Public Criticism Of Bullying: Why Now?
I’ll be honest. I think I now know somewhat what it must have felt like to be one of the victims of Catholic clergy abuse. Many of the victims of those scandals kept quiet, thinking that what happened was either their fault, blocking it out or believing that the world was in agreement with it. The rising presence of writing and research on bullying, from articles and research to comments like this one, are really surprising me:
“Principal bullying is a growing problem and most victims are too ashamed or terrified to ask for help. Some of the warning signs to look for: Constant nervous reminders to students that the last three letters of principal are “pal.” Cancels fire drills muttering “just let it burn.” Stops calling everything the 10th graders do “sophomoric”, Stops aggressively correcting students who confuse “principal ” and “principle .” Starts having big brother drive him to and from school.”
While I was at Hamilton Middle School in Seattle, Washington, a teacher constantly did exactly what this principal did. I acted out, in retrospect, because I never thought anyone would listen. I would ask her questions and she would bark back. At one point, I said “Oh man” about something or other and she howled, “Excuse me. Don’t address me like that. I am not a man.” That’s, of course, a small puddle of the river of bullying that including at points being hit with projectile barbells and backpacks but it illustrates generally what school officials regularly put kids through.
For years, the only people in the public sphere who criticized at all what goes on in public schools and demanded any sort of showing for conduct were libertarian and conservative opponents of teacher’s unions. Progressives constantly (and still do) met every issue of oversight with rhetoric about how teachers “are people too” and attempts to curb unions as some sort of nefarious corporate strategy. This, at least, on an unconscious level, made me think that progressives were in on the condition of public schools and okay with it.
It’s still rather puzzling that bullying has become an issue now. There have been people talking about it for years. Is it the public nature of cyberbullying that is suddenly making this an issue? Articles like this one were written a decade ago and bullying still didn’t get the sort of coverage it now is:
He lived up to his reputation. On 26 July, 28-year-old white US gangsta rapper Eminem played at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena and backed up the next night at Sydney’s Australia Dome. The hour-and-a-half concerts cost the fans that paid $100 for tickets slightly more than a dollar per minute. Eminem performed with his trademark chainsaw (without teeth due to Australian workplace health and safety laws), dressed as a B-grade horror film serial killer. He swallowed a fake ecstasy tablet, sat in an electric chair and called his estranged wife Kim “a f****** bitch” while pro-drug messages flashed on TV screens around him.
And he told the crowd he’d brought a gun into the country.
Prime Minister John Howard called his music “sickening.”
In the process, Eminem became Australia’s moral panic du jour. In an era where Baby Boomers maintain a stultifying stranglehold on youth culture, it’s little surprise that one of the biggest moral battlegrounds of the nineties and the new millennium has involved rap and hip-hop, a music and culture that perhaps demonstrate the new generation gap more clearly than any other form of youth expression.
Eminem, a Grammy winner and four-time nominee, is a pop culture icon. The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem’s follow-up to his triple-platinum debut, The Slim Shady LP, sold 1.76 million copies in its first week, the second-highest opening-week album sales figures in history. As of the week beginning 6 August, Emimen’s Marshall Mathers was at number 18 on the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) charts and Devil’s Night by D12, featuring Eminem was at number six. According to those who testify from the moral barricades at these times, Eminem’s popularity makes vast numbers of the population very sick individuals.
The man himself begs to differ. “A lot of my rhymes are just to get chuckles out of people,” Eminem says. “Anybody with half a brain is going to be able to tell when I’m joking and when I’m serious”. Eminem understands his appeal. Lots of people – most of them young – relate to his music. “I believe that a lot of people can relate to my shit,” he says. “Everybody has been through some shit, whether it’s drastic or not so drastic. Everybody gets to the point of ‘I don’t give a f***’.”
Born Marshall Bruce Mathers III on October 17 1972, Eminem had a self-described “real, stereotypical, trailer park, white trash” upbringing, constantly shuffling between homes and never knowing his father. Finding it difficult to make friends, he retreated into pop culture’s comforting buzz of white noise. However, at age 12, after settling with his mother in Detroit, Marshall began hanging with friends and discovered rappers such as LL Cool J and 2 Live Crew. Developing a reputation as a nimble rhymer, he dropped out of school after failing grade nine and in 1996, released his debut album Infinite.
In 1998 he released The Slim Shady EP, which made its way into the hands of rap legend Dr Dre, who became Eminem’s producer and mentor. Following his charismatic video in early 1999 for “My Name Is …”, which parodied everyone from Marilyn Manson to Bill Clinton, Eminem’s popularity gained enough momentum to warrant a US tour months before his major-label debut was released. The Slim Shady LP entered the US Billboard charts at number 3 with its shocking depictions of rampant drug use, rape, sex and violence, at times directed at his mother, father, sister and Kim Mathers, his wife and mother of his child.
I’m not innocent in this. A friend of mine from childhood recently told me a story of how I was being bombarded with bullies on the playground and at school and decided to reciprocate by making a neighbor boy’s life hell until he couldn’t take it anymore. However, these things just seemed to happen.
There weren’t big campaigns about bullying but instead about diversity and sexual harassment (certainly issues but in the elementary and middle school world, one would think bullying would be made more prominent). More time and effort seemed to be made into diagnosing kids with this or that disorder than thinking about what was going on in their lives.