Bullying became a hot topic in the NFL and among football fans after Miami Dolphins player Jonathan Martin left the team because of harassment [1].
Oak Creek, WI Mayor and NFL fan Steve Scaffidi offers his views on the incident. Scaffidi is working to bring his community together after six Sikh community members in his town lost their lives in a hate crime.
By Steve Scaffidi
With the recent headlines of the Jonathan Martin-Richie Incognito locker room harassment case in the National Football League (NFL), we’re reminded that bullying is never too far away, even among adults, and worse, pro athletes, who are role models for many of our children. Incognito is alleged to have sent his Miami Dolphin teammate text messages containing racial slurs and threats, which caused his coach, former Green Bay Packers Assistant Coach Joe Philbin, to suspend him.
Many of the current Dolphins players are coming to Incognito’s aid, defending the comments as typical locker room chatter, questioning Martin’s motives, and his apparent unwillingness to keep it in-house. We’ve seen this before in other cases, far removed from the world of professional football. It continues to plague school playgrounds, offices, and now, the ever increasing vitriolic world of modern politics.
What’s surprising to many is that it can happen among the toughest and strongest athletes in the world, challenging the typical public response to bullying, which suggests that the victim should just fight back. But the Martin case provides an excellent lesson in why it’s not the circumstances, or in this case, the size of the victim that matters. Martin is a 312 pound, 6 foot, 5 inch offensive tackle, and usually one of the largest players on the field.
What the Martin case illustrates is that bullying isn’t going away anytime soon, despite all the efforts, fundraising and otherwise, to make that happen. In the digital world of Twitter and Facebook, we’ve just moved the geography of bullying to laptops and smartphones. Hundreds of cases of social media bullying fill our timelines, including some tragic ones resulting in teen suicides. In a recent workplace conversation, a fellow employee told me that he felt bullied during a client meeting, citing the explosive response of a senior manager who questioned his experience and competence in respect to a proposal, at one point raising his voice and taking a confrontational stance directly in front of him.
National and local media political “news” shows, already stretching the limits of responsible journalism and free speech, often target individuals based on nothing more than an opposing opinion, and turn that ideological difference into a lightning rod for public anger and increased hostility. Disagree on abortion, health care, or gun rights? Challenge the person’s sexuality, intelligence, or commitment to the U.S. Constitution. Worse yet, threaten someone who looks, acts, or believes differently than you do, with violence, hiding behind the anonymity of the internet, or talk radio.
Jonathan Martin is a victim in the truest sense, apparently subjected to constant verbal taunts filled with threats to himself and to his family. He deserved the full protection and compassion of his teammates, and the public. What he received instead is a “blame the victim” response that continues to perpetuate in our society. The cycle of bullying continues today, and is silently promoted, by the unwillingness of the public to tolerate and accept differences among us, and to understand that being free and equal means respecting the rights of all of us, even when they challenge, or question, what we believe.
Whether it’s a playground or a football field, our response to incidents like the NFL Martin-Incognito case will determine whether real progress is being made. Judging by the reaction of the public and the media, we still have a lot of work to do.
Scaffidi appears in our forthcoming Not In Our Town film, Waking in Oak Creek.