html regarding the story of Jaheem Herrera an eleven year old child that hung himself in response to being excessively bullied. He was taunted and called gay' and virgin'. The latter taunt a result of him being from the Virgin Islands. The name-calling rooted in mere taunting with no formative reason. There are many more stories similar to this one, many more that we remain uninformed of, and this is what is disturbing.

Regardless, the argument I wish to make or shall I say my plea, is that we stop promoting or supporting institutions that allow and perpetuate violence against individuals or children because of differentiating characteristics, namely those rooted in sexual orientation given that the attention has turned from racial bullying since that is no longer acceptable or permissible. In addition, that we provide protection for schools and their leadership to promote and instill additional interventions to eliminate bullying

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