Media Messages are Corrosive to Anti-Bullying Movement

Over the past couple of years, there has undoubtedly been a lot of media attention on the role bullying plays in teen suicides and its impact on school safety given the magnitude of events such as Columbine and Virginia Tech. 

Now, the widely publicized suicides of several students this month have become national discussion points as Hollywood has taken notice and released a number of PSAs against bullying, including but not limited to those produced by the cast of CW’s “Hellcats” and Fox’s “Glee.” Still, as I listen to these news reports, I find much the of same recycled rhetoric being disseminated as we as a nation attempt to grapple with this issue and some futilely seek to lay blame. 

For instance, the story of Phoebe Prince, a Massachusetts teen who took her life earlier this year after being relentlessly bullied, is still making headlines this week as more reports are being made about her mental state and behavior leading up to her suicide. One report claimed she was a boyfriend stealer. Another stated that she was already depressed prior to being bullied. In this particular case, criminal charges have been brought against several students and, recognizably, this obviously contributes to the sense of urgency in deciphering the specifics of this case. However, on a large scale, I think we are moving in the wrong direction with accounts such as those being made about Phoebe.

Likewise, much of the Hollywood attention that has been paid to bullying casualties in recent weeks has been focused specifically on the bullying of students that were allegedly homosexual. Though an important issue, I find it limiting to focus media attention on a particular segment of the population in this manner. In prior years, this discussion could easily have focused on women, African-Americans, or Americans of Middle Eastern descent. While each of these groups deserves to attend school in a safe environment that is free of hate, what are we saying when we focus on their ethnicity, gender, or sexual-orientation, categorizing them in the same way that a perpetrator would? Shouldn’t the message be that as a moral and ethical principle it is never okay to treat another human with disdain and without common regard?

A huge element in the study of behavior is the term “generalizability.” Parents can often relate to it. When you walk in and see your child eating ice cream before dinner and say to your child, “I told you no dessert before dinner” and the child replies, “You said no cookies.” That’s generalizeability or rather the lack of it in effect. The child isn’t coming away from the conversation with the message that you explicitly said they can’t have dessert, although that’s what you meant. 

To the same extent, I feel that’s what we are doing by supporting the civil rights of individual groups within our community with targeted messages about that group’s gender, ethnicity, or orientation. Regardless of who they are as individuals, they’re human and for that sake deserve to be regarded with basic respect. I think the history of the dual movements of Women’s Rights and African-American rights in the 1900s speaks eloquently to this moral dichotomy. There were proponents of both movements who could not simultaneously entertain the thought of the other gaining rights as well. In participating in these campaigns, we are inviting our youth not to generalize the greater message of respect for all.

In the same vein, I think we are headed in the wrong direction by putting caveats on what should be an individual’s inherent right not to be bullied at school. By talking about what the individual did to “deserve” bullying or to diminish their suicide with allusions of prior mental state, as in the case of Phoebe Prince, we are again detracting from the greater message. 

Regardless of whether we personally like and/or identify with the victim, the message should still be the same: bullying is wrong. These media blitzes on victims seek to supersede the justice system by trying them in the courtroom of public opinion, and again send the message that it is OK to arbitrarily place value on another human being based on our own estimation of them. What are our students coming away with when that kind of message is being disseminated by the adults around them?

It is our responsibility to teach our students the kind of values and character that will generalize and reach past the sphere of our influence and visual awareness – values that are fairly applied and that aren’t about what the student can get out of doing the right thing but rather based on an intrinsic knowledge of what’s right and wrong. Now more than ever, we have to encourage students to step out of the role of bystander and bully. Even victims need to understand that bullying as a reactionary tactic is inappropriate and will not be tolerated. If your behavior/my behavior/ their behavior is unkind, hurtful, unfair or dishonest, it is WRONG and that alone should be why bullying is unacceptable.