Bullies have been around a long time...

There seem to be a lot of campaigns against bullying lately, and that's a good thing. A couple years ago, I bought about fifty of those rubber bracelets for Callie and Joe to give out to friends at school. The bracelets I ordered were black with bright blue Batman font that said "I am not a bully." I thought it would serve a dual purpose at the school. It would give the kids a peaceful way to take a stand against bullying, and it would identify the kids who weren't bullies to the kids who were being bullied, thereby providing a potential ally and friend so they might not have to stand alone.

But, the design on the webpage I bought the bracelets from depicted the bracelets differently than they actually were. The blue was not nearly bright enough to be easily read, but Callie and Joe still passed them out. Some of the teachers still wear them, I heard. I wanted to buy more bracelets, making the font bigger and brighter, but they were sort of expensive and I couldn't afford it at the time. I was going to sell them for $1.00 apiece, but when I saw the poor quality, I couldn't in good conscience charge for them, and the kids gave them away.

Look hard, and you might see the words.

So my venture to create something good that had a possibility of catching on, fizzled out. But was it a failure? I don't know. What if just ONE scared kid found a friend and supporter from that bracelet? What if ONE bully, after hearing his teacher talk about why he wore the bracelet, changed his mind about bullying and started leaving kids alone?

Then it would all be worth it. The domino effect, you know.

But, in my research last night, I was distracted by stories about the wars with the Indians in the 1800's. And I noticed that some were called "battles" and some, "massacres." But, after looking into it a little, a lot of those battles were also pretty much massacres.

A battle is where opponents fight each other. A massacre is where one side slaughters the other with no mercy.

I believe a bully ochestrated the massacre of Sand Creek. I wish I had time to go into what led up to the massacre, and I will probably do so later, but for now, I'll just focus on the biggest bully I've read about it a while--Colonel John Milton Chivington.

I hate to even write that man's name, so I'll just refer to him as Stupid. Okay, so Stupid hates the Indians. Hates them so much he says, " Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians!...I have come to kill Indians, and believe it's right and honorable to use any means under God's heaven to kill Indians...Kill and scalp all, big and little, nits make lice." (Emphasis added to show stupidity)

To make a long, bitter story short, a chief named Black Kettle rides to Fort Lyon to negotiate peace, leaving behind a camp mostly empty but for women and children. The American flag flies over the camp, to show that Black Kettle wants peace.

But Stupid shows even more stupidity and cowardice than I could even imagine, and takes 700 soldiers and rides to the camp while Black Kettle and his warriors are trying to make peace. Stupid orders his men to attack the mostly women and children, and two heroes stand up against the bully. I will proudly say their names were Captain Silas Soule and Lieutenant Joseph Cramer. They ignored Stupid's order and ordered their companies, D and K, to hold their fire.

 But their were plenty of men left to get Stupid's job done. The soldiers attacked, and massacred everyone in the camp, even after a white flag was raised next to the American flag. The quotes from the men who witnessed this, and a quote from Kit Carson sum up the horror a bully with power can inflict.

"I saw the bodies of those lying there all cut to pieces, worse mutilated than any I ever saw before, the women cut all to pieces... With knives, scalped; their brains knocked out; children two or three months old; all ages lying there, from suckling infants up to warriors... By whom were they mutilated? By the United States troops..."  --John S. Smith

"Fingers and ears were cut off the bodies for the jewelry they carried..." --Stan Hoig

"Jis to think of that dog Chivington and his dirty hounds, up thar at Sand Creek. His men shot down squaws, and blew the brains out of little innocent children. You call sich soldiers Christians, do ye? And Indians savages? What do you 'spose our Heavenly Father, who made both of them and us, thinks of these things?" --Kit Carson

Steely eyed, and not very good at grammar, but seems to know what he's talking about.

The point is, Stupids have always been around, and will probably always be around. But, if one or two stand up to them in order to do what's right over what's commanded, maybe it'll make a difference somewhere, sometime.

I think this history should be taught in schools. I think if kids were exposed to this knowledge, where right and wrong are clearly cut, maybe there wouldn't be so many bullies. If our kids were taught the other side of the story, the story where this land is NOT your land, but MY land (from the government's point of view), then maybe kids would grow up with a different perspective of what our country should be. I remember singing the first two verses of that song (propaganda) in elementary school, oblivious to the truth. I think kids should know the truth. They need both sides of the story. And not just the truth about our relations with Indians, but our relations with all peoples. The line in the sand that divides US and THEM should be wiped out with Kit Carson's boot.

Why did we only sing the first two verses? What would happen if kids refused to sing just those verses, but would only sing the whole song, or nothing?

Or with the shoes of a billion schoolchildren.