Don’t Be Nice. Fight the Bullies. Bullying, Racism, Hate Groups Exist Because Nice People Enable Them.

Robert Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California Berkeley, published a video on August 4, 2024 on Twitter. (Yes, Twitter is still relevant). August 4th marked the 60^th anniversary of when Michael Schwerner’s body was found 44 days after he was murdered by Mississippi ku klux klan members (capitalization omitted intentionally). Schwerner was registering Black citizens during Freedom Summer to vote in Mississippi with two others, who were also beaten, shot, murdered, and buried. Reich’s video incensed me. It stalked me, like an ax murderer in the woods, for several days.

The video begins, “As the shortest kid in school, I was the target of bullies, I befriended a kind teenager who looked out for me”. Robert Reich did not discover until he was in college, years after Schwerner’s death, that Michael Schwerner was the teenager who protected him when Reich was just 9. This discovery caused Reich to view bullying as bigger than just those kids tormenting him because he was short.

There are legal terms for being bullied, if you are in a protected class. They are discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, country of origin, disability, color, genetic information, or veteran status. However, even when acts do not rise to the level of the legal definition of harassment or discrimination, they are still bullying.

We need to recognize bullying in all its forms—and fight against it. Being polite, nice, apathetic, or in denial will not help. The reason is that in a culture that prioritizes niceness, the bully is king. When people are told about an act of bullying and they just seek peace for themselves, it gives the bully permission. Recently, I was harassed by a man at a community where I frequent. I thought, “I will make this more public, and he will stop”. He did not. When I told people about it, the first thing out of their mouths was, “But he is so nice,” thus negating my experience. At a nearby college, three women filed sexual harassment complaints against a Dean—and what do I hear from colleague’s mouths? “He is so nice.” Let’s all remember Ted Bundy. A lot of people thought he was nice too.