Bullying My Child Quotes

It's just that the thing you never understand about being a mother, until you are one, is that it is not the grown man - the galumphing, unshaven, stinking, opinionated off-spring - you see before you, with his parking tickets and unpolished shoes and complicated love life. You see all the people he has ever been all rolled up into one. I look at him and see the baby I held in my arms, dewing besotted, unable to believe that I'd created another human being. I see the toddler, reaching for my hand, the schoolboy weeping tears of fury after being bullied  by some other child. I saw the vulnerabilities, the love, the history.

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world—a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. . . . No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you. Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn’t vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today—and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us—they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.

That Kevin Burns, the one on television, is easy to hate, even to despise. He shot and tried to kill my son. He killed nine people. This Kevin Burns, a helpless child in prison garb and cuffs, looks meek and terrified, especially in the backdrop of a jail complex and cell, with two giant guards escorting him into the deposition room. 

If I want my world to be less vicious, then I must become more gentle. If I want my children to embrace other children for who they are, to treat other children with the dignity and respect every child of God deserves, then I had better treat other adults the same way. And I better make sure that my children know beyond a shadow of a doubt that in God's and their father's and my eyes, they are okay. They are loved as they are. Without a single unless. Because the kids who bully are those who are afraid that a secret part of themselves is not okay.

When my child was bullied and called names for years, you all didn’t care. Now all of a sudden, since he/she is taking up for him/herself, it’s a problem.

I will not be bullied or dictated to. I’m not a child any more, and I’m prepared to make my own way and my own mistakes if necessary.

My biggest fantasy was to be able to take my revenge, which is a seriously screwed-up mentality for a child to have.

She was, probably, the nicest person I had ever known. Yet in the years following, for myself, I abandoned even believing in niceness or being nice. I could scarcely control myself, wherever I was, from telling everyone, anyone, what I thought of them. It was an urge, a compulsion, my tongue bitten a futile blue. That's a ridiculous thing to say. You must have been spoiled as a child. I couldn't stop myself. You are ungenerous. You parcel yourself out like an expensive spice. You idealize things; you're a narcissist. You seek only to etch impressions of yourself on someone else's face. It's a form of cheapness. You're cheap. You're patronizing. You're a fascist. You're a bully. I've always hated bullies. You look awful in that color. It was as if I'd been hit on the head.

When I was a kid and would tell my mom that people at school were mean to me, she’d pat me on the head and tell me stories about how she’d lived through war and an actual revolution, and when she was fifteen someone cracked open her skull in the middle of the street while her best friend was gutted like a fish so, hey, why don’t you just eat your Cheerios and walk it off, you ungrateful American child. I ate my cheerios. I didn't talk about it.

It’s just that the thing you never understand about being a mother, until you are one, is that it is not the grown man—the galumphing, unshaven, stinking, opinionated offspring—you see before you, with his parking tickets and unpolished shoes and complicated love life. You see all the people he has ever been all rolled up into one. I looked at Will and I saw the baby I held in my arms, dewily besotted, unable to believe that I had created another human being. I saw the toddler, reaching for my hand, the schoolboy weeping tears of fury after being bullied by some other child. I saw the vulnerabilities, the love, the history. That’s what he was asking me to extinguish—the small child as well as the man—all that love, all that history.

I remember passing the tomboy, sitting in her special place of punishment opposite the bully. She was blazing with her deed, as if she had actually been touched by a god. And I thought that this confirmed all my theories: a child in her position is open to any heroic myth I care to use; she is inward with folktales; she would feel the force of any magical or divine intervention.

I looked at Will and I saw the baby I held in my arms, dewily besotted, unable to believe that I had created another human being. I saw the toddler, reaching for my hand, the schoolboy weeping tears of fury after being bullied by some other child. I saw the vulnerabilities, the love, the history. That’s what he was asking me to extinguish—the small child as well as the man—all that love, all that history.

I looked at Will and I saw the baby I held in my arms, dewily besotted, unable to believe that I had created another human being. I saw the toddler, reaching for my hand, the schoolboy weeping tears of fury after being bullied by some other child. I saw the vulnerabilities, the love, the history.

People don’t necessarily realize it when they contribute to the erosion of a child’s self-worth, but kids pay attention to how people treat them, and they get the message loud and clear. I wish I could say it didn’t distort their self-perception and make them more sensitive and insecure, but it does.

When I was a child, I believed God would set everything right. When I found out about the Nakba, I was sure that one day my friend Ahmad's grandmother would be able to return to her house in Palestine. I waited for the day our teachers would explain the theft of the land we lived on, the way our textbooks spoke about Indigenous people like they no longer existed and all the books we read were written by dead white men. I was sure that the school bullies would be punished, that the police would stop pulling over my Black friends' parents late at night, and that my classmates with undocumented aunties or grandparents would one day be able to stop worrying they'd be taken away. Allah is the remover of obstacles. But after the fire, after your burial, after the police dismissed the threats you'd received—by then I'd understood for a long time who had built this system, and for whom, and I'd long since let go of my ideas of justice.

