#Bullying

Note: This somehow turned into a GARGANTUAN post so you might want to grab a beer, make some popcorn or run to the bathroom.  

Over the past year bullying has come to the forefront in local, state and national news.  About this time last year, my attention was brought to The Bullying Project.  While I was never able to find it in theaters, I know that it helped spur on a national discussion (there may or may not have been few tears).


For the last few years I have a Sunday tradition of grabbing some coffee and a device with the Internet and opening my google reader.  You see my sole motivation is to check out said reader is that the new secrets are posted by PostSecret, an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.  Seriously a highlight of many Sunday things  (I am a very simple person here my friends).

This is probably one of my favorite postcards I have ever seen and secretly I hope that it was sent in for me (but that is a WAY long shot I know!)

Over the years the last thing listed on many of the posts was listing of events where Frank Warren, the founder and holder of all the secrets, does a live presentation and gives people in the audience a chance to ask questions and share some of their deepest secrets.  A couple of years ago he came to GW and I was able to score a ticket - you could not imagine how excited I was to finally be able to go to an event.  Sadly we ended up having a sorority event that night and I had to give mine to a friend.

Fast forward to two Sundays ago and I saw there was going to be an event in Baltimore; this one would be focusing around bullying (see people ... all the rambling comes together).  Even better, the event would be held in the eclectic American Visionary Art Museum and there would be a guest appearance by the ADORABLE Mrs. Debbie Phelps aka Michael Phelp's mother.  To do you one better, you could tour the museum for free before the event.  So basically this was the only thing getting me through my eight days of 0900-1700 classroom lectures and group work.

While driving over to park I stopped by Federal Hill and got a great shot of the Inner Harbor 
(if I do say so myself).

So I showed up about an hour early so I could run around the museum to see if the inside matched the crazyness of the inside.  Sure enough, it did.  The outside of the building and surrounding art pieces are all made up of glass mosaics and with the sunsetting the whole thing was pretty magical.  The picture on the left of the building does not do it justice, but you can see on the right how many smaller pieces make up the facade.  

Frank Waren was the first of the three person panel to speak.  Not only did we learn that in each book he has published he hides one of his own secrets, we also learned that the below secret (which was posted a few weeks ago on the PostSecret blog) was Frank's.  

The one profound thought from the second speaker, who shared his own story about being bullied as a child, was that "those who hurt, hurt."  Because of what happened to him as an elementary school age child, he has spent his life working to right social inequalities and currently he works with Baltimore's prison population.  After several sessions with some of the hardest criminals the city has to offer he came up with the above thought.  He has found that many of those who are currently serving decades/life sentences were bullied and abused as children.  It makes you wonder, and maybe confirms, the impact the cycle of violence has on the most vulnerable populations.

As soon as Debbie Phelps stood up I knew that I wanted to be best friends.  For years she worked as a teacher and a principle and saw that one of the problems with bullying was that none of the students wanted to be seen as a snitch.  During her tenure in the Baltimore City Public School system she has worked tirelessly to empower students to either stand up for themselves and/or for those around them.  By her last year as Principle she had students telling her exactly what was going on/what would be happening and had some great stories about students who stood up to their bully.

As I have read along with the PostSecret blog I have always wanted to send in a secret, but the problem is that I could never think of something to send in.  As I read the different secrets, every now and again I can find one or two I can relate too.  At the end of the event we were all given an index card and were asked to write down out six word memoir as it related to bullying.  

One of the most profound moments of the evening was when the mother of Grace McComas stood up and told us her daughter's story.  Grace was bullied by her peers at school and the use of social media has made it easier than ever to spread messages of hate.  This has become a greater problem because for the first time bullies can remain relatively anonymous and with the click of a button, the message can be sent to/seen by hundreds of people.  Despite her parents trying to get help and meeting with the school, it was too much for their daughter to handle; unfortunately, she committed suicide a little less than a year ago.  Unfortunately the laws have not caught up with technology and even though they had proof of the bullying it was not enough evidence to stand up in court.  After she shared her story you could hear a pin drop.  You hear about these things happening in the news, but here was a woman sitting six seats away from me.  Until she shared her story I thought she was just another fan of PostSecret.  

So congrats on making it to the end (so basically my mother and maybe my grandmother).  For those of you who made, I hope that this was something that made you think either about your own actions and/or those around you (or inactions); I know for a lot of us in the audience we left doing some introspection.  As a reward for finishing the whole post, I will take the first person who emails me to the American Visionary Art Museum.  Just make sure you get here before June 8th because that is when my Groupon Expires.  

As a final note I should mention that not everything on the site is doom and gloom.  In fact are downright HILARIOUS.  Apparently the #1 secret sent in is along the lines of the one below.  Who knows ... maybe it is yours too!