BULLIES MOVE FROM THE PLAYGROUND TO CYBERSPACE

in Long Island Weekly, April 17, 2015

Andrew Malekoff

Members of a Wisconsin middle school basketball team are being lauded as heroes and rightfully so. When the boys noticed some bullies making fun of one of their cheerleaders—a 14-year-old girl named Desiree who has Down Syndrome—they took action, walking over to the bullies and telling the offenders to cut it out.

As one of the boys told reporters, “They were pointing and laughing at her from the stands. It’s not funny to make fun of somebody by the way they look or act.” Another said, “This is not a one-time thing. You always have to stick up for kids that are bullied. It’s the right thing to do.”

Another group in New York City, Teen Pact, has taken steps to combat cyberbullying by producing public service announcements that are being used nationwide. One PSA depicts a boy texting an affectionate message about a classmate. His friends then pass it on and when it goes viral he becomes the target of unrelenting teasing and taunting. The PSA message is: “It’s not funny anymore, don’t be an accidental bully.”

Just how many kids are being tormented, either online, in school or both? Recent studies report some startling statistics:

• 83 percent of girls and 79 percent of boys report being bullied either in school or online.
• 75 percent of school shootings have been linked to harassment and bullying against the shooter.
• About 160,000 teens skip school every day because they are bullied, and 1 in 10 teens drops out of school due to repeated bullying.
• Kids who are bullies as young adults continue the trend of abuse and violence into adulthood. By the age of 30, about 40 percent of boys identified as bullies in middle and high school had been arrested three or more times.

The most frequent targets are kids seen as “different”—gay or transgender youth, those with special needs or who are overweight—but no kid is immune from being a victim.
While bullying isn’t a new phenomenon, cyberspace obliterates any sense of sanctuary that children once found when they were away from school and in their own homes.
 
Yik Yak is a recent app that’s become a facet of cyberbullying thanks to the anonymity it lends to users
One social media app that’s particularly alarming is Yik Yak, which allows users to send out posts—known as “yaks”—that can be seen by anyone within a 1.5-mile radius. What makes it worse than most other social media forums kids are using is the fact that the posters are anonymous. A user can “yak” out anything they want without fear of being identified. Perfectly acceptable posts: “Jane is an ugly cow,” “John is a fag,” and much more that would be unprintable in this newspaper. It’s devastating to imagine the damage this type of abuse can have on a child or teen.

Laws such as the Dignity for All Students Act , which took effect in July 2012, seeks to provide students with a safe and supportive environment free from discrimination, intimidation, taunting, harassment and bullying on school property, buses or at a school function.

The passage of the Dignity Act provides an opportunity for parents to talk to their children about how to protect themselves from bullying and offers them a context to discuss how to be sensitive to others who are different. This is, of course, providing that parents are able to engage their children in an accepting and nonjudgmental manner that opens communication.

But laws like the Dignity Act aren’t enough to tackle what is a social problem. No amount of legislation and no penalties for intimidating schoolyard behavior can guarantee that children will be safe at all times whether inside or outside of school.

These laws must be complemented by support at home, pro-social bonds among neighbors and consistent community standards against bullying, bias and harassment, including in cyberspace.

Otherwise, the legislation will be little more than a paper tiger, another layer of bureaucracy with limited influence in the real world.

Andrew Malekoff is the executive director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through 24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org.

THEY LOBBY FROM THEIR GRAVES

THEY LOBBY FROM THEIR GRAVES

by Andrew Malekoff © 2013

It was not necessary for the slaughter of innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School to validate what we are reminded of daily - that there is evil in the world. But what it did do is to affirm that if the massacre of six- and seven-year-old children is not off limits, then nothing is.

Immediately after the murderous rampage in Newtown, CT, mental health experts offered tips to speechless parents about how to soothe their children. The advice sounded like this: Be available emotionally, be compassionate, limit media exposure, reassure safety, offer distractions to prevent obsessive worry, monitor for angry outbursts and depression and, if symptoms persist, seek professional help.

Can you imagine how the advice might have sounded if parents spoke from their guts instead of their heads and hearts? The advice might have sounded like this: It’s a cruel world, evil is everywhere, toughen up, watch your back, be vigilant, don’t trust anyone and (for older children) just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get you.

In the last 30 years, America has mourned at least 61 mass murders. After some time passes, the latest homegrown massacre will become another tombstone in our collective psyche, alongside Columbine, the World Trade Center, the Long Island Railroad, Virginia Tech, Oak Creek, Aurora and more.

