Is this man a liar?

[Earl]

The following is one of the 181 comments at an Anderson Cooper 360 degrees blog dated April 23, 2009. I wasnâ??t able to copy and paste this comment (dated April 24, 2009, 2:10 a.m. ET), which was posted by â??J Angeloâ?; so, I printed a copy of the text, which Iâ??ve typed up in this post. Iâ??ve taken the liberty to correct wrong spelling, punctuation, and spacing; but the wording is still verbatim. If I had the time, I would copy many other similar messages on other web pages devoted to the issue of bullying.



I myself many years ago in the middle 6os experienced this behavior directed to me for most of my junior high and high school years. I was an art student, slim and not very good at athletics. I was called gay, fag, homo, etc. almost every day. This, along with frequent beatings and harassments, made me very aware of how to survive in such a hostile atmosphere. My parents did their best to protect me, informing school officials; but that did little in those years to stop the terror.

There were some sympathetic teachers who understood the problem, and their classrooms were havens where you had a safe environment free of fear.

Those years had a profound effect on me. To this day I recall vividly the days I had to run from the school bus to my home because I was being pursued by a jock who wanted to beat me up because I was too weak to have any chance of fighting back. You become very aware of your person, attuned to verbal abuse and develop a wall against it. I cannot tell you how many nights I lay awake dreading the coming school day for fear of my life. The people who are responsible for this sort of behavior are in many cases encouraged by macho ideas instilled in them to excel in sports and all things masculine. If you donâ??t, then you are fair game. In my opinion, a good healthy punch in the nose causing a nice bloody nose goes a long way to teach bullies there are consequences for their actions.

If I had it to do over again, I would force myself to be very physically fit, lift weights, and be able to defend myself and retaliate when you are harassed. This horror stays with you your entire life. I still dream of it, and itâ??s been almost 50 years.



EDIT: I originally had posted some comments of my own here, but I decided to erase them. I want anyone else who so desires to feel free to post his/her own comments. Say what you will. It's your forum. I'll just say, though, that whenever I read anyone's testimony of having been bullied to this extent as a kid, it makes me angry in a "gut feeling" sort of way, as I automatically identify very closely and emotionally with bullied kids, even though I wasn't bullied as badly as some of the very members of this forum. It burns me that a lot of people in this country have no problem with the bullying of children in the schools (where they are supposed to be able to learn without having to live in an atmosphere of fear) and that some people (such as the wretched Long Island school psychologist Izzy Kalman and his supporters) even blame the victim for the bullying!

[Fat Man]

Good evening Earl.

Yeah! The beat goes on! La de da de da! And the beat goes on!

Or should I say? . . . . . The beatings go on!!!

Nothing ever changes.

The best and the brightest students, the nerds and the geeks, get beaten and bullied around by the drooling moronic and imbecilic jocks with a collective IQ exceeded by their shoe sizes.

The beatings go on! And the beatings go on!

You know what I would like to see?

I would love to see a general nationwide week long strike called by all the techies across the country!

Seriously! I would even be willing to go without the Internet, TV, electricity, and running water for a whole week during the general nationwide strike.

I would keep plastic gallon jugs of water so I won't go thirsty, even if it means going without taking a shower for a week! I would also keep enough buckets of water to flush the toilet during that week of darkness. I would light my apartment with candles, and I would eat out of tin cans for a week. So I would prepare for the general week long strike in advance with a week's supply of canned food and water and candles. The elevators in my building won't be running so I would have to stock up for the week long general techie strike.

That would mean that all the sport's fans would have no TV for a week. All the jocks won't be able to gas up their $100,000 dollar Hummers for a week. Of course, nobody would be able to gas up their vehicles for a week. So, for the entire week, there would be no Internet, and none of the technological toys that all the sports fans and the jocks (and everybody else, myself included) love so very much would be functioning.

The jocks and the sports fans, they all love their fancy technological toys, but they all hate the nerds and techno-geeks who make such things possible for them in the first place.

Of course, only the hospitals with their own generators will be running, but if any jock comes into the emergency room with a sports injury, the doctors should just sit around drinking beer and folding paper footballs and say, "Sorry, but we can't treat your sports injuries. We only know how to fold paper footballs!" Yeah! That's the ticket!

