We have all seen bullying or had it happen to us, everyone. Often it is so hidden and enabled that we don't notice it, or turn a blind eye to it. The things that are allowed to happen in society often shocks me to my core but doesn't surprise me.
So today I saw a tweet go viral. Someone well known in American politics. For halloween they put their cute little baby in a metal cooking pot and dressed them up in spaghetti and meatballs and walked round with the baby in the pot. Thousands of people said how cute. It's true, a beautiful baby, cute as pie. Everyone thought it was amazing. But I didn't.
No doubt that would make me a misery, not joining in to the joke but I see nothing funny in it at all. All I see is a baby who does not have any idea what is going on and who is smiling for their mother, that's what babies do. The baby has no choice but to smile, the butt of a joke. I don't find it funny because that is what happens in bullying. It is covert, people don't even know they are doing it so woven in with society is it. Dressing up dogs and kids is another one. Practical jokes.
So these things are done in public and everyone agrees, it's cute. If you say it isn't cute you will be the odd one out. Why should we bother, after all no one was harmed. The baby is still breathing.
It is the covert small things that allow bullying to continue. When the baby is an adult will it still be the victim of practical joking and set up to be photographed. Because that is what happens. It starts in small ways and then everyone copies it until it is normalised. It continues in schools and workplaces and then within the home.
You might ask oh isn't it harmless what about the real bullies? Well they start somewhere they didn't just turn into bullying adults overnight. People who are bullied will tell you that they often ignored or laughed at their own bullying. Some fight back but often they don't. Many take their own lives.
I take bullying very seriously so when I see it even in minute details, covert ways, I call it out. It's doesn't make you popular, not like the bullies who are. I find bullies weak, that they have to pick on someone unable to stand up for themselves tells me all I know about them. But the small bullying may go totally unnnoticed and even the person doing it may be unaware of what they are doing.
Bullying is not funny.
Where there are bullies, there are victims and bystanders. Call it out. When you see it say it.
Comments
Post a Comment