We seem always to move forward believing that we have seen the last and worst of it; until the next time. Denial is a healthy defense when the alternative is all-consuming, paralyzing and debilitating fear. We do all we can to protect our children emotionally, as well as physically. And, so we support their denial, using psychological bromides to seal their emotional scars.

The two major talking points since Newtown are preventing gun violence and promoting mental health. On the issue of gun violence, I wholeheartedly support the right to bear arms and taking steps to get certain guns out of uncertain hands. On the issue of mental health care, the chronic under-funding of children's outpatient community-based mental health services in Nassau County and New York State, is a disgrace.

New York State has ensured easy access to community-based mental health care for Medicaid recipients and neglected the needs of underinsured middle class and working poor families. Their answer is always that the marketplace will take care of it. It won’t. They know full well that private practitioners often do not accept private insurance and will not provide the labor-intensive services that licensed community-based mental health agencies do.

The gun lobby is formidable and well-heeled. Children, on the other hand, don’t have a voice until they are in the ground. Children are killed, grieving parents become tireless advocates and laws are passed. Timothy’s Law (mental health parity), Megan’s Law (making information available to the public regarding registered sex offenders) and Katie’s Law (making aggravated vehicular homicide a crime) come to mind.

Think about it. After the Newtown shootings there was not one parent in the United States who was able to escape the tyranny of imagining their child being murdered in their neighborhood school. How many more children will be taken from us before lawmakers devote the same energy and resources it takes to launch their re-election campaigns, to safeguarding our children?

Wake up lawmakers, elected and appointed officials, and government bureaucrats. Our children are suffering and dying, families are struggling and desperate. Support the constitutional right to bear arms, take steps to prevent gun violence and provide adequate funding for community-based mental health centers to support the emotional well-being of all of our children.

STANDING BY OR STANDING UP TO BULLIES

Standing By or Standing Up to Bullies

By Andrew Malekoff ©

My friend, Ralph Kolodny, professor emeritus at Boston University School of Social Work, commented on the brutality of the schoolyard in children’s lives. He said, “we tend to forget the pain that normally characterizes interaction among children. Oddly enough,” he added, “the work of the imaginative journalist or novelist often provides a more accurate picture.”

For example, in Ray Bradbury's short story "The Playground," Charles Underhill, a widower, tried to protect his son from the terror of the schoolyard. Underhill wondered how childhood could be considered the best time of life, when it was the “most terrible, most merciless era, the barbaric time when there were no police to protect you, only parents preoccupied with themselves and their taller world."

Closer to home, four Long Island students - Gavin, Maria, Jake and Sam – had the guts to stand up by giving voice to their pain in a recent Newsday exposé entitled, "In their own words: Battling the bullies" (November 14, 2010). Jake, a freshman, said, “Kids would [harass me] and get detention. Then their friends would do what the other did. It was almost like a virus getting passed from one friend to the next…school was just hell.” According to his mom, Jake recently developed stress-related cardiac issues.

I wonder what the consequences will be for these four young people for publicly revealing their suffering and the powerlessness of adults to protect them.

We all know that the boundaries of Bradbury’s fantasy schoolyard now extend into peoples’ homes through cyberspace, virtually obliterating any sense of sanctuary that children once found in the evenings, on weekends and during the summer.

Attempts by adults to rescue children who are bullied by exposing, reprimanding, lecturing or squashing the attackers typically leads to an escalation of the very behavior they to eliminate, further entrenching everyone involved in the process.

Bullying is not about a fair fight, it is about the abuse of social or physical power. Bullies love an audience and, therefore, depend on bystanders. According to the journalist Marian Wilde, “Bystanders are important because bullying most often takes place in front of peers and it almost never happens when adults are watching.”

According to Wilde, “If the audience shows disapproval, bullies are discouraged from continuing. However, bystanders, especially children, need to be empowered to act. The majority of children won't act for a variety of reasons, perhaps because they are afraid, confused or unsure of what to do.”

Bullying is intensified today by a broad decline in civility. We live in a world of grown-ups who do not think twice about overstepping personal boundaries through rude, intimidating and obnoxious behavior.

If we cannot turn back the hands of time, we can at least slow down and teach our children, after we remind ourselves, the importance of putting a reflective pause between impulse and action. Sometimes this involves making the decision to act and to move from standing by to standing up.

Gavin, Maria, Jake and Sam showed great courage in standing up for themselves and thousands of other victims of bullies. They stood up publicly, even permitting their photographs to accompany their powerful words. We owe it to them to stand by their sides by joining with our children to stand up for those who suffer in silence at the hands of bullies.