She is shocked, and also afraid to look at him. As he turns the page, he's describing a dessert whose name he cannot remember but which arrived at the table in flames. She feels utterly bewildered. This is who her father is: someone tickled by the existence of sushi. Someone who takes pictures inside a restaurant. Her father is cheesy. Even his handsomeness, she thinks, looking at one of the few photos in which he appears, is of a certain harmlessly generic sort, the handsomeness of a middle-aged male model in the department-store insert of the Sunday Inquirer. Has she only imagined him as a monster? His essential lesson, she always believed, was this: There are many ways for you to transgress, and most you will not recognize until after committing them. But is it she who invented this lesson? At the least, she met him halfway, she bought in to it. Not just as a child but all through adolescence and into adulthood--until this very moment. She realized now that Allison does not buy in to it, that she must not have for years, and that's why Allison doesn't fight with their father or refuse to talk to him for long stretches. Why bother? Hannah always assumed Allison was bullied into her paternal devotion, but no--it is Hannah who has seen his anger as much bigger than it ever was.

Noah turned to face his younger sister, arching one brow to a fairly smug height. Lenga lifted a brow back at him, giving him a delicate smattering of applause. “And I was afraid you would never learn the art of diplomacy,” she remarked, her lips twitching with her humor. “It merely took you the entire two and a half centuries of my life. Longer, actually. You had a few centuries’ head start.” “Funny how you seem to recall the fact that I am far older than you only when it suits your arguments, my sister,” he taunted her, reaching to tug on her hair as he had been doing since her childhood. “Well, I can say with all honesty that this is the first time I have ever seen you forgo a good argument with Hannah, opting for peace instead. I was beginning to wonder if you were my brother at all. Perhaps some imposter . . .” “Legna, be careful. You are speaking words of treason,” he teased her, tugging her hair once more, making her turn around to swat at his hand. “I don’t know how you convinced the entire Council that you were mature enough to be King, Noah! You are such a child!” She twisted her body so he couldn’t grab at her hair again. “And I swear, if you pull my hair once more like some sort of schoolyard bully, I am going to put you to sleep and shave you bald!” Noah immediately raised his hands in acquiescence, laughing as Legna flushed in exasperation. For all her grace and ladylike ways, Noah’s little sister was quite capable of making good on any threat she made. “I mean really, Noah. You are just about seven hundred years old. One would think you could at least act like it.

The situation demanded some serious swearing and bullying, but she couldn't let herself cut loose, not with Sunshine in the kitchen. Having a child nearby placed a severe crimp in her style. "You are full of ... horse feathers, cowboy." Leaning over him, she stared hard into his eyes. "I didn't work like a damned dog out there and freeze my butt off - excuse me Sunshine - so we could just let those damned - 'scuse me, Sunshine - stupid cows starve or freeze. And we aren't going to find a buyer for them now, that's for damned sure - excuse me, Sunshine.

♥ To my daughter Taliah, I just wanted to tell you how proud we are all of you and all the other children of the PS22 Chorus of Staten Island. With your great determination and hard work you all made this day happen, singing at the presidential inauguration. I want you to remember this day for the rest of your life, because it is such an historical day for you, for your school and for our nation. As you sit above the great man below you taking the oath of presidency...remember as a child he had dreams too and the great odds he had to overcome to achieve them . May your dreams take you far in your life and may it all start on this day, at this period of time, at this historical moment in your lives...may you all cherish this moment in your hearts forever!

Although over time, I have fallen with them as you know, now just as weak as them hunting young girls for the sweet taste of blood and souls, to keep for their own, to take them in the most sheepish, timid, cowardly and spineless way a child like me could do; acting like a sweet fallen angel.’ ‘Just to victimize, when they are just like me looking for hope, that I give misleadingly, in the time of their need, just like I was in too.' 'I am no better than the bullies, that picked on me, and I could not live with myself, as I was falling more every day, thinking, I was still ever-so good when I was just as wrong as my sisters and even my grandmother that made me this way.' 'I remember, that demons can take the shape of anything and hide within anything even you and me, and in me they did.

Sara and I are both leaving within the hour. In my carriage." "Together?" Lily looked startled, and then shook her head. "You can't. Don't you realize what people would say when they discovered that both of you were gone?" "Nothing they haven't said already." He slid a proprietary arm around Sara's shoulders. Lily drew her slight frame up as tall as possible, adopting the brisk tone of a chaperone defending her charge. "Where are you planning to go?" Derek smiled slowly. "None of your damn business, gypsy." Ignoring Lily's sputtering protests, he stared down at his fiancée and raised his brows mockingly. As she met his glinting green eyes, Sara realized he intended to take her to London and keep her with him for the night. Her nerves jangled with alarm. "I'm not certain it's advisable-" she began diplomatically, but he cut her off. "Go pack your things." Oh, the arrogance. But it was part of why she loved him, his single-minded determination to get what he wanted. Only blind, bullying stubbornness had enabled him to climb from the gutter. Now that the prospect of marrying her was within his reach, he planned to ensure it by well and truly compromising her. After tonight there would be no turning back. Sara stared at the broad expanse of his chest, conscious of the weight of his arm across her shoulders, the gentle stroke of his thumb and forefinger against her neck. Well... reprehensible as it was, she wanted the same thing. "Derek," Lily said in a steely voice, "I won't allow you to force this poor child into something she's not prepared for-" "She's not a child." His fingers tightened on the back of Sara's neck. "Tell her what you want, Sara." Helplessly Sara raised her head and looked at Lily, her face turning a deep shade of crimson. "I... I'm leaving with Mr. Craven." She didn't have to look at Derek to know that he was smiling in satisfaction.