Only Government vehicles with loud PA speakers would have enough gasoline to run during that week, and they should drive up and down the streets and shouting from PA speakers the following . . . . .

ATTENTION ALL MORONIC JOCKS AND OBNOXIOUS SPORTS FANS! THE TECHIES HAVE CALLED A WEEK LONG GENERAL STRIKE! THERE SHALL BE NO ELECTRICITY, NO INTERNET, OR RUNNING WATER FOR ONE WEEK! YOU ALL LOVE YOUR TECHNOLOGICAL TOYS, BUT YOU HATE THE NERDS AND TECHNO-GEEKS WHO MAKE ALL OF THESE THINGS POSSIBLE FOR YOU! WE ARE TIRED OF YOUR BEATING AND BULLYING THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST STUDENTS IN YOUR SCHOOLS! WE THE TECHIES MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO WATCH SPORTING EVENTS ON YOUR FANCY BIG SCREEN COLOR TV SETS. WE THE TECHIES MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO DRIVE AROUND IN YOUR BIG EXPENSIVE FANCY CARS! WE THE TECHIES STUDY SCIENCE AND MATH IN THE SCHOOLS AND YOU HAVE BEATEN AND BULLIED US AROUND IN YOUR SCHOOLS! NOW, WE HAVE SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN FOR THE WEEK! YOU ARE GETTING A TASTE OF WHAT YOUR WORTHLESS LITTLE LIVES WOULD BE LIKE WITHOUT US TECHIES WHO MAKE ALL THESE THINGS POSSIBLE! SO FOR THE UP COMING WEEK . . . . . SHUT UP AND SUCK ON IT!!! THAT IS ALL!!!

I think that this is what it would take to put an end of the bullying in our schools!

Maybe they'll learn to appreciate their fellow students who happen to be the nerds and geeks in their schools.

Perhaps this is what it would take to turn things around.

[natmanhan]

That would be too awesome fatman. However a lot of geeks including me love money and figure bullies can go fuck themselves while bill gates' earnings and accomplishments put every sports star to shame.

[Earl]

(The longtime members of this forum know what I'm about to say. They're probably sick and tired of "hearing" me say his name by now, and I can't blame them. But here goes, anyway. )

Concerning the accomplishments of geeks, I'd say that Raoul Wallenberg definitely qualifies as one, even though he lived before vdeo games were invented. natmanhan, if you've never heard of him, check out the fifth post in the topic "Oh hey," which was started by Lysander (unless you have already read it, of course). This man's heroism is truly inspiring, and the history is utterly fascinating. I'd say that Wallenberg is a "real man."

BTW, just so there won't be any misunderstanding, just because I defend geeks doesn't mean that I'm tearing any other group down, as I'm not intolerant.

[i_like_1981]

BTW, just so there won't be any misunderstanding, just because I defend geeks doesn't mean that I'm tearing any other group down, as I'm not intolerant.

We all know that, Earl. There's no need to tell us. I really don't think I could name a person that has proven themselves to be more tolerant than you. It must be hard sometimes to always have to defend the reasonable pro-sports visitors here with so much pressure on you not to sell out your sports-hating comrades but you do it very well. The whole spectacle with Andy just proved that. But picking sides is important. Geeks or jocks? Well, I think I know where I stand on this one. But I'm not sure I'd be able to defend BOTH sides anywhere near as well as you do.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Fat Man]

BTW, just so there won't be any misunderstanding, just because I defend geeks doesn't mean that I'm tearing any other group down, as I'm not intolerant.

We all know that, Earl. There's no need to tell us. I really don't think I could name a person that has proven themselves to be more tolerant than you. It must be hard sometimes to always have to defend the reasonable pro-sports visitors here with so much pressure on you not to sell out your sports-hating comrades but you do it very well. The whole spectacle with Andy just proved that. But picking sides is important. Geeks or jocks? Well, I think I know where I stand on this one. But I'm not sure I'd be able to defend BOTH sides anywhere near as well as you do.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

Well, I admit it!

I'm prejudice against jocks, regardless of skin color.

