NewsTaco

By Janice Fuentes, Our Tiempo

While I enjoy a pleasant conversation with Kelby, one of the subjects in the much anticipated documentary “Bully”, the movie’s director, a very tired Lee Hirsch joins us for a more formal interview process.  After introductions are dispensed with, it’s clear to me that this has been a long day for all involved with this project.  Some of the kids and parents who are part of the film have been meeting folks at the Ritz Carlton lobby for the last hour and even Harvey Weinstein was seen making the rounds; in all, a pretty busy day.  But when you feel you are on a mission….busy and tired are not enough to slow you down…

Only those who may have been living under a rock for the last month may not be aware of the trials and tribulations that the movie “Bully” has gone through to secure a PG-13 rating.  The journey from R to Unrated to PG-13 did seem as improbable as the chances of wiping bullying from the face of the earth…but perseverance has its rewards…

“Bully” has not only secured its PG-13 rating this week but it has been a hit in the markets where it has already opened.  A wider release is expected today and we have yet to learn if the controversy regarding the ratings fight and the sensitive subject matter translates into box office prowess.

Not that Hirsch was expecting any of this when he first tackled the issue. His reasons for doing this project were deeply personal. Bullied as a kid, Hirsch is quick to share that he feels that he probably became a filmmaker to find that voice that he didn’t really have when he was growing up.  “The idea of doing a film about bullying is something I carried with me for a long time and didn’t know how to do it, how to approach it.  I really just kind of hit that moment when I couldn’t just keep it away any more.  And as soon as you start, you triple the urgency…you  realize  you are doing something important that people need…at its core I wanted to create a film that gave people a voice”.

While the movie features more 5 different families, I ask Hirsch why he centered the narrative around young Alex, a shy and introspective 12-year old from Sioux City, Iowa who was born premature and defied all odds to make it into the world.  “I wished I had access to Kelby’s school…but the access issue dictated who became a subject in the movie.”  Following Alex gave him the access he needed to make a documentary and therefore became the central arc story “because it had a three act structure to it and so beautifully spoke to all parties, educators, parents… his transformation, which you see from the beginning on screen and the access dictated that.”

In fact, after watching the movie and the living hell that was Alex’ life in school and in the bus he took to and from school, I must say that it was a relief to see Alex in the flesh. After being so tormented and fragile-looking in the movie, he is now more grown up, stronger and taller than I remembered him from watching the film only two weeks earlier.  In fact, Alex seems confident and strong, which considering what he’s been through makes for a heck of a development.

As a person who lived what his subjects in the movie are going through, Hirsch is very clear about how the movie changed his perspective. “I learned how easy it is to have people choose to stop it.  I learned how quickly, with the right spark, you can impact young people to make a difference.  I learned that it’s just as violent as I remembered it and that there is just as much indifference out there as I remembered it.  I learned that the numbers of people having this experience are in the millions…”

And what are kids experiencing bullying to do? “The onus should not be on them to fix the situation.  They need to keep looking for that person who will stand up for them.  There’s no magic bullet but they need to know that that they don’t have to endure that…that that’s illegal, that you don’t have to take that.  I think that is one of the strengths of this movie is that it tells kids you are not alone, there will be people who will stand with you… your experience is valid. Don’t let this get.  For a kid that’s getting beat up every day, that is torture, nothing else.  We want to build a movement that is pretty big, that stands with them and says we are changing this narrative…

And this he has done. The lessons learned in this process clearly do not stop with the release of the movie.  The movie has launched “The Bully Project,” a website that highlights solutions that both address immediate needs and lead to systemic change. Folks behind www.thebullyproject.com  hope this project will catalyze audience awareness to action with a series of tools and programs supported by regional and national partners.

Jennice Fuentes is a cultural commentator and a frequent guest on various local and national radio and television programs. She is also an actress whose professional career includes a recurring role in the critically-acclaimed HBO series “K Street”; a movie for 20th Century Fox; as well as several independent film roles and theater credits. Ms. Fuentes’ movie reviews, celebrity interviews and entertainment articles have appeared in a number of Spanish language magazines, including People en Espanol, Caras Magazine, and Vista Magazine, the national monthly newspaper supplement, the Puerto Rican daily, Primera Hora, El Tiempo Latino, the largest Spanish weekly in the Washington, D.C. and Filmoteca.com.

[Photo by Our Tiempo]

I think I grew up within the generation that had it socially tougher than my parents, but not as easy as our children. Sure, my parents had to cross a border in the dead of night, but they never had to deal with going to elementary school as an ESL student. My parents might have been able to survive a Mexican devaluation crisis, but they never had to deal with the playground jungle.

Elementary school was the kind of environment where you kept your head above water by one of two methods: either you were the kid that came in and knocked people’s heads off, or you were that merciless kid that made fun of people until they broke down in tears and became a psychological mess.

I fell into the latter category; I was a mess of flabby dough, so the only thing I could do is rely on observational humor. I was an artist at my craft. Anyone can tell you that your mother is so fat that she fell in love and broke it. I was the kind of kid that would ask a kid if his parents considered him a regret, or just another mistake.