But it is difficult for a child to realise that a school is primarily a commercial venture. A child believes that the school exists to educate and that the schoolmaster disciplines him either for his own good, or from a love of bullying. Sim and Bingo had chosen to befriend me, and their friendship included canings, reproaches and humiliations, which were good for me and saved me from an office stool. That was their version, and I believed in it. It was therefore clear that I owed them a vast debt of gratitude. But I was not grateful, as I very well knew. On the contrary, I hated both of them. I could not control my subjective feelings, and I could not conceal them from myself. But it is wicked, is it not, to hate your benefactors? So I was taught, and so I believed. A child accepts the codes of behaviour that are presented to it, even when it breaks them. From the age of eight, or even earlier, the consciousness of sin was never far away from me. If I contrived to seem callous and defiant, it was only a thin cover over a mass of shame and dismay. All through my boyhood I had a profound conviction that I was no good, that I was wasting my time, wrecking my talents, behaving with monstrous folly and wickedness and ingratitude—and all this, it seemed, was inescapable, because I lived among laws which were absolute, like the law of gravity, but which it was not possible for me to keep.

A couple of years ago, I was driving in Cincinnati with Usha, when somebody cut me off. I honked, the guy flipped me off, and when we stopped at a red light (with this guy in front of me), I unbuckled my seat belt and opened the car door. I planned to demand an apology (and fight the guy if necessary), but my common sense prevailed and I shut the door before I got out of the car. Usha was delighted that I’d changed my mind before she yelled at me to stop acting like a lunatic (which has happened in the past), and she told me that she was proud of me for resisting my natural instinct. The other driver’s sin was to insult my honor, and it was on that honor that nearly every element of my happiness depended as a child—it kept the school bully from messing with me, connected me to my mother when some man or his children insulted her (even if I agreed with the substance of the insult), and gave me something, however small, over which I exercised complete control. For the first eighteen or so years of my life, standing down would have earned me a verbal lashing as a “pussy” or a “wimp” or a “girl.” The objectively correct course of action was something that the majority of my life had taught me was repulsive to an upstanding young man. For a few hours after I did the right thing, I silently criticized myself. But that’s progress, right? Better that than sitting in a jail cell for teaching that asshole a lesson about defensive driving.

Dear Carl: Here, on this paper, there are only you and me, and the things that each of us tries so hard to understand, clambering up through long, long researches into the past, and thinking ponderously and seeking, and finding that for which we looked a glorified question mark. It would be desirable to be flung, unfettered by consciousness, into the void, to sail unhindered through eternity. Please do not think that I am riding along on baseless words, covering threadbare thoughts with garrulous tapestries. I am not. It is the words which are inadequate. You know so much and I can tell you nothing, and I don't think I can even make you feel anything you have not felt more poignantly than I, who am a mummer in a brocaded boudoir. I wrote about miners' faces around a fire. Their bodies did not show in the light, so their yellow faces seemed like dangling masks against the night. And I wrote about little voices in the glens which were the spirits of passions and desires and dreams of dead men's minds. And Mrs. Russell said they were not real, that such things could not be, and she was not going to stand me bullying her into such claptrap nonsense. Those were not her words, it was was her meaning, and then she smiled out of the corner of her mouth as nurses do when an idiot child makes blunders. And I could not stand that, so I swore at her because I had been out all night to make my pictures. And now she is very cold, and she means to flunk me in the course, thinking that she can hurt me thus. I wish that she could know that I do not in the least care. I wish you were back, because you could understand the things I try to say, and help me say them better, and I know you would, because you did once.

