In November 2010, I wrote a post called “Anti-Bullying Starts in the First Grade” for my blog, Portrait of an Adoption. I was concerned because my daughter, Katie, was upset about being teased for carrying a Star Wars water bottle. Apparently, Star Wars was “only for boys, not for girls.”
It was the post that launched a thousand Geeks. Comments poured in so fast that they crashed the entire ChicagoNow server. Katie’s story appeared on international and national news shows. Radio talk shows had a field day with the story, and hundreds of bloggers wrote posts about the Star Wars teasing. A Facebook event was created in support of Geek Pride and Katie, and over thirty-five thousand people participated. Feminists, Star Wars fans, adoptees, adoptive parents, former victims of teasing and bullying—all jumped to a young fangirl’s defense.
Why did the article strike such a responsive chord? Because in a time of heartbreaking headlines about cyberbullying, my child experienced a refreshing new phenomenon—a term I am calling “cybersupporting.” People were hungry for a bullying case that offered hope of a happy ending, and Katie’s situation became a chance to step in early and support the victim.
Our family has been overwhelmed by the generosity of spirit that the Star Wars community has bestowed upon us. Yes, there have been gifts of lightsabers and Star Wars posters, Legos, and even a TaunTaun sleeping bag. But of all the gifts, the most profound have been the stories you have shared with us of your own histories with bullying.
It is those stories which prompt me to write to you today and invite you to participate in a massive cyber-supporting campaign that will benefit ALL victims of bullying, instead of just benefitting one lucky little girl.
We invite you to create and upload your own inspirational videos where you share your stories with those who are caught in the cruel winter of bullying. Tell a struggling stranger to hang in there. Reassure a taunted child that he or she is not alone. Maybe you were once a geeky kid who was bullied, and you could offer some encouragement. Maybe you were a former bully, and you could offer an apology.
Please visit www.teambullied.com to share your story and see the stories of others.
I have spent the past eighteen months researching and learning about bullying. I have interviewed hundreds of people—parents, teachers, kids, bullies, victims, celebrities, geeks, authors, social workers, psychologists—all in an effort to understand why bullying is so pervasive in our culture and to learn what we can do to improve the situation.
If you are interested in learning more, you can order my book, Bullied: What Every Parent, Teacher, and Kid Needs to Know About Ending the Cycle of Fear (HarperOne, 2012) on the “About” page at the Team Bullied website. I spoke with many of YOU in the process of writing Bullied, and I am grateful for your honesty and trust.
The Team Bullied video project is dedicated to everyone who has ever felt alone due to peer victimization. It is for the child who cries at night because she dreads what the next day at school will bring. It is for the stuttering boy who elects silence over speech. It is for the student with autism who is bullied on the playground, and it is for the overweight person who is afraid to eat in front of others for fear of being mocked.
It is for the brothers and sisters who worship at an altar that others fear, and it is for those whose skin color becomes a label for the person inside. To the princess boys and the Star Wars girls, the nonconformists, the marginalized, the ignored and the outcasts, the hidden Jedi of the universe, I offer these words to you:
You are not alone.
Tags: Bullying, Katie Goldman
I remember when the story about Katie first went online and I actually have done blog posts for the past few years about the whole “Wear Star Wars, Share Star Wars” Day. It’s cool that you’re writing a book about bullying to inspire hope into all of those people who went through the same thing your daughter did… or worse. You rock!
I was bullied during the school years so I know that feeling of isolation and loneliness and being the odd one out. Not to mention that I didn’t have the support factor at that time as well.
Also at one point, I began bullying in order to fit into the cool crowd. Now that I’m older, I’ve learn from my mistakes and regrets and accept people for who they are.
But it’s great to see the wide appreciation of support for this young girl and in turn, she got the last laugh.
I was bullied and still am because my peers think im too old for star wars.
I was bullied from as early as I can remember up until I changed schools at 13. Boys in daycare humiliated me physically and emotionally because I was a different race. Now most of those kids are dead from OD or a drunken fight. And I’m still struggling with the baggage. As an adult I find it staggering how people don’t want to be made aware that this problem exists. Maybe because the average Russian citizen is still rather racist and ignorant, I’m not sure, but people don’t want to acknowledge the problem.
Bullying is an unavoidable human phenomenon IMO. It is just a specific expression of natural human hierarchy building, a tool we need as a species, because a chain of command saves collective time and effort, which aids in survival for the tribe. If you break down the weakest, whatever that means in a given context, in this case a girl interested in something “boyish”, you elevate yourself, ensuring that when critical decision time comes, you have that much fewer people to compete with. There is no guarantee that the one left in power is right, but cutting through the red tape, as it were, is still worth it. The victim does a service to its species. That is what I think.
Of course, in a modern Western context, with all its wealth and privilege, there is an interest in taming certain expressions of this human impulse, even if we depend upon leadership and chains of command as much as we ever did.
The real question is just how much hope there can be of taming one of our presumably oldest species traits through culture alone. I’m guessing, not a whole lot. But by all means, try as best you can. Using culture to adapt to current circumstances is also an adaptive human trait. If nuns can fight their reproductive drive through religion, maybe people can fight their need for a social hierarchy in certain cases too.
Dude my friends tell me that I need to stop loving star wars. “You need to start playing MW3 and HALO and Minecraft and not this Republic Commando and Battlefront II stuff.”
I could care less cause I totally LOVE STAR WARS!!!!!!! *go ahsoka and han solo!*