BLACK DIAMOND, Alta. - A caustic critique by Simon Cowell on American Idol, the latest victim voted out on Survivor and even the rants of hockey analyst Don Cherry are leading to a poisonous atmosphere that fuels events like last week's shooting at Virginia Tech, says an international bullying expert.
There is a shift to a "culture of mean,'' says Barbara Coloroso, and she believes today's youth are swimming in it.
Coloroso, an internationally recognized parenting expert and author of "The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander,'' was in the small town of Black Diamond, 80 kilometres west of Calgary on Saturday, to conduct a workshop on bullying.
Her visit coincided with the eighth anniversary of the high school shooting at Columbine, in Coloroso's hometown of Littleton, Col., and came a week before that day in 1999 when 17-year-old Jason Lang was gunned down by an angry classmate in a hallway at W.R. Myers High School in Taber, Alta.<
The dramatic increase in such horrific events -- last week's slaughter at Virginia Tech being the latest -- is alarming to Coloroso.
"My publisher said, `Will you do an epilogue in your book on the Columbine shooting?' And before I finished the book we had Taber, Vancouver, Victoria, Halifax, Toronto, New York, Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Colorado, Washington state, Washington, D.C., Oregon, Minnesota and most recently again in Montreal at Dawson College,'' sighed Coloroso, 59. "Mayhem in other communities. I see it in the perspective that it was another school shooting that was close to home.''
Whether it be cyber-bullying over the Internet or being pushed around and locked in a school locker, Coloroso places the lion's share of the blame with television and movies.
"I think we are experiencing something amiss culturally where the TV shows if you turn them on and people are laughing at one another's pain,'' said Coloroso. "Enjoying seeing someone kicked off the island, enjoying seeing someone go down in flames on American Idol, satire not being used but sarcasm. If you turn on radio talk . . . it's mean and cruel.''
Even the controversies generated by Don Cherry on Hockey Night in Canada are not exempt from Coloroso's wrath.
"When did he get nailed? It was when he called European men light on their feet, gay, less than men,'' said Coloroso. "He's also in a sense demeaning women. Why aren't we upset about Don Cherry? Because he's an icon -- because he's an old man he can get away with his misogynist comments.''
With teens learning to laugh at others' pain, it's little wonder that bullying is running rampant in North American schools, she said. And as in many other cases, the shooter at Virginia Tech and those at Columbine were what she calls "bullied bullies.'' After being the target of bullying, eventually the victim becomes what he fears the most.
"The bullied bullies not only strike back but they do it with that utter contempt, that cold look on their face. They have become themselves what they hated,'' explained Coloroso. "Just as he was treated as an `it,' he treats other human beings unmercifully.''
Undoing the cultural devastation being done to today's youth will require beginning education at a much earlier age, she says. Although it's not a requirement to like every other student, there needs to be a recognition that they have basic rights as another human being.
Diane Lang and her husband, Rev. Dale Lang, are still speaking out against bullying eight years after their son Jason died. Each anniversary is difficult and brings memories flooding back, as do the continued school shootings.
"It just makes me really sad that this is going on. What do you say?'' said Diane Lang from her home in Taber. "I've been praying for all these families but gosh, there's nothing you can say that's going to make it better.''
"I've been thinking a lot about my son the last few days. There's been a lot of healing in our lives and you never forget, but we don't have the pain associated with it that we had earlier,'' she added.
Lang says she and her husband will continue to speak out about their experience because after eight years, there is a new group of students that need to be both warned and educated.
"As parents, it shouldn't happen. You shouldn't be burying your kids.''