Perhaps I won’t tire of her,” Gray protested, just to be contrary. Because, apparently, that was how brothers behaved. “Perhaps a dolphin will fly out of your arse. And here’s an argument even you can’t refuse. Grayson Shipping doesn’t need a reputation for delivering damaged goods. You want me to hand George Waltham an impregnated governess?” “I wouldn’t get her with child. Give me that much credit, at least.” “I give you credit for nothing. Let’s try this one last time, shall we? You made me this ship’s captain. If I’m the captain, what I say goes. And I say you don’t touch her. If you can’t abide by my orders, take command of the ship yourself and let me go home.” “Go home and do what? Squander your fortune and talent on dirt farming?” “Go home and take care of my own family. Go home and do what I damn well please, for once.” Cursing, Gray leaned against the wall. He knew Joss would make good on that threat, too. It hadn’t been easy, coaxing his brother out of mourning. Gray had resorted to outright bullying just to convince him to take command of the Aphrodite, threatening to cut off his income unless he reported to London as agreed. But he needed Joss, if this shipping concern was to stay afloat. He’d worked too hard, sacrificed too much to see it fail. And if Joss didn’t become a willing partner, it all would have been in vain. “Stay away from the girl, Gray.” Gray sighed. “We’re on the same ship. I can’t help but be near her. I’ll not promise to refrain from touching her, because the girl seems to lose her footing whenever I’m around. But I give you my word I’ll not kiss her again. Satisfied?” Joss shook his head. “Give me your word you won’t bed her.” “What a legend you’re making me! Insinuating I could bed her without even kissing her first.” Gray worried the edge of his thumbnail as he considered. “That might prove an amusing challenge, now that you suggest it.” Joss shot him an incredulous look. “With some other lady, on some other ship.” Gray raised his hands in a defensive gesture. “I’ll not bed her. You have my word. And don’t think that’s not a great sacrifice, because it is. I’d have her in two, three days at the most, I tell you.” “Once again-not amusing.” “For God’s sake, Joss, it’s a joke. What do you want, an apology? I’m sorry for kissing Miss Turner’s hand, all right?” Joss shook his head and flipped open the logbook. “No, you’re not.” “Yes, I am.” The odd thing of it was, Gray was telling the truth. He knew he was being an ass, but the joking was easier than honesty. For all his teasing, he hadn’t kissed her hand with the intent to seduce, or to judge if she tasted as sweet as he’d dreamed. He’d kissed her fingers for one reason only. Because they were trembling, and he’d wanted them to stop. It was wholly unlike him, that kiss. It was not a gesture he thought it wise to repeat. That girl did something strange to him.

Thus polyvictimization or complex trauma are "developmentally adverse interpersonal traumas" (Ford, 2005) because they place the victim at risk not only for recurrent stress and psychophysiological arousal (e.g., PTSD, other anxiety disorders, depression) but also for interruptions and breakdowns in healthy psychobiological, psychological, and social development. Complex trauma not only involves shock, fear, terror, or powerlessness (either short or long term) but also, more fundamentally, constitutes a violation of the immature self and the challenge to the development of a positive and secure self, as major psychic energy is directed toward survival and defense rather than toward learning and personal development (Ford, 2009b, 2009c). Moreover, it may influence the brain's very development, structure, and functioning in both the short and long term (Lanius et al., 2010; Schore, 2009). Complex trauma often forces the child victim to substitute automatic survival tactics for adaptive self-regulation, starting at the most basic level of physical reactions (e.g., intense states of hyperarousal/agitation or hypoarousal/immobility) and behavioral (e.g., aggressive or passive/avoidant responses) that can become so automatic and habitual that the child's emotional and cognitive development are derailed or distorted. What is more, self-integrity is profoundly shaken, as the child victim incorporates the "lessons of abuse" into a view of him or herself as bad, inadequate, disgusting, contaminated and deserving of mistreatment and neglect. Such misattributions and related schema about self and others are some of the most common and robust cognitive and assumptive consequences of chronic childhood abuse (as well as other forms of interpersonal trauma) and are especially debilitating to healthy development and relationships (Cole & Putnam, 1992; McCann & Pearlman, 1992). Because the violation occurs in an interpersonal context that carries profound significance for personal development, relationships become suspect and a source of threat and fear rather than of safety and nurturance. In vulnerable children, complex trauma causes compromised attachment security, self-integrity and ultimately self-regulation. Thus it constitutes a threat not only to physical but also to psychological survival - to the development of the self and the capacity to regulate emotions (Arnold & Fisch, 2011). For example, emotional abuse by an adult caregiver that involves systematic disparagement, blame and shame of a child ("You worthless piece of s-t"; "You shouldn't have been born"; "You are the source of all of my problems"; "I should have aborted you"; "If you don't like what I tell you, you can go hang yourself") but does not involve sexual or physical violation or life threat is nevertheless psychologically damaging. Such bullying and antipathy on the part of a primary caregiver or other family members, in addition to maltreatment and role reversals that are found in many dysfunctional families, lead to severe psychobiological dysregulation and reactivity (Teicher, Samson, Polcari, & McGreenery, 2006).

Unfortunately these days, hardly a day goes by without news of an incident of childhood bullying. Some of these are so horrific or tragic that they defy understanding. Those really grab our attention. Others are all too easily dismissed as some sort of rite of passage, an acceptable part of growing up. The truth, though, is that bullying of any kind has the power to change who a child is, the kind of person he or she grows up to be. When ignored, the victim can be scarred for life, emotionally, if not physically. The perpetrator grows up with a skewed value system that suggests it’s perfectly okay to make another person’s life miserable, to feel powerful, even for a moment, at the expense of someone weaker. It’s up to adults—parents, teachers, entire communities—to take a stand, to say bullying is not okay, not ever, not by anyone! And that’s exactly what happens in Serenity when schoolteacher Laura Reed and pediatrician J. C. Fullerton realize a student is being bullied. Both Laura and J.C. have experienced the damaging effects of bullying, so what’s happening to Misty Dawson is personal and unacceptable. While there are often subtle messages tucked away in my stories, I hope the message in Catching Fireflies is loud and clear. There is nothing cute or normal or acceptable about bullying, whether it’s a toddler on the playground or a teenager using the internet to torment a classmate. Pay attention to what may be happening to your children, no matter how young or how old. Pay even closer attention to how they’re treating others. Bullying is wrong. It needs to stop. And alert parents and teachers and a united community can make that happen. I hope you’ll enjoy spending time with all the Sweet Magnolias once more, and that you’ll take their message—and mine—to heart. All best, Sherryl

