The bully in the hallway

Indulge me for a minute. I want to relate an incident that happened to me when I was 14 years old. It was at a school dance. I went alone—I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time—so when one of my classmates asked me to dance, I was surprised and delighted. I soon found out that she was trying to avoid a guy who was pursuing her—I was to be her rescuer. I saw him from the corner of my eye and knew he was trouble. The next day at school, as I was about to open the door to my art class, this same guy was waiting for me in the hallway. When he saw me, he came down the hallway with a threatening posture and held and blocked the door so I couldn’t go in. He was bigger and taller than me. I was scared that he was going to hurt me. So, I quickly went under his arm and into the room. He followed me in. The class had already started. I was so angry that someone would threaten me with violence. I told him in an angry and loud voice, so everyone could hear, “You should be ashamed of yourself wanting to hurt someone smaller than you.” That was all I had to say. Since he was also in the class, he quietly sat down. In the next art class, he came up to me and asked if he could help pass out the art supplies—I was the teacher’s assistant. So much for bullies.

Bullies are damaged and dangerous people. They were brought up by damaged parents who used fear to control their children.Their pain is so great, that the only way to expel it and the only way they know to survive is to lay waste and punish those around them. We can’t allow ourselves to succumb to bullying. If we don’t stop it, the bullies will continue to project their internal fury on us all. We don’t deserve this and we must resist. We can’t just ignore what is happening and hope it will all work out. How long will we let simple-minded people run amok?