Deal with bullies before ...

By Robert Lalah

We've seen it on the news too many times over the years. An unassuming teenager who 'never really fit in' shows up at school in some obscure town in the United States, with a gun, and opens fire. Later, it's revealed that the shooter had been bullied by other students, perhaps mercilessly and without reprimand, and that the violent attack was some misguided attempt at revenge.

So far, we in Jamaica have been able to look on from a comfortable distance whenever this happens. We empathise with the family members of those killed, of course, but take some comfort in the belief that 'this sort of thing doesn't happen in Jamaica'.

An important question we need to ask ourselves, though, is how long will it be before this morbid recurring drama unfolds right here, and 'their problem' becomes ours?

It makes sense, if you think about it. They say if the US sneezes, we catch a cold. Well, the US has been sneezing uncontrollably for a while now and we remain woefully ill prepared to handle the consequences. It's a gruesome thought, but our state of unreadiness suggests that if a school shooting were to happen here, it would be especially bloody and devastating. I shudder to think of it.

Not all school shootings that happen overseas are done by bullied students, but many of the most recent ones were. These are students who were picked on by their classmates for being different in some way. They were beaten up, called mean names, ridiculed and humiliated to the point where they decided there was no better alternative than to kill their tormentors.

We know for a fact that countless children right here at home are being beaten up, humiliated and ridiculed for being different, every day as well. Are we doing everything we can to ensure that these bullied students don't follow the same violent path? Are we giving them alternatives?

I hope that my gut feeling is correct and that in schools across the island, teachers and administrators are starting to recognise the severity of the situation and are keeping a close watch for signs of bullying, then doing whatever they can to intervene and provide proper counseling to those involved.

Outdated views

I worry, however, that there are some parents and teachers who still hold on to the same outdated view of bullying as many did decades ago. Some just accept that overweight children are to be jeered for being fat. So names like 'Fatty' and 'Bigga' are nothing more than playful nicknames. Children of Asian descent, or who have speech defects, have their own names they have to put up with, and the bespectacled are, of course, to be made fun of for having 'four eyes'.

These things have traditionally been accepted by us as a society. They're no big deal, just typical juvenile hijinx. It's the same sort of attitude that gives a name like 'battery' to what really is gang rape, and 'teasing' to what can at times be vicious tormenting.

Our society tends to glorify the loudest voices, no matter what they're saying. So we'll all laugh along with bullies and think that because we're not the ones doing the taunting, we're not really guilty of any misdeed.

But what would happen if these children who are being bullied decided to seek revenge? We already know that many students take knives and machetes to school. Plus, guns are, in some cases, more accessible than textbooks. The ingredients are all there for a catastrophic event to take place. It's a veritable ticking time bomb.

We can minimise the chances of it happening, by first accepting that this is an issue in need of urgent attention. We simply cannot, on this matter, do what we have done in far too many other situations - wait till something bad happens before we act. In this case, our children's lives are on the line, and how we respond will show what kind of nation we really are.

Robert Lalah is features editor and author of the popular 'Roving with Lalah' every Tuesday. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and robert.lalah@gleanerjm.com.