Letoria: Blog

After I posted my "Why?" rant, I did a fair amount of ruminating and reflecting on whatever role I had in bullying during middle and high school. I can't say I found my hands unstained. While I could not, by any definition, be seen as a bully, my passive responses when I saw it happen aren't a whole lot better. That was a disturbing personal recollection.

The social hierarchy is the single most important force for girls in middle school and high school. It has its own rules and codes, which are in turn rigid and ruthlessly self-policed. It doesn't matter which pack you associate with, the unwritten rules for your pack are understood clearly, if not openly articulated.

When I was in middle and high school, there were four distinct overarching groups we called the Jocks, the Stoners, the Wrenches, and the Dweebs. I belonged to the Jock group, which was actually the catch-all umbrella for several loosely related sub-cliques. The Jocks were the social elites, kids who came from good families, who did well in school, who were college bound, and who were often, though hardly always, members of a sports team. For example, no one was ever going to accuse me of being an athlete. I tried one season of field hockey until I realized it was a vicious game played by vicious girls.

I was pretty far down the totem pole in my group, a few steps away from insignificance. For me and so many other girls in that time and place, it was desperately important to be seen as one of the cool kids, no matter how insignificant I might be. I knew my place, I knew who the girls were who passed judgment on whether or not one was worthy of inclusion, whether or not punishment was deserved for the commission of various sins. These girls were the bullies, the Alpha Bitches, and they relished the ability to inflict pain at will, and control lives. I wanted their approval, or to cut myself the tiniest bit of slack, I didn't want their disapproval.

I had secrets too, secrets so profound and horrifying I couldn't admit them to myself, secrets that would make me something much worse than persona non grata if they slipped out. So I did nothing that might draw attention of the undesirable kind my way. I shut up when I saw things happening that I knew were wrong.

I am not proud of what I'm about to relate, but if I'm going to rant and pontificate about something, then it seems I need to be honest about any personal involvement, however insignificant it may be, in similar events. This one stands out the most clearly in my memory.

I guess I was a sophomore at the time. The Queen Bee that year was Marianne Cooper, a junior. She was gorgeous, tall, slim, big blue eyes, and always seemed cheerful and nice. The teachers loved her - she did her homework, studied hard, always came prepared, she was polite, in short she kissed ass hard and deep. If she was a little rude and pushy with some of the underclassmen, well, that was life, and those kids needed to suck it up and get a backbone. Marianne played three sports, softball in the spring, basketball in the winter, and captained the field hockey team in the fall.

That was the one and only year I tried the game. I was a bench warmer on the JV team, but I was entitled - just barely - to say I was on the team. I'd received a few whacks from Marianne's Minions across the tummy and shins to remind me where I stood in the scheme of things, once even rating a trip from the Queen herself, followed by a sharp, "Get the fuck out of the way," an admonition at once exhilarating and terrifying.

A girl named Monica was not so lucky. Monica was an ordinary girl who had no natural group to attach to. She and her family had moved to our town a couple of years earlier. She was neither pretty nor homely. She was shy and quiet, a freshman. I think playing on the field hockey team was her way of trying to gain access to our group. Under ordinary circumstances, to use a term frequently seen in the news today, she might have been vetted by any number of unwritten processes to see if she was fit for the group. However, one day in practice, she committed an unforgivable sin without realizing she'd done anything wrong. She accidentally tripped Marianne who was running after the ball, causing the Queen Bee to take a face-plant digger.

I really don't relish reliving most of this, pulling it up and looking at it again. Back in the locker room, Marianne and her Minions took violent exception to the accidental trip. There was much yelling and screaming, Monica backed into a corner in utter terror. Hair pulling, face slapping, punches and kicks, the C word used with disgusting frequency. I watched it all and I … did nothing. I watched. It was making me sick, but not sick enough to say something.