I don't care if they're black or white, red, brown, or yellow or chartreuse with shocking pink polka dots!

OK, I'm even more suspicious of the ones who are chartreuse with shocking pink polka dots! You really got to watch out for them because they are the worse!

All kidding aside.

The only time in my life that I had ever enjoyed watching a football game was when a game was played by cute chubby ladies in bikinis.

[Earl]

Thank you so much for the kind words, i_like_1981. I intended to post some comments this evening; but Iâ??ve just about run out of time and wonâ??t be able to stay up late tonight. So, Iâ??ll have to wait until tomorrow.

[Earl]

Again, i_like_1981, thanks for the kind words. I have to make a distinction between reasonable sports fans and those who are unreasonable or even clearly intolerant. Serving as a moderator in this forum, sometimes I do feel like Iâ??m caught between a rock and a hard place. There have been times when I chose to be silent but now regret that I did not speak out, and there have been other times when I wish that I had said something else instead. I donâ??t want to sell out anyone who doesnâ??t like sports, especially since most of us have no power (certainly not on most high school and college campuses). No one should doubt that I support this website, but I canâ??t agree with any statement that I believe is factually incorrect or morally wrong. That being said, I will never compromise with unreasonable, intolerant sports fans whose attitudes result in individual people actually being victimized in the name of sports. (Incidentally, how often is this fact ever pointed out by sportswriters and sports columnists? Where's the investigative reporting?) I wish that teenagers in this country would stop categorizing themselves and each other into different groups. Iâ??m sick and tired of the shallow social hierarchy that exists on the campuses of most high schools in this country in which students are viewed not as individuals but are judged according to which group they belong to. Iâ??d love to see a movement in which teenagers would declare, â??Iâ??m not a jock; Iâ??m a human being,â? or â??Iâ??m not a geek (or nerd); Iâ??m a human being.â? Of course, this will never happen. And as far as siding with anyone is concerned, I will always side with bullied kids, regardless of who the bullies are.

[i_like_1981]

Again, i_like_1981, thanks for the kind words. I have to make a distinction between reasonable sports fans and those who are unreasonable or even clearly intolerant.

Well, it's only fair, I guess. But I know few mods who would tolerate people with opposite voice on their forums as well as you. I don't think I'd last long on a new music forum politely insisting how bad it was and how much it stole from old music before somebody finally snapped at me.

Serving as a moderator in this forum, sometimes I do feel like Iâ??m caught between a rock and a hard place.

As a figure of authority, someone who takes control, I'm sure it is hard always being looked upon to make the right decisions. But what is morally right by your standards is the right way to go.

There have been times when I chose to be silent but now regret that I did not speak out, and there have been other times when I wish that I had said something else instead.

It happens all the time. I wish I hadn't been so hostile towards Andy on the guestbook but I guess at the time I felt the need to get some steam off my chest. It is some time after the rant has been done and when you start to realise you may have been a bit harsh when your sense of what is right becomes fully clear. So I decided to apologise to Andy and Tony. I was venting on them the anger that would have been better given straight to Harold (which I did on the Gridiron Palace thread) and they didn't deserve that. I had to be fair to them as I wasn't doing anyone any good by venting the anger I had out on them.

I donâ??t want to sell out anyone who doesnâ??t like sports, especially since most of us have no power (certainly not on most high school and college campuses). No one should doubt that I support this website, but I canâ??t agree with any statement that I believe is factually incorrect or morally wrong. That being said, I will never compromise with unreasonable, intolerant sports fans whose attitudes result in individual people actually being victimized in the name of sports.

Sadly there is nothing we can do to stop people being victimised in the name of sports. It doesn't just happen to the "nerds" who are constantly bullied by the "jocks" - it happens to sports fans of rival teams who are killed as their murderers support a different team, and it happened to innocent women and children who were crushed and killed at the Hillsborough Disaster. Sports have claimed many lives, and I have known players have died on the pitch before. It seems sad to know that life is lost over such a trivial pastime as sports but there is nothing we can do to stop it. Intolerant sports fans victimise everyone they feel is different - whether it be those who have no interest in sports or people who are die-hard sports fans like themselves but show their passion for a rival team. I don't know how they can look themselves in the mirror if they have such contempt and hatred for people not only unlike them but for those who are exactly like them but only different in the sense that their favoured teams aren't the same?

