Lip Service

By Cindy Gomez
Editor

Of the many important discussions happening in our community, bullying is one of the big ones. We’ve seen too many abuses, beatings and deaths to keep quiet about it anymore. But, some people are getting confused about what bullying is and how to deal with it. To help to clarify, here’s our opinion.

Sen. Oley Larson (Minot- District 43) recently spoke at the state legislature in North Dakota against legislation aimed at ending bullying. Since Columbine and other national tragedies have occurred, many states have adopted legislation to end bullying issues. Larson argued that if these types of legislation were effective, bullying would no longer exist. That’s like saying that because we have laws against discrimination, it no longer exists. We know that’s not the case.

Also, given that each state has different types of legislation, with varying degrees of strength, we could disagree with Sen. Larson’s oversimplification of the issue on that point alone. But there were many points in Sen. Larson’s argument to disagree with. Instead, we’ll focus on what is most confusing about his message: don’t deal with the problem of bullying because others have tried and failed.

On the one hand, Larson says we do need to deal with bullying. On the other hand he says, it’s not the job of the legislature to take the lead in dealing with this issue by passing legislation. We do agree with Sen. Larson on one thing: something has to be done. But, that “something” has to go beyond the legislation and the accompanying rhetoric. It is not enough to pass legislation without enforcement. It makes no difference if we have legislation, but do not change ourselves in the process.

We can argue about whether other states are really “trying”; some would say that legislation that has no teeth or enforcement is not really “trying.” We can argue about whether or not other states have “failed.” Failure might look like it does to Sen. Larson, an all or nothing proposition. But most legislation is intended to create change. And, change happens gradually. What we cannot do, is to keep ignoring bullying, in all its forms.

Bullying is essentially about power, and exerting that power through abuse over an individual or a group—with or without physical force. Beyond creating laws that will tell people “don’t bully,” we need to create a culture in our communities of “don’t bully.” If bullying is about power, then a power analysis needs to be done. What power and privilege is allowing the bullying to happen, and how do we change those power structures to create more fair outcomes for people.

Bullying doesn’t just happen to kids. Adults bully each other too. Privilege and power at work, at school and in our institutions create fertile ground for bullying to take place.

Employers can bully their employees in most states due to “right to fire” laws, vague discrimination statutes and poorly funded enforcement agencies. Employees can be fired for any reason, even discriminatory reasons and without tens of thousands of dollars to sue, they have no recourse. Far from leveling the playing field, North Dakota is considering a bill that would force employees to give a certain amount of required notice to quit, or have their hard-earned cash hijacked. Abused employees who are dealing with harassment or discrimination are being put at risk. And now, employers wishing to abuse their employees’ rights have the North Dakota legislature to help them deal that blow. Employees who wish to complain about discrimination in the state get to go to the North Dakota Department of Labor—a state agency that had to be sued by the people in order to force them to do their job. This bill, and other abuses of our workers in this state (such as the abysmal treatment of injured workers by the state agency “Workforce Safety and Insurance”, are bullying.

Laws like SB1070 from Arizona and the federal government’s “Secure Communities” program which give authorities the right to dehumanize individuals based on their national origin, are forms of bullying. They institutionalize racism and discrimination against a whole class of people. They allow and —in many states—order police and employers to “profile”. Locally, we can add this to our list of shameful incidents. Our Lieutenant Governor, then North Dakota’s U.S. Attorney, prosecuted and imprisoned 23 victims of human trafficking for using false identities to flee their employer and find new jobs. Rather than create a clear separation of powers locally, our community in Moorhead missed their chance to quell discrimination by local authorities. We are now watching federally funded discrimination and bullying of people locally and nationwide. Last month, Chipotle’s restaurant chains in Minneapolis fired hundreds of people of color, mostly Mexicans due to citizenship paperwork issues. None were given a chance to rebut, correct or produce the paperwork demanded at their firing. These firings based on race are happening nationally, by the hundreds and thousands—many times due to employer or E-Verify errors.

We’ve heard there is wishywashy-ness among legislators about clearly enumerated protected classes in the anti-bullying law. Laws that clearly enumerate such protected classes, as we have the benefit of learning from the 45 states that already legislated about bullying in school, have a track record of decreasing bullying in schools.

If we want people who abuse power over others to stop, we have to create an atmosphere (including policy changes) that reflect that. How serious are we about really ending that abuse:

:: While people are being seriously hurt or dying due to their sexual orientation, their race, or other discriminatory reasons (we’ve had recent deaths in Hennipen County and Griggs County) and we have people like Sen. Larson arguing against legislation to stop it;
:: While our school district quietly settles a lawsuit for $300,000 because of a student getting bullied;
:: While we sit idly by and watch our employees in North Dakota get paid less, treated worse, ignored by the state legislature, and our Department of Labor;
:: While we continue to turn a blind eye to the discrimination being perpetrated by our federal government in the enforcement of its immigration laws and the human rights abuses happening in our own back yards

We can’t just keep paying lip service to the idea that we don’t tolerate bullying and saying we are doing our level best to avoid it while we allow these forms of bullying to flourish in our communities without reproach. Bullying is abuse; let’s begin to fulfill our intent to end it by attacking all its forms—even those forms of bullying we are not used to fighting against.

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