Calistoga schools: Student writing confronts bullying

My ‘No Bully’ mugshot

As a survivor of bullying, I try to monitor campus culture to verify that bullying is being acknowledged and dealt with at my former schools.

Most recently, my research led me to “Taking Action on Bullying,” student writing produced for “The Paw” journalism project at Calistoga Junior/Senior High School.

I want to thank Paw staff for their willingness to address bullying in the Calistoga schools. I was physically attacked, verbally abused and socially ostracized throughout my tenure at Calistoga Elementary and Calistoga Junior/Senior High School.

Bullying and ‘zero tolerance’

Cartoon image created with Bitstrips

A keyword search on the phrase “zero tolerance,” performed July 22, 2016, returned 14 usages in reference to bullying among writings on my blog.

Autism: Letters help shape perceptions in media

At TheInvisibleStrings.com, M. Kelter offers perceptive analysis of autism coverage in the media, arguing that a wider range of stories are conveyed through the “new media” of blogs and social posts, but are limited to fragmented audiences.

No respect for journalists who condone child murder

At Mediaite.com, writer Tommy Christopher calls for a complete retraction and discipline for everyone involved in a CBS This Morning report that excused the murder of Alex Spourdalakis, a 14-year-old child with autism.

“On Friday’s CBS This Morning, reporter Sharyl Attkisson delivered a report that was fatally flawed on several levels, but I hesitate to even mention the reporting itself, because even if everything in the report was 100% above-board and true, it would not support the sick conclusion that permeates it: that Alex Spourdalakis’ mother had no choice but to murder him. This sounds like an exaggeration, surely, but it is not. This was the explicit message of CBS News’ report.”

Christopher offers a lengthy analysis of omissions and distortions in the CBS report. I won’t duplicate his efforts. Suffice to say the choice of footage and commentary suggests a no-win, hopeless situation in which child murder was the only way out.

Petition seeks blocking ability on LinkedIn

Screen capture via SocialTimes.com: LinkedIn engineers propose member blocking

A Change.org petition asks that the LinkedIn professional social network offer what other social networks provide: the ability to block an abusive user. As related by Social Times, Anna Rihtar created the petition in response to stalking on social media by her boss:

“Rihtar could use her privacy settings to stop her stalker from reaching her on Twitter and Facebook, but she found that LinkedIn’s policies were different from those of the other networks. ‘Having written to LinkedIn customer service about blocking a user,’ she explained in her petition, ‘I was told I was only able to block a member if that member is prohibited from having a LinkedIn account by virtue of a court order.’”

Aligning LinkedIn with these other policies seems only common sense.

I was whomperjawed viewing a post on Rihtar’s privacy/blocking petition group on LinkedIn, suggesting that the dissatisfied user “send [a] message” by not using LinkedIn.

When I signed the petition today, I included the following statement:

“As a consequence of speaking out about being bullied in school, I’ve been subject to ‘victim-blaming,’ holding the victim responsible for somehow failing to prevent the abuse. With this petition, I see an attempt to redress a similar injustice. Requiring the target of harassment or stalking to curtail professional networking activities adds an unfair additional burden to the trauma of being abused.”

As Rihtar told Social Times regarding posts similar to the one I viewed: “The most important thing to anybody in the working world is networking and making connections with people. LinkedIn is the best avenue for that right now.”

There may be a positive outcome on the horizon; Social Times reproduced a LinkedIn “HackDay” entry from December 2012: “Having a stalker is a real thing, and we have no ability to allow members to block their stalkers. ... This hack fixes this problem, and lets you block members who are being unprofessional in a professional social network.”

Cosplay ≠ Consent

Here's Cosplay ≠ Consent, created by Kanthara on Tumblr, that is rich with themes I blog about: victim-blaming and the importance of bystanders to combat/negate bullying. Add to it the realm of science fiction/fantasy fandom in which, far from being an inclusive haven, women can be targets of hostility on the basis of their looks.

Credit goes to my brother Andrew Parkhill for bringing my attention to this image, which offers commentary on an incident at PAX East in which a male journalist posed sexually-suggestive questions to women portraying Lara Croft.

Do businesses’ weak policies invite bullying?

Image by Baron Christopher Hanson

Writing at the SmartBlog on Leadership, Baron Christopher Hanson argues that “the perceived weaknesses of a business, combined with desperate customers and evadable transaction policies, may actually entice bully customers.”

Hanson makes an important distinction between “high-expectation” customers who, “[a]lthough challenging ... are usually honest, civil and pay well for exceptional value or treatment,” and bullying customers, who are “usually dishonest, uncivil, verbally abusive and do not pay well.”

According to Hanson, the latter’s tactics “border on scam artistry.”

Hanson’s essay is of great interest to me as a survivor of bullying. I agree with Hanson that businesses should enforce clear policies but am not sure that all instances of bullying by customers can be attributed to perceived weaknesses in the target. This comes rather closer to victim-blaming than I feel comfortable with.

From time to time while working at a northern California newspaper, I encountered people who were textbook models for how not to behave with the media: They demanded free papers and behaved as though their announcements were more important than other submissions. The problems in these cases were not evadable policies or perceived weaknesses in the company; instead these people expected themselves to be exempt from rules that everyone else had to follow.

Hanson’s premise is worth thinking about when examining company policies, with the caveat that strict enforcement won’t stop people being mean. But hopefully if a business doesn’t cave to their bullying, these mean people will go away.

Victim-blaming in journalism?

Dictionary.com definition for ‘alleged’

Steve Buttry makes an interesting argument about the phrase, “alleged victim,” when reporting on a crime: “It’s a blame-the-victim term we should banish forever from the journalism lexicon.”

TV anchor chastises bully

Television anchor Jennifer Livingston of WKBT-TV stands up to bullying in a video shared by Todd Wasserman on Mashable.com.

People really do blame the victim

Original cartoon, generated online using MakeBeliefsComix.com

At the invitation of a friend of mine, Anat, I read a post by guest blogger Angie Tupelo, “Allies and Pseudo Allies,” on “Your Passport to Complaining (is your willingness to do something about it)” by Paxus.

Challenge Day addresses bullying head-on

A group of high school students from around the lake are raising money to finance Challenge Day at Clear Lake High School in Lakeport. Having heard first-hand from community volunteers who participated in Lower Lake and Middletown, I think this would be a worthwhile program at any and all of our schools because it deals with bullying head-on.

School play promotes discussion of uncomfortable reality

A dramatic performance of “Bang, Bang, You’re Dead” by the Calistoga Junior/Senior High School drama department offers much-needed encouragement to talk about violence and bullying in our schools.

Calistoga schools finally discuss bullying

I would like to thank the Calistoga Junior/Senior High School drama class for being willing to address the controversial issue of school bullying. I am a 1986 graduate who was subjected to bullying and ostracism throughout nearly all of my K-12 career in the Calistoga schools.

MakeBeliefs Comix: Classic hallmarks of bullying

While claiming that bullying never happened at my high school and that I just didn’t make an effort, my accuser exhibits classic hallmarks of bullying: verbal put-downs and threats of social exclusion with victim-blaming thrown in. Created via MakeBeliefs Comix, this comic strip utilizes text from an email sent by someone who graduated from Calistoga Junior/Senior High School 20 years before I did, and objected to one of my newspaper columns about being bullied in school.