Bullies

I grew up in the ’90’s so this is my idea of trolls…what I have been dealing with are not trolls, but bullies. And “In My Day” there were no anti-bullying laws or anti-bullying movement- partly because when you went home, you were safe from the bullies (well, unless you had abusive parents or siblings!) because there was no Facebook and such. So instead of offing yourself, you were more likely to go play with your troll dolls. At least, that’s what I did.

My parents- and every other Important Grown-up, always told me and other kids to just ignore the bullies and they’d go away. Well sometimes it worked, but often it didn’t. Especially because I sucked at just ignoring them! Autistic kids are really easy to get a reaction out of, and we’re like bully magnets. Sometimes, when I was able, I even defended other kids who were bullied- often “fat” kids.

Oftentimes, the bullies were never punished because of “he said, she said” situations. Who started it? Who deserved what was coming to them? Was there something Darwinian about it, that weird, or awkward or weaker kids needed to be culled from the herd, and taught a harsh life lesson to conform, to “know their place”? People defending bullies often seem to think so.

Unfortunately I’ve found online Heathen groups to be pretty full of bullies, and a group I belong to has been accused of bullying behavior itself, based on calling out the policies of another group, and that they claim to have suffered repercussions for. I don’t speak for the group, I am just one individual, so I am waiting for the dust to settle and statements to be made by people in charge. Whether it’s a good idea for us to publicly identify groups that have membership policies we disagree with- I suppose can be a matter of debate- is live and let live a better policy? I don’t claim to always be in the right. It’s not always clear what doing the right thing is. I want to be clear that this blog is just *my opinions* about both religion and politics, and random other topics of interest, it does not represent any organization I belong to, religious or political, nor does the blog represent my own organization. I am not “obsessed” with race or racism, I have been writing about it a lot due to current events, and because the society I live in is pretty darn “obsessed” with race, even if it pretends it isn’t. Just because *you* don’t experience something, doesn’t make it not real.

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