The Power of One and Social Networking

Brandon Field is a young teacher in Newfoundland.

This is what he wrote in Facebook to Loblaws, a national grocery chain in Canada:

An open letter to Loblaws:

I am writing this letter as a customer, a schoolteacher, and a concerned member of society.

This evening, I was in your Dominion location in Conception Bay South, Newfoundland, when I saw an issue of the National Enquirer that I found extremely offensive. The cover story for this particular issue is "Best and Worst Beach Bodies." The magazine displays on its cover numerous photos of women with captions such as "Beauty, blubber and cellulite," "Belly disaster" and "Larger than life."

More and more, we are seeing the detrimental effects of bullying in our school system. These magazines, which are displayed prominently at every checkout, are a very real form of bullying. What's more, they further perpetuate the idea that women should have flawless bodies, thereby exacerbating the problem of negative body image, particularly among female youths, but also among all sexes and age groups.

As a schoolteacher, how am I to demonstrate to my students the importance of treating others with respect when everywhere they look society is sending a message to the contrary? I shudder at the thought of my teenage students seeing such magazines at your checkouts, only to question their own bodies.

I am sure that Loblaws has not fully considered the damaging effects that these magazines can have on teenagers, and society as a whole, and that you will agree that they have no place in your stores. I have recently seen many of your ads which promote your community involvement, including one filmed in St. John's. If your company is truly dedicated to making a positive change in the community, then you will act swiftly to remedy this problem. I believe that as a responsible member of the Canadian business community, it is only prudent for your company to remove these negative tabloids from your stores.

Sincerely,

Brandon Field

 

And Loblaws removed the offending magazine from their shelves.

 

And this went mainstream - here.

 

Brandon is my hero.

Please: Can We Stop Already?

I find it incredibly sad as a human being on this tiny planet of ours that so many of us show extreme intolerance and hatred for people of colour and people of other sexual orientations.

These views are inevitably passed on to the children in our care, who then turn around and start harassing classmates at school.

The child of 11 that you see above was the victim of endless, daily bullying and anti-gay taunts.

He chose the final way out. He killed himself. His 10 year old sister found him.
His family had moved to Atlanta only last year.

The suicide of Jaheem comes just after the death of 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, a sixth-grader in Springfield, Mass., who hanged himself after relentless antigay bullying.

I grieve these innocent children and their suffering families.

This rings very close to home for me as I have a nephew who was bullied and insulted with gay epithets every day of his school life.

I wrote a post a while back about 2 dear gay friends of mine who have become immune to the endless catcalling.

When on earth is it going to stop? When will sexual orientation and skin colour and gender be totally irrelevant to our lives?

Bullying and the massacre at VT

See link in header above for a terrific post from Nick of the North on bullying.

And it appears that all these massacres are about bullying and the resulting isolation. As a victim myself, I recall feeling those murderous thoughts, feeling the isolation and slashing my own wrist at fourteen as the fear of facing my tormentors would overcome me and my pleading for another sick day at home fell on deaf years.

We need to understand the Chos of the USA to get a handle on how each and every citizen is responsible for this abhorrent and sickening catastrophe, from the happy gun-peddlars to the disdain of his co-students who laughed at his accent and told him to go back to China - a country he had never been to, incidentally. And all this in front of the teacher who condoned the abusive behaviour by not speaking up.

How isolated and lonely was this young man? We cannot even imagine his state of mind.

And here are the words of another troubled young man whose rage also built up into a murderous crescendo.

Luke Woodham, the high school killer in Pearl, Miss., whose murder spree preceded Carneal's by two months, was even more explicit in his rebellion. Minutes before starting his schoolyard rampage, Woodham handed his manifesto to a friend, along with a will. "I am not insane," he wrote. "I am angry. I killed because people like me are mistreated every day. I did this to show society, push us and we will push back. ... All throughout my life, I was ridiculed, always beaten, always hated. Can you, society, truly blame me for what I do? Yes, you will. ... It was not a cry for attention, it was not a cry for help. It was a scream in sheer agony saying that if you can't pry your eyes open, if I can't do it through pacifism, if I can't show you through the displaying of intelligence, then I will do it with a bullet."

But I expect the same lack of self-examination as from 9/11 - a true opportunity is presented to understand and reflect and will be ignored by an increasingly aggressive and isolationist culture.

In the very near future, I can foresee universities being re-invented as armed camps with the only true beneficiary being the giant military industrial complex which includes the Glock/AK 47 et al manufacturers.

We are all barking mad.