It’s just that the thing you never understand about being a mother, until you are one, is that it is not the grown man—the galumphing, unshaven, stinking, opinionated offspring—you see before you, with his parking tickets and unpolished shoes and complicated love life. You see all the people he has ever been all rolled up into one. I looked at Will and I saw the baby I held in my arms, dewily besotted, unable to believe that I had created another human being. I saw the toddler, reaching for my hand, the schoolboy weeping tears of fury after being bullied by some other child. I saw the vulnerabilities, the love, the history.

Once my then three-year-old son, Jack, approached some seven-year-olds playing cards at the park and just watched them. One of the boys looked at my son and said, “Go away. You’re gross!” The other kids laughed. I chimed in immediately. “No, you’re gross! You are the grossest gross grosser in the world!” The bully ran with tears in his eyes to his caregiver, who glared at me. I just smiled in victory. I realize I won’t always be there to defend my children, but if I can trim some of the jerky behavior out of their life, maybe they won’t do it to other kids. Of course, I am also getting revenge for my own victimization as a child. I was always hoping some pale giant would appear and rescue me from the bullies. Now I am that pale giant. You shall call me Thor. God

looked at Will and I saw the baby I held in my arms, dewily besotted, unable to believe that I had created another human being. I saw the toddler, reaching for my hand, the schoolboy weeping tears of fury after being bullied by some other child. I saw the vulnerabilities, the love, the history.

For three or four years, Musk endured relentless hounding at the hands of these bullies. They went so far as to beat up a boy that Musk considered his best friend until the child agreed to stop hanging out with Musk. “Moreover, they got him—they got my best fucking friend—to lure me out of hiding so they could beat me up,” Musk said. “And that fucking hurt.

It’s just that the thing you never understand about being a mother, until you are one, is that it is not the grown man—the galumphing, unshaven, stinking, opinionated offspring—you see before you, with his parking tickets and unpolished shoes and complicated love life. You see all the people he has ever been all rolled up into one. I looked at Will and I saw the baby I held in my arms, dewily besotted, unable to believe that I had created another human being. I saw the toddler, reaching for my hand, the schoolboy weeping tears of fury after being bullied by some other child. I saw the vulnerabilities, the love, the history. That’s what he was asking me to extinguish—the small child as well as the man—all that love, all that history. And

Deep thanks to Susan Robertson for her understanding of the effects of trauma on the mind and heart, and for helping me translate the language of dreams. I am grateful to Saffron Burrows for sharing her experience and compassion as someone who has long campaigned for the rights and equality of disabled persons. Thank you also to Alison Balian for the wonderful conversations we had during the time I was writing this novel. My gratitude to Richard Rieser and Susie Burrows for working toward inclusion and against the bullying of disabled children and people of all ages. Richard’s generosity in talking to me about his own experiences helped me imagine a child’s long hospital stay and understand more about the challenges of moving forward. My mother had a brain tumor, and during her long illness I learned a lot about loving someone with a brain injury. The grace and humor she showed through her suffering has always inspired me. She was an artist, and she never gave up looking for beauty and meaning.

Although he said more about hell than most other subjects, Jesus had a very short fuse with those who appeared enthusiastic about the idea of people suffering eternally. Once, after being rejected by a village of Samaritans, Jesus’ disciples asked him for permission to call fire down from heaven to destroy the Samaritans. Jesus’ response was to rebuke his disciples for thinking such a harsh thing.[1] His response makes me wonder what to do with a subject like hell. On one hand, Jesus indicated that the fire of hell is an appropriate punishment for sin.[2] On the other, he got very upset with anyone suggesting that someone else should go there...Howard Thurman, a predecessor to Dr. King and an African American scholar and minister, gave a lecture at Harvard in 1947 during the pre–civil rights era. In that lecture he shared these words: “Can you imagine a slave saying, ‘I and all my children and grandchildren are consigned to lives of endless brutality and grinding poverty? There’s no judgment day in which any wrongdoing will ever be put right?’”[15] Volf and Thurman are saying the same thing: if there is no final judgment, then there is really no hope for a slave, a rape victim, a child who has been abused or bullied, or people who have been slandered or robbed or had their dignity taken from them. If nobody is ultimately called to account for violence and oppression, then the victims will not see justice, ever. They will be left to conclude the same thing that Elie Wiesel concluded after the Holocaust stripped him of his mother, his father, his sister, and his faith: “I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God. . . . Without love or mercy.”[16] If we insist on a universe in which there is no final reckoning for evil, this is what we are left with. To accept that God is a lover but not a judge is a luxury that only the privileged and protected can enjoy. What I’m saying here is that we need a God who gets angry. We need a God who will protect his kids, who will once and for all remove the bullies and the perpetrators of evil from his playground. Those who cannot or will not appreciate this have likely enjoyed a very sheltered life and are therefore naive about the emotional impact of oppression, cruelty, and injustice. To accept that God is a lover but not a judge is a luxury that only the privileged and protected can enjoy.

