For, Not Against

I think anti-bullying campaigns are a bad idea.  Not neutral: harmful.

Like drug awareness drives, an anti-bullying campaign defines people and problems in ways that actually increase the likelihood and incidence of the problems it promises to fix, perpetuating a cycle of the program being funded and expanded -- and thereby continuing expansion of the violence problem.

Are drugs and violence problematic?  Of course.  But what would happen if we instead worked to resolve them in terms of what good we are trying to accomplish?  How are our efforts -- and our results -- different when we focus on what we are for, instead of what we are against?

This topic was inspired, actually, by advertisements for an upcoming "Anti-bully, anti-depression, anti-school violence" high school play and a club in our local schools.  Ostensibly formed to fight against depression and suicide, this club alienates people and implicitly suggests suicide as a possible option for discouraged kids.  Members join by invitation only and "support" comes in the form of impersonal handwritten notes, passed out to everyone in the school -- and posters and assemblies that highlight suicide as a looming teen problem.  How would the club function differently if it combated the problem by minimizing kids' focus on depression and suicide, taught healthy coping and interpersonal skills, and sponsored wholesome, interactive events that appropriately taught kids to include classmates from all demographics?

Anti-bullying campaigns similarly define people in terms of victimization.  The tendency some people have to exploit the vulnerabilities of others is not a new problem, but handling it with "Bully Not" is predictably new -- and demonstrably ineffective.  From Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear to Israel and Syria, who is going to impotently demand that bullies "be nice and shake hands" -- and doesn't that make them bullies, for being bigger and more demanding in their interference?

No, the answer is deeper -- and it is something we have to be commitedly for: the solution to the bullying problem is compassion and unflinching love.  This is soft love, the kind that bears with and suffers with people; it is also tough love, the kind that allows people to take responsibility for the part of the problem that is truly theirs and that is big enough to forgive and to teach to forgive the parts that extend beyond the individual.  It is a love that can show compassion for members of the school's anti-suicide club, who personally ostracize and mock younger girls whose circumstances and lack of social graces make them odious -- and can patiently teach them a better way.

As a mother, I cannot afford just to be against: I am for true Christian love. This takes proactive strategies, deliberately taught and modeled every day.

Photos from sxc.hu, used courtesy of Anja Ranneberg, Chris Cummings,  Rick Lesser, and Jimmy Rives.