Violence is never justified, even when it means defending
yourself from a bully.
Violence is never justified, even when it means defending yourself from a bully.
I have always told my children to walk away from a situation that is escalating toward violence. Look for an adult and keep yourself safe. This is easy advice for a parent to give, but in a school environment, it’s not always that simple.
Growing up, I was big for my age. One day a kid half my size walked over to me and without warning punched me right in the face. Stunned, I looked right into his eyes and said, “You’re a joke”, then I turned around and walk away. As I started to leave, I felt the left side of my face throbbing, and I thought to myself, “If he follows me, I’m going to snap, lose control and punish him. It’s self defense, right?” Luckily, he didn’t follow me and nothing else happened. To this day, I don’t know why he carried out such a random act of violence. Maybe one of his buddies told him, “If you want to be bad, claim your turf, show everyone who’s the boss, find the biggest kid in the playground and smack him.” I’ve had my share of being bullied and demeaned. Sometimes victims of bullying don’t turn away; they fight back.
In a video on YouTube that has gone viral, a big kid, Casey Heynes of Australia, didn’t walk away when a bully confronted him. Instead, he fought back. The video has launched a cyber debate over whether it is justified for a victim to fight back.
The video begins with Casey standing against a wall in a school hallway. A smaller student walks up to him, grabs his shirt with his left hand, mumbles a few words, and swings his right fist and punches Casey square on the face.
When the bully tries to grab Casey’s shirt again for another swing, Casey blocks his punch with his forearm. The bully recoils and begins to dance as if in a boxing ring, positioning himself for the next punch.
The bully pauses for a minute before throwing a couple of jabs into Casey’s stomach. When the bully goes in for another punch, Casey grabs him, wraps his arm around the bully’s head, lifts him with his other arm, then body slams him against the concrete pavement. As the bully struggles to his feet, hobbling to get his balance, one of the bully’s buddies approaches Casey and says a few words; Casey looks at him and walks away.
Needless to say, there has been overwhelming support for Casey’s actions. In an interview after the incident, he told a reporter that he had been bullied all his life, teased and called names because of his weight. When the bullying in high school began, his friends abandoned him and he felt all alone. On that particular day, he said he just had had enough and admits that he snapped.
Bullying is a serious problem, not only in our schools, but in our community. It is manifested in many forms; derogatory comments and name calling, racial slurs, taunting regarding sexual identity or alleged sexual activity, teasing regarding physical size or stature, exclusion or isolation, being threatened, being forced to do things for the bully, hurtful gossip, and any of these done via text messaging or on social networks like Facebook which is called cyber bullying. According to the National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center, approximately 30 percent of teens in the U.S. are either a bully or a target of bullying.
After the incident, both Casey and the bully were suspended from their high school which caused an uproar from many who considered Casey a hero not a villain. Anyone who has ever been bullied and watches the video may find satisfaction that the bully got what he deserved – a taste of his own medicine, an “eye for an eye” sense of justice. Some may even claim that physical force is the only solution to deal with bullies.
Casey was lucky; the bully suffered only a scraped knee. His injuries could have been much worst had he landed differently, and Casey would be facing much different consequences had his actions had a different result.
At the end of the video, one of the bully’s friends begins to follow Casey when a girl walks up between them and says to the bully’s friend, “You need to back off.”
Perhaps it’s better to teach our kids to speak out whenever they see someone being bullied and to speak for the victims when the victims can’t speak for themselves.
While many applaud Casey for standing up to his aggressor, the young girl who mediated at the end is a hero, too.
Escalating violence to stop violence is wrong.
Mario Banuelos has lived in Morgan Hill for 21 years. He has served on the south County Dayworker Committee and is a member of the Morgan Hill Community Foundation. He is married and has four children.