Published in the Anton chain of newspapers in Long Island, New York, December 2010

WHAT'S A SCHOOL TO DO ABOUT HATE, a dialogue

newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opfocus5938830nov23,0,6928477.story
Newsday.com

WHAT'S A SCHOOL TO DO ABOUT HATE?, a dialogue

As the shadow of a slain Ecuadorean looms over a high school, a conversation about tattoos, critical thinking and culture

November 23, 2008, pages A52-A53

All seven teenagers charged in the fatal attack of immigrant Marcelo Lucero are students at Patchogue-Medford High School, raising questions about what role schools should play in teaching about racism.

A panel of activists and experts on training and counseling about racism and bias crimes is discussing this issue, and other aspects of the story, at newsday.com/opinion. We've adapted part of the conversation here.

Andrew Malekoff, executive director and chief executive officer, North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center:

I am going to take this question and ask another series of questions related to the situation at hand. . . . Can we take a step beyond curriculum-driven bias education and violence-prevention training and the like, for just a moment, and just imagine how a situation should be handled in real time . . .

Let's say a high school knows that an individual had a tattoo of a swastika printed on his body. Let's say that it is a fact known by some adults and some students in the school. The tattoo is not displayed regularly, but it is exposed when the student changes his clothes to compete on a lacrosse team.

How should this be addressed? Or should it? And is the message that it sends important to the student body and . . . the school culture? Finally, how should a principal, a teacher, a coach, a team and/or a fellow student handle this situation, and what are the implications of each of these person's actions?

Omar Henriquez, community organizer:

Facilitate the process by which members of the black, Latino and immigrant community can fully participate on the school's programs and initiatives. Most of the school board members . . . are white. This has got to change. School boards must reflect the members of the community. Once people of color begin to participate, ideas on how to deal with this and other issues will begin to flow. PTAs must be inclusive. Minority staff should include not only the janitorial, but administration as well. In other words, curtail the discrimination and racism that already exist at that level. It would be a beginning.

Jeffrey L. Reynolds, chief operating officer, BiasHELP of Long Island:

I do think the schools should play a role, though parents, communities, houses of worship, etc., all play a central role as well. Exposure to others makes it somewhat harder to dehumanize and demonize others, so activities that encourage cross-cultural communication are important. And they shouldn't start in high school.

Schools at all grade levels can and should do a variety of things: 1) Ensure diversity among school board members, faculty and staff; 2) Require annual cultural competence trainings for board, faculty and staff; 3) Enact a detailed, written policy on bullying, harassment and violence; 4) Create and facilitate well-integrated (into all subjects) age-appropriate exercises and lessons - heck, encourage kids to help figure out what works and what doesn't; 5) Partner with community-based organizations and law enforcement to help deliver critical messages; 6) Release annual reports about violence, acts of bullying, harassment, etc.; 7) Create new ways for kids to report incidents or seek help in a confidential and maybe even anonymous way, and 8) Come up with a crisis-response game plan that can be put into play following a critical incident.

Some schools are doing some of these things really well. Others not so much. ... Here's the bottom line: Marcelo Lucero was allegedly killed by Jeffrey Conroy, but there's more than enough blame to go around. We need a fresh look at what passes for diversity education - it ain't a "multicultural day" - and we need to hold those educating our kids more accountable.

To address Andrew's tattoo query: I think a conversation should have happened between the student, his parents and school personnel to explore why he felt compelled to adorn his body with a hateful symbol. Beyond that, the student shouldn't be barred from sports but perhaps should have been barred from displaying the tattoo in the locker room or elsewhere.

Andrew Malekoff:

I like Jeffrey's approach to the parents, to explore this issue and to reinforce not baring the tattoo. In Jeffrey's recommendations, he says: "Create new ways for kids to report incidents or seek help in a confidential and maybe even anonymous way." So, someone reports the fact that this kid has a swastika tattoo and says he and others are very uncomfortable with this fact, and that there are adults in the building, who know that he has told, who just shrug. What next? This is now a part of the life of the building. It is not a dramatic, highly publicized news event that gets lots of attention and even a blog on Newsday. Rather, it is a simmering reality in the life of the school that is being ignored.

Yeah, the kid comes in with the parents, and it is addressed and the tattoo is concealed for the most part. But it is alive in the school that J.C. has a swastika on his leg, and it reflects a subculture in the school that is predisposed to such things as "beaner-jumping." This is spoken in whispers, but it is real. What next?

