Bullies Are Universal
Bullies Are Universal
There are many givens in this life: that nobody knows how to spell Gadaffi’s name correctly; that we all will render unto Caesar (IRS); that teleprompters will be part of the Obama's Presidential Library; that if possible, President Jimmy Carter will still be trying to rehabilitate his failed Presidency from the grave; and that bullies are universal. Many of us have seen the video of the victim of the Australian bully finally standing up and fighting back. I must confessed that I cheered when that bully’s victim stood and fought back… slamming the bully to the ground. The irony is that the bully in that video was puny compared to the victim, yet the former was allowed to terrorize the latter for a long time without any punishing consequences. The reason why the video resonated with such a large audience and earned the ‘viral’ status was because so many of us were victims and could name our personal bully - on the Island of Saint Kitts/Nevis, mine was Colin M….
Colin happened to come from a wealthy family and the thought was that even if we had made complaints, the thought was that nothing of consequence would have happened. This was so because class then in my country was akin to the race issue we have in America; Colin knew that he basically had carte blanche and he had a feel day. Colin’s bullying started almost the same way: we would pick and gather the young oranges to use as the Cricket balls before classes begin and if we dared to start the game before Colin’s father dropped him off… he would come in the middle of the pitch and declared that “all games ceased!” And when Colin did play, he decided how long he would bat, or moreover, the rules of the game. Between eight and twelve-years-old, we lived in fear and if our faces betrayed us… letting Colin know we disagreed with him, we got punched in our stomachs… and the beatings were worse for those of us who were poor, which was most of us. It must be noted that Colin at ten-years-old, was close to six-feet tall and heavy.
At twelve-years-old, salvation came for those of us who were bullied by Colin. We were playing a game on a Saturday, and he came around late as usual and demanded we stopped the game for him to join. Colin did not realize we had Will and Maxwell, two brothers, who were adults playing with us. Let’s just say that those two grown brothers had no respect for wealth or status or in our case, fear of Colin’s height and weight. Colin was beaten badly… so much so, it was the first time many of us saw Colin literally cry tears. The same feelings I felt then, vicariously, on the pitch in Saint Kitts, is what many of us felt when we saw the Australian bully received his comeuppance. When I came to these shores via California, I still had Colin on my mind and when I joined the Army, I yearned to meet Colin because I realized why the good Lord said that vengeance was His. Alas, it wasn't to be, I became a Christian and the irony is that Colin also came to these shores, and, I am told that he is currently a preacher up in the Bronx.