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Earl]

Fat Man, when you say that you are prejudiced against jocks, at least you are being honest. Concerning prejudice of any sort, many people are not honest enough to admit that they are prejudiced. I could lecture you about how sometimes friends are found where you least expect them, but you already know what my views are on this issue.

Concerning the issue of sports (or, more specifically, sports culture and the impact it has in the lives of both nonathletes and athletes), there is prejudice and intolerance on both sides. I personally know all about negative stereotyping. For example, as Iâ??ve previously said in the â??Letters 2009â? column, when I was in the eighth grade, my parents sent me to a clinical psychologist because I was withdrawn and my grades had fallen. Unfortunately, although he had a good reputation, the psychologist turned out to be incompetent (at least in the way he treated me as a patient).

This psychologist sent me to a judo instructor to take judo lessons. His approach was wrong. Years later I learned that he would frequently send boys to this judo instructor as if he were a catchall for all their problems. First of all, he should have addressed the problem that I actually had. I was ashamed of being physically weak and having an undeveloped physique. Instead of having me take judo lessons, he should have sent me to a gym to work with a personal trainer on a bodybuilding program, as I started doing two summers ago. I have no objections to judo, but judo is not a bodybuilding activity. It never was intended to be a bodybuilding activity. I want to make sure that Iâ??m not misunderstood. Iâ??m not criticizing judo at all. I think itâ??s great for self-defense, and I respect it as a sport. All Iâ??m saying is that judo was not the solution to the real cause of the feelings of inferiority that I was experiencing as a boy.

The psychologist was also wrong in the choice of judo instructor. He sent me to a former university football player who, to put it charitably, had some wrongheaded views. (More about that later.) I started taking lessons from him in the late spring of my eight-grade year in junior high. I always felt like an outsider in his judo classes. Besides, I really did not have a heartfelt desire to learn judo. My heart was never really it it. I was only following the â??goodâ? doctorâ??s orders, as if I were taking prescription drugs for a medical condition. I was eventually promoted to brown belt, but I felt that the judo instructor (whom I shall hereafter refer to as â??Sam,â? which is not his real first name) was patronizing me. In fact, I knew that I was not qualified to be promoted to brown belt. Finally, during the spring of my junior year in high school, I decided that the charade had gone on long enough; and I informed my dad that I no longer wanted to take judo lessons. Fortunately, he respected my decision. I never heard from Sam either.

If I may digress for a moment, this experience is one of the reasons why I strongly oppose parents forcing their children to participate in sports. Notice that I used the word â??forcing.â? No child can be forced to enjoy a sport.

Eight years later I learned why I had always felt like an outsider in Samâ??s judo classes. When I was 26 years old, I paid Sam a visit at his home. He expressed some rather peculiar views without any prompting from me. First of all, he said, â??Earl (not my real first name either), I saved you from homosexuality.â? As I said in one of my aforementioned letters, how can you save someone from something he doesnâ??t even want to do, unless itâ??s about to be forced upon him against his will? I had never wanted to engage in homosexual sex. So, why did Sam say that he had saved me from homosexuality? The answer is because he subjected me to a negative stereotype. When we first met, he saw a shy, physically weak boy who had no self-confidence and no interest in sports and loved to read H.G. Wells and books about nature. So, he viewed me as a sissy, although I had no feminine mannerisms and still was a typical boy. Since I wasnâ??t physically strong and had no interest in sports, I had to be gay, right? (Actually, thatâ??s exactly what Samdaman and so many others would say.) I know that lacking self-confidence is not a desirable trait, but I wouldnâ??t say itâ??s a feminine trait either.