Pray your words, old man.” The priest licked his lips and glanced fearfully at the crowd of savages around them. Perhaps it was the stark contrast of black robes against pallid flesh, but Loretta thought he was losing color at an alarming rate. Indeed, he looked as if he might faint. “Say the God words, old man!” Hunter snarled again. “Don’t you dare bully him,” Loretta hissed. “He’s a man of God, Hunter! You don’t roar at a man of God.” “It’s qu-quite all right, child, quite all right.” The priest, his face dripping sweat, made haste to open his Bible. “Merciful Father,” he muttered, clearly praying for deliverance. With a strangled cough, he began leafing through pages, turning slightly so the light from the fire was thrown across the small print. “I beg your forgiveness. I don’t usually need to use the book--” He coughed again and waved away smoke. “For some reason, the words have fled my mind. Ah, yes, here we are.” Infuriated, Loretta jerked her arm from Hunter’s grasp. “Father, there’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of, I assure you.” Hunter reclaimed her arm in a biting grip that made her swing around to face him. Bending his head, he whispered, “Blue Eyes, you test my temper. I will blow hard at you like the wind.” “Blow, then!” She tried to twist her arm free. “You’re hurting me.” “I will beat you. Then you will know a hurt. Now be silent!” Loretta’s eyes flared to a fiery blue. “I’m not going to marry you. Beat me senseless! Go ahead.” Hunter sent her a look that would have scared her to death a month ago. “Loh-rhett-ah, you will be silent and let him say the God words.” “He can say the God words until snowballs melt in--” She broke off and blushed. “I’m the one who has to say the words, Hunter, and I won’t. Do you understand?” “My dear child,” the priest inserted, “it’s not often one of these”--he threw a meaningful glance at Hunter--“gentlemen offers to make an honorable woman of a captive. Wouldn’t it be wise to accept?” “I’m in no need of matrimony, Father. I still have my honor.

You want to know what gets on my nerves? When people say 'you can't be a Christian because you're LGBT+, or you used to be a Muslim/Hindu/atheist/pretty much anything else really'. The reason people say those things is because we believe doing so is sinning, but haven't we all sinned? Aren't we all in the same boat, at the mercy of the storm raging outside? If so, why keep to ourselves in what we think is the safest corner, but the whole boat sinks nonetheless? Every sin, whether it's stealing a cookie from the cookie jar to murdering and robbing an innocent child is sin. Even if you have never done any wrong, except did one thing, isn't your soul still poisoned, still doomed to being a sinner? Why must we separate ourself because we believe we are 'righteous', when in doing so we simply dirty ourselves in sinful dust even more so, yet continue to believe ourselves better then anyone else? If you don't think you are worthy, or can possibly be righteous, well, I'm afraid your not on track. The only reason we are even not-dead-yet is because a perfect soul died after never sinning, Jesus payed the price we so selfishly went into debt for because we wanted temporary satisfaction and worthless paper called money. If we have all been called to be clean, why must we refuse this and say others are dirty, when if that's true we are dirty as well ourselves? We sink the boat we are on to see others drown, yet in the process we drown ourselves. We have been selfish, lazy, prideful, and sinful, every one of is, and yet are so blind we cannot even see the great light that calls us to be clean and perfect. There is no such thing as too far gone, so why do we say others are too far gone yet set the bar lower for ourselves? Are we more perfect, more righteous, more forgiven then people who don't know God as well as we do? Surely not! If we know God, instead of keeping him to ourselves we are quite clearly instructed to give freely in the Bible, and yet we refuse to do so for the sake of our sinful pride. Why do we not reach down, and get our knees dirty to help the poor? What is stopping us from going that extra mile, from giving more then you have, from reaching out with the great news of the savior? We are too prideful, we don't want our silken robes to get muddy in someone else's sin even when they're already disgusting in ours. We tell ourselves we're are too tired to walk the extra mile, yet powerful enough to strike down the needy and ones in poverty. We are too greedy, we would rather keep the Savior to ourselves then give it, even though in giving you get even more. What right do we have to choose who should come with us into heaven? What heavenly authority gave us the power to say 'you sin, you cannot come to heaven', even though we sinners think we can when there is no difference between us? Any one can truly believe, there is no 'special requirement' to be a Christian other then to know God exists (well, duh you didn't need to tell us that) and to know you are a sinner and to try to not sin, even though we all fail miserably at that, and to love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love your neighbor as much as God loves them. (No, autocorrect is not a human, I hate it too). There is no human on earth who is perfect, if you believe yourself to be so you are even more wrong then before. If there is anyone reading this, who is suicidal or LGBT+ and have been bullied or just don't know, trust me, there is nothing, NOTHING preventing you from believing except for your own will. I don't know if this is a quote or a rant ;;

