I’m not sure if I really want to be in this conversation or not.

So, that sucks… but this bothers me. Makes me uncomfortable and I guess that means I should plant my feet and write a response.

You said nothing about me, and I thank you for allowing me to drag myself in by choice. So, there’s that.

Basically I think it’s important to talk about bullying openly, what it means, what it looks like and why prevention is important.

I want to believe this post aims to give us all an opportunity to do just that and is not an attack on people.

Before I can do that, I need to understand if inside your research you considered the following:

1. that some of the writers you called out were not really aware of the posts you cited herein or possibly didn’t see the relationship between the two — not saying I know one way or the other — but maybe you do?
2. that maybe some of the writers didn’t see any connectivity between the two posts you drew connections from in the same way you did — this stuff does come through in a linear way across the feed, so did you consider the writers could have (assuming they did notice both posts) commented on each, or responded to them individually?
3. the fact that both of these writers have their own audience and don’t really need to use one another to gain momentum for themselves?

The other thing you said that makes me feel a little ‘ick’ is this:

“Please don’t tell me anything about race, gender, writing subject, success, vulnerability, or anything like that. Non of that matters a bit. It’s either okay to bully or it is not.”

I guess I understand, except some people don’t compartmentalize these things. Isn’t that ok?

You’ve also over-simplified the thing — yes or no — right or wrong — day or night, etc. I mean, you’ve laid down rules for discussion around bullying that involve refuting vulnerability out right and without any input from those you’ve attempted to engage.

But isn’t that what bullying is all about?

…Preying on vulnerability…

What am I missing? I think I’m uncomfortable because I want to talk about this and I think it’s important. I just wonder if this sets an accusatory tone that possibly didn’t consider perspective and might not be very productive because of that lack of consideration. Additionally, if the consideration of perspective was not in play when you wrote this piece, isn’t that intellectually dishonest?

The compartmentalization of the stuff really bugs me too because it doesn’t lend itself well to an honest discussion about bullying.

Context IS important here. This isn’t Facebook.

Would you please help me understand what your goal is, what you considered and didn’t (so I’m not jumping to conclusions) and let me know if you’re willing to consider interconnectivity of vulnerability and bullying?

After that, I think I can make a more informed choice about whether or not getting into a more in depth discussion would actually produce work that limits bullying for everyone.

Because that’s a goal I can get behind.