A Short Conversation About Bullies

Did you ever stop to notice that a bully isn’t really a bully, in the way that most people think of bullies?

What do you mean?

Well, when I see a bully, it’s more like a clue.

What do you mean a clue?

What I mean is, when I see someone with bully behavior, I can pretty much be sure that the reason they don’t seem to care about other people’s feelings is because no one ever took the time to really care about theirs.

How do you know?

Well, my uncle told me. He’s a recovered bully.
And when he was little, every time he got upset, his dad told him to suck it up.

So one day at school he hurt someone’s feelings and he didn’t know what to do when they cried.
He felt so sick to his stomach with so many confusing feelings that he just said the only thing he knew to say: “Suck it up.” And the girl cried more. And everyone called him a bully. Which made him feel like even more of a bully.

It took my uncle a long time to realize that the same thing must have happened to his father. “But I’m telling you this,” my uncle said to me, “So that the same thing won’t happen to you.”

You can take revenge on a bully. Shame a bully. Hate a bully. Or see the bully as someone with so much pain and confusion they simply don’t know what to do with it all.


—JLK