There is a well-known expression in the field of alcoholism that has been generalized beyond the field and that is known to much of the public. It goes like this, "There is an elephant in the room." It represents something that is known to all, that all have deep feelings about, and live with but refuse to confront in a forthright manner.

Not to beat a dead horse (as I ungracefully mix metaphors). But when there is something alive in the culture of an institution, and not in the abstract as in, "XYZ is a racist school or community," for example, but when there is something real in the everyday life of the school or institutional community, like a kid with a swastika, and that same kid with a following, how do schools keep this reality ... from being known but ignored, acknowledged yet accepted in silence?

The insidiousness of something like this either reinforces a sick culture, unsettles a benign culture, or challenges a healthy culture. I am interested in what suggestions there are for how schools (or other institutions) can confront something real like this, not something in the abstract and not something that has been exposed through the media. Because I believe that it is these seemingly minor everyday realities in the life of a school that shape the culture. Where is the counterforce, and what should it look like?

Jeffrey L. Reynolds:

If I ran the school, I'd make sure that the student with the tattoo and those around him got a series of really clear and vivid lessons about the Holocaust and the history behind the swastika. I think your best counterforce are this kid's peers, who should have reacted with horror when seeing the tattoo for the first time. Odds are that, instead, the other kids laughed or said nothing, yet probably had some reservations about it and him. If those kids fully understood the history, they might have been more likely to speak up.

Andrew Malekoff:

I think also that the swastika is a symbol that, in its current use, goes well beyond its origins in Nazi Germany and has morphed into a broader symbol of hate. A history lesson is a good start. And the wish that better educated and more sensitive peers will stand up is one that I share, although I think the standing up part is rare; rare among adults as well. This discussion must also address workplace issues; that is, what happens in the workplace for its employees when such behavior and symbols are forced underground by apathy or fear?

The school is a community made up of children, youth and adult employees who all must be included in the equation. Schools need the capacity for ... confrontation that addresses issues and problems in a direct, caring and forthright manner. When the school or workplace replicates the oppressive or prejudicial behavior of society, caring adults and peers must skillfully intervene to raise consciousness, stimulate interaction, foster understanding and motivate change.

Easier said than done, I know. A school can start with this as a value and goal and then be dedicated to figure out how to get there. No school should be pressed to transform its culture in a day. A gradual and earnest process is a good place to start; relying on one another as well as outside experts. The outsiders can help, but quite often it is in a hit-and-run sort of a way. If outsiders are going to be involved, choose a community-based agency with a track record, that you know is willing to stay for the long haul and not come and go. Choose a life partner for change, not a fling.

Michael O'Neill, Sag Harbor Anti-bias Task Force:

It will take the schools to bring home the experience of this trauma, which will help our young both try to understand and to deal with the inexplicability of the evil that haunts us. It is the young that are most amenable to change.

There are now widely used programs thatwere well developed and finely tuned over the decades for the schools to use that are quite familiar to them. They teach tolerance and fight hate. Programs from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Jewish Committee, among the many out there, help children recognize anger and triggers of hurt and conflict, meanness, name-calling and acquiring the sensitivity and respect needed to overcome learned bias. When these programs are instituted by school districts and are implemented in the curricula throughout the school year, they are effective.

Unfortunately, it often takes a trauma for school districts to recognize their need. It will take the wisdom accumulated through the mediation of all of the community's institutions to fashion year-round "teaching moments" that will move us forward in the progressive political sense of our shared fate, and the recognition of our interdependence that sustains our very life.

Jeffrey L. Reynolds:

Our educators conduct programs in schools across Nassau and Suffolk, and there's a notion that a 45-minute workshop once a year will fully address these issues. In most cases the schools want more but feel pressured by educational mandates - so much so that issues like violence prevention, HIV/AIDS education, pregnancy prevention, substance use prevention often take a backseat to the three "R's." Nobody wants to be the school at the bottom of a test score list in Newsday. Of course, now Patchogue-Medford's kids are on the cover for several days, so perhaps schools will finally take a second look and find innovative ways to better integrate violence prevention messages and lessons.

Michael Meyers, executive director, New York Civil Rights Coalition:

That schools have an educational role in extirpating base prejudices is certain. But it is not a proselytizing role. Encouraging critical thinking, students' examination of stereotypes, giving students accurate information, a deep understanding of history and current events, and the tools to debate, to see and refute misinformation - [these] are vital to the educational process. But one of the chief examples of wrong-way education is encouraging "tolerance." People who are of so-called "different" races or ethnicity or sexual orientation do not want to be "tolerated." They want their humanity respected and their rights protected.