Sam also let me know that he considered only athletes and men in some blue-collar vocations to be â??real men.â? He definitely did not consider nonathletic men to be real men. Some of you may not know that during the Cold War, there was a prominent Soviet physicist named Andrei Sakharov (known as â??the father of the Soviet H-bombâ?) who became a political dissident and publicly condemned the Soviet regime for its violations of human rights. Since Dr. Sakharov was a scientist who (I assume) did not have an athletic background, Sam could not (indeed, would not) bring himself to admit that Dr. Sakharov was a man of great courage. Instead, he spoke disparagingly of him. I had not heard of Wallenberg then. I wonder if Sam would have ridiculed Wallenberg for disliking competitive team sports. Of course, the truth of the matter is that Sakharov and Wallenberg had more courage in their little left pinkies than Sam had in his entire misshapen body.

So, since I was subjected to a negative stereotype of a different sort (often repeatedly as I was growing up), I know how Andy feels as an individual who happens to be a football player to be subjected to a negative stereotype.

The mindset that Sam subscribed to so adamantly is known as machismo, which comprises a set of false standards of masculinity. You know what they are: Men should never cry, not even over the misfortune of others. A boy becomes a man when he has sex with a girl or a woman for the first time. (Since they are not exactly at the top of the food chain, rabbits have a lot of sex so they will have a lot of offspring. But a male rabbit that has a lot of sex is still a rabbit, not a man.) The manhood of a man is judged, in part, by the number of sexual conquests he has had. (This is the Playboy philosophy.) Physically weaker males are inferior and do not deserve any respect at all, but should be bullied. (In fact, this is one of the reasons why I believe that the majority of high-school football coaches in this country are not morally opposed to any of their players bullying physically weaker, nonathletic students at their schools. Please notice that I did not say â??all.â? Believe me, I wish there were overwhelming evidence to the contrary.) This is Samâ??s credo. As was true of Sam, for decades Iâ??ve noticed that so many of the men who subscribe wholeheartedly to machismo lack any personal warmth. Sam is one of the coldest men Iâ??ve ever met.

Sports fans, one of the reasons why some of us who are members of this forum or otherwise support this website do not like sports is because machismo is so closely associated with certain popular sports. Itâ??s not because weâ??re jealous of athletes, as is claimed so frequently. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Thatâ??s just a bunch of malarky.

I don't believe that merely participating in a rough contact sport causes a guy to develop macho attitudes. There is nothing inherently wrong morally (or virtuous, for that matter, as some claim) in participating in one particular sport or another. But there is a negative culture associated with a few of the most popular sports that possibly will have an adverse effect upon the values of a young player who doesnâ??t come to the game with strong moral values that have been previously instilled in his way of thinking. Iâ??m the father of two young women. If I had a teenage son who wanted to play football in high school, I would support him. But I would be very concerned about the coaching philosophy of the coaches at his high school (not to mention their moral standards). Iâ??d have absolutely no problem with a coach like the former professional football player Joe Ehrmann, but I would have a problem with a coach like Sam.

[Earl]

In fact, this is one of the reasons why I believe that the majority of high-school football coaches in this country are not morally opposed to any of their players bullying physically weaker, nonathletic students at their schools.

I actually feel slightly nervous that I posted this statement. I don't like being prejudiced, but I cannot refute my statement either. I'm vacillating.

[Fat Man]

In fact, this is one of the reasons why I believe that the majority of high-school football coaches in this country are not morally opposed to any of their players bullying physically weaker, nonathletic students at their schools.

I actually feel slightly nervous that I posted this statement. I don't like being prejudiced, but I cannot refute my statement either. I'm vacillating.

No, your statement is RIGHT ON!!!

Many PE coaches do in fact encourage bullying.

Or else they are indifferent to bullying, neither encouraging or discouraging bullying.

While some coaches don't actually encourage bullying, they don't do anything to stop it either, they simply allow it to go on.

I think the majority of PE coaches fall in the latter category, not actually encouraging bullies, but also not doing anything to stop it.

Most coaches don't give a flying fuck one way or the other.

But the coaches I have known did openly encourage bullying! In fact, most of my PE teachers were bullies themselves.

Actually, NOT doing anything to discourage bullying is the same as endorsing it. They inadvertently encourage bullying by simply not doing anything to stop it.

If the bullies see that the coach doesn't give a damn, and that the coach does nothing to stop the bullying, then the bullies take that as a cue that it's OK to go on bullying.

Therefore, simply allowing something to go on, without doing anything to stop it, that is the same as endorsing it.

So, your statement is correct.