For the record, let me state that this demonic side was not a regular part of my repertoire, but sometimes someone would get out of place and make fun of my shoes — even though back then Nikes were a rarity, while anything off the Payless Shoe Source rack was the norm. However, if you took your Payless-wearing-behind and made fun of my Payless shoes, it was most definitely on. It was magical and profane, like watching rams in the wild lock horns for dominance – the only difference being that these rams wore shoes that came apart when exposed to rainfall.

My generation was the last generation to grow up without self-esteem or feelings. Some teachers were quick to tell you what was on their mind with flowery language filled with profane adjectives. I remember there was this one time in third grade when the teacher kicked out a student from the classroom because his sweat made him smell like a wet dog. Back then, it was rare for a parent to take the word of a child over a student.

Things are different now, for better or worse. I work at a public school and I can tell you that children no longer go after each other in an individual basis. They now rely on their packs, as they strike when their target is alone or disconnected from their own pack. As an adult, I need witnesses to back up any of my arguments. Parents have raised their kids to believe that their self-esteem is paramount — and that they are equal to any teacher, and any unsatisfactory form of discipline does not apply to them.

I am not an advocate for criminalizing youth or excommunicating students from the classroom, but I am sure that a realistic medium must exist. Self-esteem is an essential in formulating our self-worth, but we also need the instincts to adapt.  The world will not hold your hand, but it will definitely chew it off.  Maybe if some of these students realized that their moms are so dumb, they bought Cheerios thinking them to be doughnut seeds, the world would be a happier place.

[Photo By ND Strupler]

It should come as no surprise that, in the wake of Alabama’s anti-Latino immigrant law, sentiments towards Latinos in that state are becoming less than civil. If it wasn’t something you expected would happen in wake of Alabama’s law — that Latinos, regardless of legal status, are being harassed — then you haven’t been paying attention.

We wrote a story previously about how the same thing happened in Georgia right around the time the anti-immigrant law there passed. Now the Associated Press reported:

Spanish-speaking parents say their children are facing more bullying and taunts at school since Alabama’s tough crackdown on illegal immigration took effect last month. Many blame the name-calling on fallout from the law, which has been widely covered in the news, discussed in some classrooms and debated around dinner tables.

Justice Department officials are monitoring for bullying incidents linked to the law.

If you give people a reason or an opportunity to openly harass Latinos, they’re going to do it. They did it in Georgia, where cops went “Hispanic hunting” and Puerto Ricans were being denied driver’s licenses. Despite trying to frame these issues as ones of “legality,” what ends up happening is that the lowest common denominator is adopted, and anyone who “looks illegal” is targeted.

That could be you, it could be me, it could be whoever someone in Alabama with opportunity and cause decides.

[Image Made With Mike Licht, WPclipart]

I had a horrible time in Mexican Kindergarten. Much of it had it can be blamed on me. I had not developed any kind of social instincts at the age of five. I was easily distracted. I was not yet conditioned like the rest of the “good” children. The classroom I was in only had three walls, with a playground where the fourth one should have been. I had never experienced the joy of grasshoppers, beetles or ladybugs. Those were the days where everything with more than two legs captivated my attention. The nun at the head of the class was secondary. We did not get along too well. She had already hit me for not knowing the words to the Mexican national anthem and for having dirt under my fingernails.

My mother was partially to blame for my lack of adaptation. She dressed me every day with these creased navy blue slacks and blindingly white shirts. This gave the student body the impression that I felt I was better than them. Secondly, my mother would always pack what others considered a luxurious lunch for me in a school where that was almost unheard of. There was no cafeteria and the other children were told to go home for lunch and then expected to come back to conclude the day. There was a span of time where I was hit or beat up on a daily basis by either the older students or the nuns. I hated school. I hated being beat up for an egg sandwich I was not going to eat anyway.

The thing was that at that point, Mexico did not believe in social promotion. This meant that you had pre-teen second and third graders. My older cousin was a second grader when I started, and did not go much further after that. Belén celebrated her quinceañera as a third grader. She was already 18 when the school decided that enough was enough and gave her a participation degree — which was more of a handshake than a culmination certificate. There was this one student who went by the name Rascala. He was either 13 or 14 and a fourth grader. He would seek me out across the yard in order to take my lunch and beat me up as some kind of sick dessert ritual. The beatings continued until the day my mother decided to intervene.

My mother was a proud momma wolf. She grabbed Rascala by the shoulders and demanded to know why he was messing with her cub. He said that I was an arrogant American-born jerk that went around with sandwiches while everyone else had nothing to eat. He was tired of me calling him, “Waquala.” My mother explained to him that, due to a speech impediment, I could not roll my Rs correctly. I was 12 before I stopped calling trees “angoles.” They both sort of laughed it off, and then Rascala promised that he would stop beating me up.

