Bullying is Not Just for Playgrounds
Working on the "Words and Violence" Curriculum for the last year has made me acutely aware of the power and impact of words.
The power of words has been recently demonstrated with a worldwide protest against the use of an image and program that crossed a line of civilty and a in the worldwide focus and discussion about a fallen leader-- U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords.
People are dead including a nine year old girl because for whatever deranged reason, someone found what someone else was saying unacceptable and tried to silence a voice. People died in the crossfire. Crossfire and crosshairs-- those were the buzzwords. They are words that hold charge. And the words we speak should be examined for their lethalness-- just like any other wielded weapon. We can maim, harm and murder people with the weaponry of words.
Words harm or they heal. Words bully. And sometimes they kill.
See my article on bullying with words and images at the Huffington Post...
A few Thoughts...
When I think about it, my own life is no less rich and the living no less inspiring than my pioneering ancestors and I come from a long line of Indians and outlaws so don't ever turn your back on me!
Life is, after all, a slice of human consciousness lived from its place in human evolution. "From here to eternity" as it were-- from earth to the stars, from personal space to cyberspace, from a small local footprint to the world reduced to the size of a notebook and sitting on your lap!
As a child I lived with the perpetual and immenent threat of annihilation. That's child abuse! It wasn't a kid-friendly world and I couldn't understand why the grown-ups who were in charge weren't doing something?
So at age seven with my face in the window eyes turned up into the night sky and staring at the stars I made a vow: "When I am a grown-up, I will do something."
My writing is that something and I write to "simply change the world." If that sounds like a lack of humility it isn't because I know that one person absolutely can change the world and I've met some who have.
Kay Kennedy put together an anthology that puts the reader in the midst of history to view it from the inside out.
When I was in high school and even college, history classes were stale and boring featuring memorization and regurgitation of dates that coincided with events that had no human face, certainly no magic, and no life!
Anthologies are great fun and stores are rich remembrances. History books chronicle; stories are little narrative slices of living. History comes alive through story. I often think of my grandmother and her story, her life-- the history she lived. In her lifetime she saw humankind evolve from horse and buggy to man on the moon.
BARBARA'S WORK IN "LOOKING BACK"
I was a sixties kid and for the youth of the sixties, turmoil, disillusionment, and revolution were everyday 'business as usual'. Like a radio perpetually on low volume, fear and death dronned on in the background. The superpowers threatened to extinguish all life on the planet, the Vietnam War was escalating and peers were being escorted home under American Flag blankets. The civil rights and equal rights movements were testing human civility, and faster than one could recover from one shock another real life hero would fall to yet another assassin. Despair was commonplace. Contrast that with a man on the moon... we could conquer space travel but couldn't make nukes or war obsolete! It was a time when youth needed hope because hope was scarce. When it was finally resurrected, it came in the form of idealism and a philosophy of brotherly and universal love. Perfect principles; imperfect execution.
For others who contributed to "Looking Back," the history is different for each because the "times" were different as well as the perspective of the individuals. The stories of human societal evolution are enlightening, heartwarming, poignant and spellbinding. They put a human face on the past.
And there are people now who are putting a face on the future...
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