Mooney was the class bully, a boy who had already failed two grades by the time he landed in mine. He was fat, sweaty and loud, and all the kids were scared of him. With good reason. If Mooney wanted something he took it, and woe to the child who tried to stop him. But Mooney was also crafty and sly. He never retaliated when an adult was near, preferring to ambush his prey when he could catch them off-guard, knowing it would be his word against the victims if the kid were stupid enough to tell. Sitting next to him was torture. I always carried extra pencils because I knew Mooney would confiscate the one I was using. And I considered myself lucky that pencils were all he’d taken so far. At least, I was lucky until the week before our midterm tests. Because the weather was nasty that Monday, our recess was taken in the gym. I was sitting on the bleachers taking a breather, watching Jenna chase Hugh in a game of tag, when Mooney confronted me. “You’re gonna let me copy off your paper when we take our tests next week,” he said. “If you don’t, I’ll stomp you into the ground.” He swaggered off, secure in the thought that I’d comply with his demand. I watched him in shock. Cheat? He wanted me to cheat on the tests? The Judge would disown me. I would never be able to look my grandfather in the eye again. There was no way I could let Mooney copy, even knowing he would kill me when it was over. Death before dishonor was my family motto.

Indigenous Lives Holding Our World Together, by Brenda J. Child American Indian Stories, by Zitkala-Sa A History of My Brief Body, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert Apple: Skin to the Core, by Eric Gansworth Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot The Blue Sky, by Galsan Tschinag Crazy Brave, by Joy Harjo Standoff, by Jacqueline Keeler Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie Spirit Car, by Diane Wilson Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School, by Adam Fortunate Eagle Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq Walking the Rez Road, by Jim Northrup Mamaskatch, by Darrel J. McLeod Indigenous Poetry Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, by Joy Harjo Ghost River (Wakpá Wanági), by Trevino L. Brings Plenty The Book of Medicines, by Linda Hogan The Smoke That Settled, by Jay Thomas Bad Heart Bull The Crooked Beak of Love, by Duane Niatum Whereas, by Layli Long Soldier Little Big Bully, by Heid E. Erdrich A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation, by Eric Gansworth NDN Coping Mechanisms, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Invisible Musician, by Ray A. Young Bear When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, edited by Joy Harjo New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich The Failure of Certain Charms, by Gordon Henry Jr. Indigenous History and Nonfiction Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong, by Paul Chaat Smith Decolonizing Methodologies, by Linda Tuhiwai Smith Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862, edited by Gary Clayton Anderson and Alan R. Woodworth Being Dakota, by Amos E. Oneroad and Alanson B. Skinner Boarding School Blues, edited by Clifford E. Trafzer, Jean A. Keller, and Lorene Sisquoc Masters of Empire, by Michael A. McDonnell Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, by Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior Boarding School Seasons, by Brenda J. Child They Called It Prairie Light, by K. Tsianina Lomawaima To Be a Water Protector, by Winona LaDuke Minneapolis: An Urban Biography, by Tom Weber

When the child reopened her eyes into his arms, he breathed a long sigh of relief, tears slipping down his emaciated cheeks, only to feel that his mind was on the verge of collapsing. “Ah? Don’t cry, what… what’s going on?” Zhu Yan raised her hand, wiped his cold face with her little fingers and comforted him with a thin voice, “Has anyone bullied you? Don’t be afraid. My father, is the Red King, and he is very powerful!” He shook his head slowly, grabbed her hand and moved it away from his face. However, the little girl persevered and moved her little hand back onto his face. In the end, he finally stopped resisting and let the child rest her warm little hand on his forehead. “Here,” the child who narrowly escaped death looked at him and said in a happy tone, “you have a beauty tip. My mother, the Imperial Concubine, also have it!” “…” The boy didn’t speak, and turned his face silently.

As I saw the devastation flash through my mind I begged him not to get in the car. I warned him that danger lurked perilously close, but he looked dismissively at me and bellowed. I know I looked ridiculous rapping on his window. Some people walking into the pool whispered to each other and they too probably thought I was a ridiculous spotted face child. Well I warned him. He survived fortunately, but the sports car wasn’t a pretty sight apparently. And I heard he was in a wheel chair for six months.

We were going camping in the mountains and Mishy really wanted to come with us. She’s an only child and hates having to stay at home with her parents doing boring stuff, so we hatched a plan to smuggle her in my school bag. Our plan was going smoothly until she let a little fart go off in the school bag, followed by a giggle while Dad was packing things in the car. He pretended he didn’t notice as we continued, but he kept saying, “phewie, what’s that stinky smell coming from your school bag? Have you left old egg sandwiches in there? It smells like an elephant’s fart after eating a ten course dinner of baked beans.” And then when he tried to pick the bag up he added, “this bag is so heavy, I think there ‘is’ an elephant in here, possibly even two, and possibly even an elephant poo ….ewghh!

