Bullies have been an unfortunate part of schools since most of us can remember. If you were bullied at school, you know just how harsh they can be. The Biff Tannen's of the world continue to exist year after year.
Traditionally, society as a whole has always looked down on bullies. Most bullies in the past never had a high-ranking role model to encourage them to bully even more.
At least that was the case until now.
According to a report from BuzzFeed News, bullies have found a new inspiration for how to pick on other kids. And that inspiration is our own president. That's because many kids are bullying by quoting the words of Donald Trump.
BuzzFeed combed through reported instances of bullying over the course of the last school year. They found 50 separate instances “in which a K-12 student invoked Trump’s name or message in an apparent effort to harass a classmate during the past school year.” The incidents occurred in 26 different states.
One of these bullying acts occurred at a high school parking lot in Shakopee, Minnesota. Several boys wearing Trump shirts taunted a black teenage girl with a reworked version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” This included a change in the final lyric to the line “and the home of the slaves.”
Louisville, Kentucky was the home of another incident of Trump-related bullying. A Latina girl was being chased around the classroom by a third-grade boy. During the chase, he was shouting “Build the wall!”
Another incident occurred at a school in Brea, California. A black student was bullied by a white eighth-grader who said, “Now that Trump won, you're going to have to go back to Africa, where you belong.” And there was more.
It makes sense considering how much bullying has been committed by Trump himself. In 2015, Trump was seen mocking a disabled reporter. It was an incident that got a lot of coverage, but didn't prevent him from getting elected.
Donald Trump has also made fun of everyone from Rosie O'Donnell to a Gold Star family (pictured), or the family of a soldier who died while fighting for the U.S. So perhaps it's no surprise that some bullies are using Trump for inspiration. The question now is, how do educators handle it?
“It’s a daily occurrence that (students) hear this language,” said education psychology professor Dorothy Espelage. “They’re just parroting back what they hear.” And then they use what they hear to bully other students.
“This is my 21st year in education and I’ve never seen a situation like this before,” said Brennt Emmons, a middle school principal in Oregon. “It’s a delicate tightrope to walk. It’s not my role to tell people how to think about political policies, but it is my role to make sure every kid feels safe at the school.”
“It’s unacceptable and it reflects a wider climate of hate that we’re seeing,” said Antonio Lopez, an assistant superintendent in Portland, Oregon. He said that he will keep track of all hateful, racist bullying in the district to keep out hate speech as much as possible.
High school student Dylan Henderson in Atlanta said some of the bullying might be more trolling than people actually believing what they're saying. “Maybe a few of them truly were passionate about those beliefs,” he said. “But the others seemed to just be doing it to incite a response, to see what will happen.”
Meanwhile, some students across the country are trying to counter the hatred with something positive. In Atlanta, high schoolers created a group to promote tolerance. In New Albany, Ohio, students pressured the school to remove racist graffiti.
But with incidents like the one in Louisville, school officials found it was hard to discipline a kid shouting “Build the wall.” It was used to taunt a student, but it's also referring to a belief stated by the president. Getting kids to understand that a president can use hurtful language is a tough lesson to convey.