From that day out, my mother paid for my protection. She would pack two sandwiches. I would give Rascala the egg sandwich and would keep the bolillo with cajeta for myself. I even started making friends because they would all marvel at how English translations sounded funny. I started being funny and riffing Seinfieldian humor by commenting on how the English translations to monster and mustard sounded almost identical. I had a captive audience for my one-man recess show. By the way, those that did not laugh had to answer to Rascala, so I had most of my bases covered. Lucky for me, my mom’s egg sandwiches were the crack cocaine of that day.

[Photo By Олександр]

When I was in sixth grade, there was a girl in school that decided I was someone she could pick on. My parents had moved my sisters and I to a new neighborhood from another part of town and I was new to this middle school. This girl was taller than me, and definitely tougher than me. She was in my homeroom class and liked talking trash using vulgar language. For about three days straight, during the beginning of our last class, she’d approach my desk and taunt me.

“¿Qué? Te crees mucho? “(What? You think you’re real tough?) “I can beat you up. Come on. A puñazos.” (Spanish slang for “Let’s have some blows”). I was five feet tall, pretty skinny, had a bad hair cut and wore white, polka-dotted yellow bell-bottom pants. I was far from looking tough.

I couldn’t figure out what I had done to her and would politely and, somewhat scared, refused her invitation to fight. The bell would ring and she’d go to her seat. The class would end and she’d throw in one last verbal jab as she’d walk out of the classroom to go home, repeating her desire to have blows with me.“A puñazos,” she’d say as she looked me up and down. My line of defense was simply to ignore her. But I couldn’t ignore the anxiety she was causing me.

If you asked me why I didn’t tell anyone, I couldn’t give you a straight answer. Fear? Yes, perhaps of being labeled a tattletale or for being weak for not standing up for myself. One thing I did know is that I wanted her to stop bothering me. I knew what I had to do. But I was afraid. On the third day of this bullying, I became more fed up than afraid. Like clockwork, she approached my desk and once again extended her invitation to go at it. This time with heart racing and a composed face I responded, “Órale. A puñazos.” (You’re on. Let’s fight.) “I’ll meet you behind the portables after school,” I said as tough as I could sound. For a second she looked taken aback, then she put on her tough game face and accepted my challenge. “Órale,” she replied, and walked back to her desk. For the rest of the class period I was shaking in my boots but also psyching myself up to do what I had to do. I had to put a stop to her bullying me.

The school bell rang marking the end of class and what was to be the end of my anxiety. I slowly walked to the back of the school portables feeling the anger building inside me for having to do this. By the time I got to the designated spot I was as ready to brawl as my too-tall bully. I put my books on the ground and waited with clinched fists and still a little afraid. After about 15 minutes I realized she was not going to show up. I waited a little longer then I picked up my books and walked away feeling very relieved and baffled at her no-show. The following day she walked right past my desk minus the taunts. Over the years we became friendly and traveled in the same social circles.

My lesson then and now is that you gotta nip it in the bud. The longer this bad behavior lasts, the more power you give it. That was my personal solution to bullying. Did my teacher see what was going on right in his own classroom? I don’t know. But he should have. Much of the bullying that goes on in schools happens in the hallways. There should be an assigned teacher in every hallway wearing a big orange patrol belt that reads “Bully Patrol” In big black letters. They should walk up and down the corridors and pluck out any student who is bullying another and right there and then give them the walk of shame straight to the principal’s office for swift punishment. I am aware that the problem is much more complex than this but it seems that schools are putting the onus on the bullied kids. These victims are tasked with having to go and report the incident but who’s listening?

Jamey Rodemeyer was a 14-year-old high school student in Buffalo, New York who took his own life because he wasn’t being heard. These are his words from an “It Gets Better” campaign, YouTube video he created, “They taunt me in the hallways. And I thought I could never escape it.” In his blog he wrote. “I always say how bullied I am but no one listens. What do I have to do so people will listen?”

My question is: why didn’t the teachers see this happening in the hallways? Where are the parents of these bullies? If he’s telling someone, why does he feel the only solution is suicide? Somehow we are not providing the proper solution for this pandemic problem.

Here’s another example of a well-intended rule that sends mixed signals. I have a friend whose son was being harassed by another student during a physical education class. The verbal back and forth between the two boys went on for several minutes without teacher intervention, until the aggressor got physical and the other student hit back in self-defense. The school has a zero tolerance for violence. This means both boys were suspended for 10 days. Where’s the justice in that? In the “real world” everyone has his or her day in court. The victim presents his or her case of self-defense, and a judge or jury will weigh the evidence and apply the proper punishment to the aggressor once the case if proven.

In the case of the two boys, a self-defense argument was not allowed. Both were guilty. What other kid is gonna want to defend another from being bullied if the consequences are 10 days of suspension on his or her record for trying to do good? There’s too much red tape and too much political correctness for a problem that has become so pandemic there is now a word for it, “bullycide.” Every seven seconds someone is being bullied. Shame on the bullies and shame on the grownups for not moving fast enough to solve this deadly problem. If the best we can do is tell bullied kids to wait until it “gets better,” these young victims are going to keep losing hope.

[Photo By Eddie~S]