I went home and cried for hours on end, castigating myself for just standing there. Promises to the contrary notwithstanding, I didn't work up the courage to step forward. I know it's only a form of rationalization, but what good would it have done? The next day, the field hockey coach, Miss Darby gathered us together (sans Monica) and reminded us that what happened in the locker room stayed in the locker room. We were a team. Well they were a team. I quit after that. It was too vicious in more ways than one.

You see, that's part of the problem. Teachers and coaches don't want to do anything that will upset the stars, the big-name kids (Marianne's father was a well-known attorney). The Marianne's of the world, then and now, carry free passes by the ream. They're good kids, popular kids, come from good families dontcha know. If they're harsh with the weaker kids, then surely they must deserve it.

I know it didn't end for Monica with that single episode. I witnessed at least two episodes where one of the Minions pushed her against the wall, sending her books flying, and another where she was tripped. In each case, I did… nothing. Oh sure, I thought big thoughts. I even had a few quasi-sexual fantasies where I was her rescuer. When the rumors started - rumors that she was a lesbian, and quite paradoxically, that she was a slut who was fucking guys from the city across the river - I went right along with it. After all, one of the rumors hit a little too close to home. No sir, and no ma'am, I did not want that attention pointed at me.

I know Monica came out the other end all in one piece. I have no idea what happened after she graduated. If I knew where she was now, I would apologize to her for being a coward. The last I knew, Marianne was a doctor somewhere in the Midwest.

I like to think I earned a measure of absolution the following year when I befriended a girl who was anathema to the Jocks - fat, poor, and deeply emotionally troubled. In spite of much insinuation that I had no business hanging with her, I never unfriended her. In fact she became one of the best friends I ever had.

What became of the rest of the Minions? A dear friend knows exactly what I mean when I say, "Why, they became Harpies of course!"

NB: The names are made up.

Anyone who has read my occasional rants here is probably aware that my personal vexation is the tormenting of teenage girls through bullying. As Laci is wont to say, "There's no need for it!" Indeed.

I was reading my local paper this morning when I came across another article chronicling the suicide of a 14 year old girl in Florida after she'd suffered through relentless emotional bullying by her peers. It's apparently unclear what otherness she possessed to draw the ire of the hyenas. The author made the remarkably naive statement that middle school is a rough place, especially for girls. Duh!

That's one of the things that bothers me so goddamned much. Its girls doing it to girls. Are girls more morally corrupt now that 50 years ago? 30? In my own area, the news told us of two 15 year old girls who put a kitten in a goddamned MICROWAVE to see what would happen, videotaping the disgusting experiment in the process so they could post it to Twitter! WTF!! At least in this case, the kitten survived none the worse for wear. Not so the girl in Florida.

Bullying has always been around, but now its gone high tech. Now there is no escaping it once the bullies choose a victim. I came of age long before the age of Facebook and Twitter; I'm still often confounded by the vagaries of posting here. When I was in middle school, a computer was a calculator, a slide rule, and a Royal typewriter, a cell phone was a black AT&T wall mount, an iPod a Sony Walkman. Yes, bullying was alive and well, but at least it was done face-to-face, or at least face-to-back. No more. On Facebook, "Loser", "Bitch", "Die and get it over with." The viciousness is on an unrelenting 24 hour cycle, until...

I personally am very familiar with the cries of the Banshees, though not from bullying. They can be very seductive with their moans, promising to end the pain. Can you imagine inner pain and torment so great, so unbearable, that it would lead a 14 year old girl to deliberately climb a tower, knowing every step of the way exactly why she was putting one foot in front of the other, then looking down and jumping? It absolutely boggles my unfortunately vivid imagination.

Now the question in my mind is Where the FUCK were the adults in all this? There is no goddamned excuse -- NONE -- for adults to blow off that savage bullying by saying, "That's part of growing up," or "Kids will be kids." Bullshit, unmitigated bullshit! Shame should be the least of their sentences. It makes me feel a sense of relief that I didn't have a daughter. I had a son who was smart, self-confidant, athletic, and morally sound. He was not going to be bullied or engage in bullying. I simply would not have tolerated that kind of frigging behavior in my flesh and blood.

