Embarrassed to death

Just watched the Ellen video (above) about those poor gay kids in the news recently who killed themselves after being bullied for being gay.

And as much as the story sickened me, as angry as it made me and as grateful as I am to Ellen’s YouTube clip for making the story go viral, I think she missed the point in her remarks.

The problem that can be addressed isn’t bullying. Kids will always bully, the same as adults will always make war. We, as a species, are hard-wired for that sort of ugly business. It can’t be changed. It would be like appointing someone Weather Czar, assigned with making sure it didn’t rain during the MLB play-offs.

Weather happens, just like shit and violence. If we waste time on trying to change behavior tied directly to our nature as human beings, we will fail. (See “Bristol Palin” and “Abstinence-only Education.”)

What we may be able to change, though, is what “offenses” kids are bullied for. History demonstrates clearly, over and over again, somebody is always going to be getting the short end of the stick, civil rights-wise. For some reason, human beings need someone to look down on and take advantage of to make themselves feel good. (It’s why I hope we never successfully make the leap into space—I think this planet should be quarantined.)

As Americans, our first socially-acceptable whipping-boys were, ironically, Native Americans. After we drove them to the brink of extinction, almost everybody else got a turn; in no particular order and frequently overlapping, every other race and/or group that emigrated to our shores in large enough numbers came in for some casual, organized, often institutionalized mistreatment. And let’s not even talk about what we did to African-Americans for 500 years. Somebody’s always at the bottom of the totem pole, being spat and shat upon by those at the top.

The whole of human history suggests strongly that we can’t do anything to make bullies and bullying go away. As long as people have been people, there have been and will be bullies among us. Welcome to the species, we hope you enjoy your time with us.

What we can mount an effective campaign to eliminate, however, is the stigma attached to being gay. When we do that (I speculate within a couple generations), we will decrease the bullying on two fronts. One, the thug-types will be forced to move on to a more socially disenfranchised group to terrorize (I’m guessing these days that would be Muslim and special-needs kids?); and two, how many of those bullies beating up their peers suspected of being gay are self-loathing gays themselves?

Think about it. All these on-the-DL GOP politicos who grew up to pass anti-gay legislation (before being publicly outed) probably didn’t start lashing out at their fellow gays only after reaching the Senate; I’d wager a fair number of them were among the bully clique in middle school, taking special delight in targeting their queer peers.

So let’s, to quote Sinead O’Connor, “fight the real enemy.” And the real enemy—the one we actually stand a chance against—is intolerance, not bullying.

Those of us who are parents have an added responsibility. The only thing we should be teaching our kids to be intolerant of is intolerance, whatever form it takes. I’m going one step further and letting my son take karate lessons; hoping that by the time he matriculates to Big Boy School next year, he will be inclined—and prepared—to be intolerant of bullies as well as of intolerance.

It’s time somebody else had their turn at the bottom of the shitpile; I nominate The Bullies.