Father by Maisie Aletha Smikle In the image of God You were created Bestowed with God's love You always rise above To overcome whatever may Come your way Be it small as a pin Or big as an anchor With your loving arms You comforted me And consoled me Like a father should You guided me You protected me You sheltered me You fed me You clothed me You shielded me With your tower of strength Bullies stayed at arms length I run to you for help You said Come my loving child And rest for a while My worries you take And place in your pockets You promise to be the rock I could always lean on Promises you kept  Until your very last breath Rest sweet Papa rest You have done your utmost best

Utanga refugee camp was their home for four years. When Ilhan turned twelve, a Lutheran church sponsored her family to go to the United States. Ilhan arrived in Arlington, Virginia, in possession of two English phrases: “Hello” and “Shut up.” Her classmates yanked at her hijab, stuck chewing gum to it, and bombarded her with questions like, “Do you have hair? Do you have a pet monkey? Does it feel good to wear shoes for the first time?” Every day, the girl who had survived armed militias and a refugee camp was reminded that she was different. “This is the first time I realized the stigma that I carried as an immigrant and a refugee, and a Muslim person who was visibly Muslim, with a headscarf,” she told The New Yorker. “And that my blackness was a source of tension.” But as the kids bullied her, Ilhan remembered her grandfather telling her as a child: “Everything is temporary.” His words gave her courage.

(Kana has been talking about her Uncles with her friends at school and her teacher, Mr. Yokoyama, has called her dad in because he’s concerned that it’s not an appropriate topic for school children and that she may be bullied for it in the future because “her situation at home is a bit unusual”) Yaichi: Yokoyama-san, are you concerned that she’s being raised by a single father? Yokoyama: Uhhh… Yaichi: I appreciate your concern, but it’s really unnecessary. You don’t need to be concerned about a single parent household. At least, no more so than for any other student. Yokoyama: No, I meant… Yaichi: Also, about Kana, if there is anything that makes her different, I… wouldn’t make her change on account of other people. As for the foreigner staying with us, he is my brother’s husband, and Kana’s Uncle. I see absolutely no reason to stop her from talking about her beloved uncle to her friends. If Kana is ever bullied for any of this, I would hope that, as her teacher, you would reprimand the bullies, and not the bullied child for being different.

The pandemic made me realize my anger was still very much alive and well, the wounded anger of a child. As I stepped up in March 2020 to help lead Metro Nashville through a monumental crisis for which there were no easy answers or easy exit, I became aware that the country had become one big schoolyard playground. Bullies were everywhere; social media gave them a platform to virtually arm-twist and intimidate anyone they wanted at any time of day or night - and seemingly without consequence.

I feel shame because my parents rained disgust on me for being me. I say no to these toxic parental curses, and I am proud and right to see how they tried to murder my soul. I give them their shame back as disgust – the disgust any healthy adult feels when he sees a parent bullying a child with contempt, or when he sees a parent heartlessly ignoring a suffering child.

Nonviolence is nonsense – or to be more accurate – bookish nonviolence is nonsense. Nonviolence is to injustice, what homeopathy is to illness – it claims all the credit without any of the responsibility. Placebo brings comfort, not change. Does that mean, violence is the solution? That’s the problem, you see. This prehistoric world has an instinctual affinity to black and white concepts – to binary concepts – and a gigantic blind spot for grey areas. Justice is too grand an exercise to be contained by the primitive dualistic nonsense of violence and nonviolence. Let me put this into perspective with an example. Bullets are an act of violence, silence is an act of nonviolence – but there is a third option – the option of the slipper. Slippers are more effective in fighting bugs, than bullets – bullets make martyr of the bugs, slippers put them in their place. When the slippers of a nation’s civilians combine, even the mightiest of tyrant is bound to fall – be it a state head, court judge or law enforcement officer. Whenever a bunch of bugs turn the courts into a cradle of animal masculinity – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the parliament into a cradle of fundamentalism and bigotry – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the police stations into a cradle of badge-bearing barbarism – grab hold of that household bug-repellent you wear on your feet, and put them to some good, wholesome use. Treat the corrupt and bigoted like your children, and do with them as you would your own child when they go astray. When your child starts to bully other kids, if you adopt pacifism and pamper them further in the name of nonviolence, instead of taking stringent steps to nip their megalomania in the bud, it’s very much possible, they might grow up to be the next orange-haired terrorist to roam the oval office or the next musky moron who takes pleasure in destroying people’s livelihoods and providing safe haven to hate speech and disinformation to satisfy their giant ego and puny mind. So, I repeat – pick up the democratic superweapon from under your feet and put it to good use – treat the privileged orangutans like your children and put them in their rightful place, without actually harming them. Your world, your rules – remember that. Slippers are democracy’s first line of defense, bullets it’s last.

It's just that the thing you never understand about being a mother, until you are one, is that it is not the grown man - the galumphing, unshaven, stinking, opinionated off-spring - you see before you, with his parking tickets and unpolished shoes and complicated love life. You see all the people he has ever been all rolled up into one. I look at him and see the baby I held in my arms, dewing besotted, unable to believe that I'd created another human being. I see the toddler, reaching for my hand, the schoolboy weeping tears of fury after being bullied by some other child. I saw the vulnerabilities, the love, the history.” ― Jojo Moyes, Me Before You

I was bullied from the time that I was a small child and into my adulthood—sometimes, I still feel as though I’m being bullied. It has left me with my own scars to bear, and we truly must prioritize helping our children in situations like these. Shenita Etwaroo

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but eventually I knew: I couldn’t deliver the demon. There was no evil child here, no bad apple. These girls were good people who had done bad things, and for understandable, if not good, reasons. They were not the cold, cunning creatures girl bullies are so often made out to be.