Cruelty sets me off. I’ve only been the victim of it one time when I was in high school. I was able to ignore the insults by remembering my mother’s adage to “consider the source.” I was one of the top students in my class and the poor soul who did his best to raise my ire was not the brightest person. I was easy to just stare him down without so much as a reaction.
My mother had told me about being harassed when she was a child walking to school. She was a child of immigrants from Eastern Europe and somehow she and her siblings were judged by members of her community to be “dirty and ignorant.” Mama said that she and her brothers and sisters simply dodged the rocks and the words being thrown and them and did their best to not allow the unfairness of it all to get to them.
I suspect that my mother was fairly good at pretending that she was untouched by the snarling rudeness, but I always noticed a slight change in her facial expression whenever she retold the story of being the butt of prejudice. There was a sadness in her eyes rather than defiance. She reiterated the story often enough to make me believe that it was very difficult for her to understand what she had done to deserve the ugliness of it all.
There always seems to be a small minded group of people in every country, neighborhood, church and school. When I was in high school I knew that most of my classmates were very good and loving people. It was easy to ignore the one person who decided to take a shot at me because he was the exception rather than the rule. Only one other time did I see a repeat of his cruelty and that was on our senior trip to a dude ranch.
We were having a glorious time when a group of boys decided that it would be funny to throw one of my friends into the swimming pool fully clothed. At first I even thought it was an innocent prank until my friend began screaming hysterically that she could not swim. They guys only laughed at her as they held her hands and feet and swing her back and forth over the deep end of the pool. By this time she was literally crying and begging for her life but they were not about to miss the humor of this moment over something as silly as being unable to swim.
That’s when I interceded and demanded with the loudest and most authoritative voice that I was able to muster that they put her down. I think it startled them because I was generally a quiet little mouse. My sudden dominance confused them enough to move away from the pool and set her down on the ground. Trying to save face they laughed and made a few insulting comments about both me and my friend and left.
I still remember holding my trembling friend as she sobbed for a much longer time than I would have expected She was devastated by what had happened and wanted to go home immediately but that was not possible. She did not enjoy another moment of our stay and even commented that the whole trip had been a total disaster and one of the worst moments of her life. Somehow those ruffians had broken her and none of my efforts were successful in cheering her up.
Most of the time cruelty begins as a silly effort to be admired. The person who resorts to bullying is often devoid of most redeeming qualities. Bullies are small minded people who believe that hurting someone else makes them seem strong and powerful, but most of us know that such is rarely the case. If we think about what has made them that way we generally realize that we feel sorry for them, the exact opposite of the kind of admiration that they are seeking.
Years passed before I saw those same guys again and little had changed in their lives. They were still boasting and thumping their chests even as the rest of us saw through their bravado. I learned that several of my classmates had endured their angry antics and most of the time people reacted the way that I had in not giving them the attention for which they were starved. Still, I wondered how sad it must be to be them. When the only popularity card we have to play is cruelty or hate we are quite empty.
I worry of late because cruelty has become a national pastime with our president leading the way. When he disagrees with a woman he insults her looks, her intelligence, her accomplishments. It’s well known that he called his airline pilot brother, “ a cab driver in the sky.” He makes it a sport to belittle people and describe minorities with vile words aimed mostly to make himself feel more superior. In another time he would have been shunned from polite society but somehow we live in an age where his crudeness is viewed as a sign of great strength.
We’ve seen this kind of story before and it rarely ends well. Persecuting innocent people only goes so far in satiating the lust for acceptance. Sticks and stones break bones but words can feel more murderous. Sooner or later everyone has enough because they realize that he does those things only for himself not to make life better for others. Ultimately there is never enough cruelty for such a person and there is no longer a good reason to ignore the destruction that he is creating. the majority of good folks demand that he stop. It’s how it has always worked. When we have had enough the bullies are shunned just as they should be and that includes even the seemingly most powerful ones. It’s their own cruelty that ultimately makes them vulnerable.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 