Courage, Bullies, and Us

By Bobby Halton

It was reported again this year that the number one leading injury in the fire service was hurt feelings. We have all had unkind, mean, and insulting things said about us. Most of us have been called names like stupid, lazy, ugly, or moron. Sometimes these words are said in threats; that’s called bullying. All of us have been bullied. We are often told to not let words or threats affect us, but that is easier said than done. Occasionally, we meet people who say that they really don’t care what other people say about them, but they are generally unattractive people.

We tell folks we will protect them from bullies; we mean it. Bullying is all over the news these days, but is it something new? Not really. Are firefighters immune? No, they are not.

The art of bullying has been practiced as far back as recorded time. Remember Cain and Abel, or young king David and his jealous older brothers? In American history, our most shameful bullying episode was the eugenics movement. Eugenics was taken from the Greek word for “well born,” and the folks who supported it believed we should eliminate the “unfit” or “undesirables” from our society. Eugenics had many supporters, from Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Calvin Coolidge to the Supreme Court and even J. H. Kellogg of cereal fame.

One of the first things the eugenicists accomplished was the creation and widespread use of IQ tests so they could determine who was “feebleminded” and then force them to be sterilized to prevent them from having children. One term that everyone knows is “moron.” It came from a eugenics scientist working on IQ tests. He created the label for persons with an IQ of between 50 and 75, which is below “normal.” In the most infamous case in Supreme Court history, a woman named Carrie Buck tried to fight her state-ordered sterilization; she lost. On May 2, 1927-six years before the Nazis adopted the idea-the Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 that the states had the right to sterilize those they deemed unfit.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes delivered the majority opinion against Carrie Buck and others deemed “unfit.” He wrote, in part, “It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” It is estimated that more than 60,000 Americans were sterilized, maybe more. Many children sterilized had been considered feebleminded because they were slow in school; actually, they only needed glasses. They weren’t morons; they simply couldn’t see.

Bullying has not been reserved for the regular folks. My friend Chief Alan Brunacini says, “They always cut down the tallest trees first.” What the chief is saying is that jealously and fear often inspire bullies to attack those who disagree with them or who are successful. For example, bullies in the Catholic Church locked up Galileo for denying what the fundamental “settled science” of astronomy of his day was, but the earth continued to rotate around the sun anyway. Other scientists who correctly bucked the consensus of the day and were horribly bullied included Louis Pasteur, Alfred Wegener, and Antoine Lavoisier.

So, how can we recognize and combat bullying in the fire service? How are we bullying today? Can we be bullies without knowing it? Some of the bullying we see in our profession comes from the Internet. The ability to post comments anonymously with Internet names makes bullies bold. Cowards hiding behind screen names will say hateful things because they don’t fear retaliation. We should encourage firefighters to post comments with their real names and be respectful in their disagreements.

We should take a hard look at how we treat the newest among us. Silencing someone is a form of bullying. When we tell someone to shut up, we devalue him; we discount his opinion and curiosity. We should encourage curiosity; asking questions is how we learn. Bullies who don’t have answers or who are afraid to say they don’t know often tell recruits to shut up and listen and don’t ask any “stupid” questions.

We are all subjected to bullying from those who claim to have “the facts” and you “can’t argue the facts” or the often-used phrase “the debate is settled.” Real science is never settled; we are always learning. When we join these close-minded pundits, we are like the millions of good Americans who thought, “Well, the really smart leaders and celebrities all endorse eugenics.” We should not force anyone to our point of view. That does not mean we should not engage in lively, even passionate debate, but we should never force our point of view on anyone.

We should protect one another; that’s the most important thing we do. It is our unfaltering belief in one another on the fireground that helps us face tremendous danger. It is the fundamental right of all people to have different beliefs, perspectives, politics, hairstyles, sexual orientation, and widespread thoughts on how to accomplish our noble profession’s mission.

Bullies use organizations, associations, rules, words, rank, and social status to inflict their pain or establish their control. We should reflect a few times a day as to how we are exercising our authority or influence. We should remember where words came from before we use them. We should reflect on how much pain they cause-moron, for example. Sometimes it’s not just our feelings that get hurt; sometimes it is our dignity, our humanity, our liberty.