• Anti-Bullying Meeting

The Community Room at the VFW was the site for Wildomar's first Anti-Bullying meeting.


The meeting was broken into two parts. 

The first part was a powerpoint presentation lead by Deputy Mike Darling out of the Lake Elsinore division. Much of the information was common sense type of stuff, but good to hear again.

Deputy Mike Darling discussing bullying at schools. 

The second part was led by pastor Willie J. Oliver of Grace and Truth Worship Ministry. He worked from a handout that discussed six types of bullying.

• Physical
• Verbal/Mental
• Relational Aggression
• Cyberbullying
• Sexual/Gender Bullying
• Prejudicial

• Physical is the most obvious and occurs when people use actions (or threats of violence) to gain power and control. 

• Verbal is what you'd imagine, where name calling is used on a target. 

• Relational is more of an insidious type of bullying where the target is ostracized by use of rumor spreading in attempts to sabotage the target's social standing. 

• Cyberbullying, especially among school age kids, is used to harass and embarrass the target. 

• Sexual/Gender bullying is often marked by crude comments, vulgar gestures, uninvited touching, sexual propositioning and/or porongraphic materials. 

• Prejudicial is based on things like race, religion and gender identification. 

  

Pastor Willie J. Oliver discussing anti-bullying.

Part of the handout included many phrases that adults use when confronted with bullying by their kids.

• Some examples were:
• Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me.
• It's good for you. It toughens you up.
• Fight your own battles.
• You must be doing something to bring it on yourself.
• I was bullied and it never did me any harm.
• You've got to take care of yourself.
• Boys will be boys.
• Girls will be girls.

The crowd was small in size, but there was still good audience participation, which made for an engaging hour plus.

Nelson from The Simpsons, Matt Dillon from My Bodyguard,
Scott Farkus from A Christmas Story.

☺

I've never liked the idea of bullying, and thankfully I was never really a target for it, and neither were any of my children. 

Though, like most every other kid growing up, I did have to deal with it a couple of times in school. 

Junior high school is where I had a small taste of it. Three examples were in 8th grade.

• One had a guy tell me he was going to get me after school. I remember taking a different route home for about a week until it blew over.
• Another was at lunch where I got on the radar of a tough kid. He came up to me and thumped me on the chest and was menacing me. I've never had a problem with going to authority, and it just so happened that the Vice Principal (with a reputation for being very adept with a paddle) was about 20 feet away. I promptly went over to him, and was next in line to talk to him, when the aggressor did a 180 and apologized to me for the "misunderstanding".
• The last one was kind of funny. My family moved quite a bit when I was young, and I knew we were moving out of the area when someone basically challenged me to a fight. It was funny because he said, "Hey Morabito, are you Mill's brother? (My brother's friend Derek's last name) Let's fight." It being a Friday, as lunch was ending, I suggested that we fight the next Monday. He's probably still there waiting for me to show up.

As much as I loathe bullying, it's not realistic to call every unpleasant encounter "bullying". It's up to the parents to know their kids and if there is real bullying going on. 

When that is determined to be the case, it's up to the parents to step in and bring it to the authorities. In most cases that's the teacher or principal of the school.

Then there is the other side of the coin. 
The parents of the bully. 

If you are one of those, and you don't do your best to straighten your kid out, you are a POS. No offense or anything, but you probably already know it and don't care anyway. 
 

Officer Mike Darling, *Jeanna, Mayor Bridgette Moore, (I didn't get her name), *Jasmine and Pastor Willie J. Oliver.     * Part of "Royal Generation".

They are looking to have quarterly meetings on this topic and I'd like to see community support build for such forums in the future. 

•          •          •

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
— Bishop Desmond Tutu

Wildomar Rap is more about live and let live than wanting your lunch money.