I'm still left to wonder what this girl's "otherness" was to draw the attention of the pack. Was she gay? Shy? Too smart? Homely? Fat? Ethnically different?

Another young life snuffed out because of unreasoning hatefulness. It's worth repeating, but is it any wonder that I and so many of my peers chose to build stout closets to hide our otherness' in when we plodded our way through adolescent life in an age we're now told wasn't as morally enlightened as this one?

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It feels as though it's taken an eternity, but I've finally finished Karen and Laci Chapter 11. It's been submitted and should be up shortly. For those who follow it more or less regularly, I hope Chapter 11 is worth the wait. I simply do not write quickly. Invid Fan keeps trying to explain the art of not frigging around on a single word for 6 hours, but I'm too obtuse to listen and learn -- well I listen anyway.

As always, comments are appreciated.

On the one hand, there was cause for rejoicing this week when the abhorrent "Defense of Marriage Act" went down in a ball of flames. I live in a state where same sex marriage is legally recognized, so the death of DOMA's impact on me is largely financial and symbolic.

But then on the other hand...

The very same week that DOMA died its fiery death, a certain very well known Hollywood figure named Alec Baldwin went on a homophobic tirade, threatening to "fuck up" a gay reporter, sticking his foot up the writer's ass, but sparing him because he might like it too much. Had AB been, say, Mel Gibson, he would have been arrested for making hate-based threats. Instead, he's given a pass by both his Hollywood political handlers, and the larger gay community.

This episode tells me a lot of things, none of them good. First of all, homophobia remains alive and well, and it's acceptable as long as you're someone who has friends in the right places, and you've previously stuck to the script.

It also tells me that the support the LGBT community enjoys in places such as Hollywood is empty, a scripted facade. I once naively assumed there was a high degree of sincerity in Hollywood's support of basic human rights for LGBT people. Now that bubble has been burst. Toto has pulled the curtain back to reveal the Great and Powerful Oz is a sham, just smoke and mirrors. I'm sure some A-listers are sincere, but now it's impossible to know which ones.

Perhaps even more discouraging is the deafening silence of the self-styled leaders of the LGBT community. They cower in the corner before the hate-filled, homophobic spewings of a politically valuable worm and his powerful brokers. Sadly, it's all a cynical quid pro quo between two powerful lobbies, neither of whom, it appears, actually gives a damn about the real people they're ostensibly representing and supporting.

In spite of what the self-annointed powers-that-be suggest, homophobia and the hate it results from is not OK just because you happen to be a liberal Democrat. In fact, that makes it an even more egregious crime because it comes slathered with the base alloy of hypocrisy.

My cherished naivete is chipped away, one piece at a time. It's always sad when you find out Santa Claus was really Mom and Dad all along.

An email prompt from a regular reader reminded me I haven't posted a blog or a story here in a while. I just want to reassure those who are interested that I haven't gone anywhere.

I spent much of the spring laid low by a medical condition. Once that resolved, I was faced with reasonable weather and a garden in dire need of attention. Now I'm facing a totally different medical condition that's going to take me off my feet and limit my mobility for a time. Therefore, I've spent as much time as possible enjoying summer's charms as I can, while I can -- as the old adage says, "Make hay while the sun shines." I'm playing in the dirt as much as I can, and walking barefoot in the soft green grass of the lawn. The tricky part is teaching my brown-thumbed wife how to tend the greenery and the flowers while I'm unable to do it myself

My writing has taken a bit of a back seat lately, but it's still percolating behind the scenes. Chapter 11 is in progress. Once I've been confined to quarters, so to speak, I should have the time to devote to finishing it.

In the meantime, I'm alive and kicking, and hoping everyone is patient with me.