Individuals are just that, not groups. All blacks do not look alike. Ditto for Hispanics.

Blacks and Hispanics and Asians do not belong to different races from whites. We all belong to the same race, scientists assure us; we are all members of the human race. Indeed, "race" as a social construct is just that. It is a social invention, and it surely does not help educate anyone when our schools and teachers perpetuate myths around "race" - myths such as "white culture" and "black culture." The textbooks our children are reading are profoundly errant.

In this vein, schools should stop paternalistically presenting lessons about "the Negro," or "the African-American" (especially during Black History Month). There is no such thing as "the Negro" or "the African- American." Just like there is no such thing as "the white American" or "the Jew" or "the homosexual." Or, for that matter, "the woman."

Andrew Malekoff, executive director and chief executive officer of the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center

Omar Henriquez, community organizer

Jeffrey L. Reynolds, chief operating officer of BiasHELP of Long Island

Michael O'Neill, Sag Harbor Anti-bias Task Force

Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition

Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.

WHAT TEENS NEED

WHAT TEENS NEED

By Andrew Malekoff©

Cries of “hate” ring out in the slaying of Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero, allegedly by a group of seven Patchogue-Medford High School students. The victim seems to have been targeted for his ethnicity, and the crime is horrific. But our community will benefit more over the long run by recognizing that while it is not normal to be involved in a murder such as this, it is normal for every adolescent to face the issue of diversity.

Those of us who work with youth in schools, community centers and counseling practices face the challenge of helping teenagers to address the question openly and honestly. We need to encourage discussions about ethnic identity, prejudice, and inter-group relations not as taboo, but as a normal part of growing up.

We can help young people to tune in to ethnically and racially charged local, national and international events impacting on them. When stories like the killing of Marcelo Lucero dominate the media, young people’s stereotyping and polarization are too often reinforced.

A meeting I had with a group of teenagers on Long Island in the immediate aftermath of the Columbine High School shootings comes to mind. The teenagers talked about their feelings regarding profiling and stepped up security in schools and in the community.

One member, Carlos, recalled being stopped by a police officer who asked to check his arms. “He was looking for gang tattoos. He thought I was MS 13,” Carlos explained as he slowly pulled his shirt sleeve back across his forearm as if back in the moment. “I told the cop, ‘First, of all I’m Salvadorian and proud of it. Second, I’m not a gang banger.’ ”

“A week later,” Carlos continued, “I saw the same cop at my restaurant job. It was the same cop! Well, I work as a maitre de and I was wearing my tuxedo. He looked me over and seemed really confused, puzzled. I smiled and said to him ‘See I’m the same person.’ ”

A healthy exchange of ideas and opinions about controversial subjects, especially in the safe environment of a professionally moderated group, enables young people to test out their beliefs and attitudes, to practice listening to others’ views, to respectfully express differences, and to discover common ground.

Carlos’ revelation led another member to share an experience with a different kind of bias. Jackie, a 15-year-old girl with a stud in her tongue and hoops in her left ear, told the group the story about how when she got her tongue pierced, all of a sudden, “Everybody looked at me differently, like I was from another planet, a dirt bag. But I’m the same! I’m still a good student. I’m the same kid as before.”

Jackie’s reflection illustrates that in addition to advancing an understanding of cultural differences, we can reach for common experiences among young people across cultures. This can open pathways for relating among different ethnic groups.

Presently, we all face the sad possibility of seeing a dramatic erosion of empathy and loss of community amid the struggle for economic survival. We cannot afford to allow the development of empathy to slip away from our youth in the process.

I have a hypothesis about the recent presidential election that relates to this issue. This was a campaign in which the possible effects of racism were frequently and publicly expressed — much more than ever before. Long after Barack Obama’s speech about race, there was constant fear expressed in the media about a “Bradley effect,” in which potential voters would tell pollsters they supported Obama and then pull the lever for a white candidate instead.
Perhaps this open discussion about race — somewhat analogous to a group session — gave a number of people a chance to process their feelings and ultimately feel comfortable voting for a black president.

Ironically neither candidate touched the issue of immigration in the debates and town hall meetings. If the presidential election marks a step forward in racial sensitivity, I wonder, did we take a step backward with respect to attitudes about immigration?

Published in NEWSDAY, Sunday, November 16, 2008, pp. A48-A49

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