Did you ever stop and think that a bully acts out of weakness and fear rather than strength and confidence. A bully targets someone he/she perceives as weaker than he/she is and basically tortures (psychologically, emotionally, physically or any other "ly"). Many in the Gay Community are particularly sensitive to this issue. Always remember Matthew Shepard.
Matthew Wayne Shepard (December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998)
Bullied NY bus monitor teaches kindness year later
By | Associated Press
Associated
Press/Steven Senne, File - FILE - In this June 28, 2012 file photo, bus
monitor Karen Klein, of Greece, N.Y., is surrounded by school children
while riding a tourist duck boat, an amphibious vehicle,
GREECE, N.Y. (AP) — No new carpet or furniture for the home she's lived in for 46 years. No fancy car in the driveway.
After being gifted a life-changing sum following a
school bus bullying episode seen around the world a year ago, former bus
monitor Karen Klein says she really hasn't changed all that much.
Sure, the "Today" show mug she drinks coffee from reminds
her of the widespread media attention her story brought, and the
occasional stranger wants to snap her picture.
She's also retired, something the 69-year-old widow couldn't afford before.
But Klein, who drove a school bus for 20 years before
spending three years as a monitor, remains as unassuming as she was
before learning firsthand how the kindness of strangers can trump the
cruelty of four adolescent boys.
"It's really amazing," Klein said at her suburban Rochester
home, still perplexed at the outpouring unleashed by a 10-minute
cellphone video of her being ridiculed, sworn at and threatened by a
group of seventh-graders last June. They poke at her hearing aid and
call her names as she tries to ignore them.
"Unless you have something nice to say, don't say anything at all," Klein says calmly a few minutes in.
One boy taunts: "You don't have a family because they all
killed themselves because they don't want to be near you." Klein's
oldest son committed suicide more than a decade ago.
The video, recorded by a fellow student, was posted online and viewed more than 1.4 million times on YouTube.
When 25-year-old Canadian Max Sidorov was moved to take up
an online collection to send her on vacation, more than 32,000 people
from 84 countries responded — pledging $703,873 in donations.
"It's just the way it hits them, I guess. I don't know. I don't know," Klein said, still unsure of why it all happened.
Sidorov has called it "ridiculously more than I expected."
Klein used $100,000 as seed money for the Karen Klein
Anti-Bullying Foundation, which has promoted its message of kindness at
concerts and through books. Most recently, the foundation partnered with
the Moscow Ballet to raise awareness of cyberbullying as the dance
company tours the United States and Canada.
"There's a lot I wish I could be doing, but I don't know how to do it," Klein said.
"I'm just a regular old lady," she added with a laugh.
She has spent some helping family members and friends, and
"the rest is under lock and key" for retirement, and maybe a motor home
to do some traveling, she said. She wants to get back to her crafts, fix
some things around the house, maybe get new carpet and furniture, and
take it easy, especially since having a pacemaker implanted in March.
"There are other people who it would probably change
dramatically," said Klein's daughter, Amanda Klein-Romig. "But for her,
no, everything's the same pretty much. It's not like she's jaunting
every weekend to a different place."
Klein has been to Boston, Toronto and other cities to
promote her foundation. She participated in a WNBA anti-bullying event
with the New York Liberty in Newark, N.J., and has been invited to
appear on "Raising McCain," a cable television series launching this
summer starring Arizona Sen. John McCain's daughter, Meghan.
"There's a lot of nice people out there, I have learned that," Klein said. "And to ignore the negative people."
Klein has been criticized by those who say she didn't do
her job that June 2012 afternoon and by others who think she sought out
fame and fortune.
"They make it sound like I did this on purpose," Klein
said. She didn't even know the incident had been recorded until being
called in to school by administrators and the police.
"She didn't ask for this," Klein-Romig said.
Klein has met with one of the boys who bullied her. He and
his parents came to her home to apologize. The other three sent typed
apologies, which she said struck her as less sincere.
"I hope they learned a lesson; they probably didn't," Klein says, shrugging. "It might have been a big joke to them."
___
Online:
Karen Klein Anti-Bullying Foundation: www.karenkleinfoundation.org
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