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You know, I'll never forget something that happened in 8th grade. I was getting bullied in the locker room after gym class - which was not unusual. But that day, this more popular dude spoke up and defused it. He made them stop with a kind word and a smile, felt like magic.
He got along easily with everyone - and that day, he used his effortless charm to convey to everyone that when he was in the room it was not okay to be a bully. And that bullying stopped. This is how I learned about power, and privilege. And it has stayed with me since.
There was nothing I could have said to make those bullies stop. Everything I said, everything I did, it was always already invalidated by the fact that they were already bullying me. It wasn't until someone used his privilege on my behalf that things changed.
Dude didn't have to do that. We weren't friends, I was a classic nerd -- smart but socially awkward. (It would be 20 more years before I realized I was autistic). I wondered for months why he spoke up. We never talked about it, I don't think I even thanked him I was too shocked
One day, some months later, a teacher asked the class if we had made any new year's resolutions or something like that, I don't remember exactly. And this guy, he said something to the effect of "I decided to try to be kinder to people who don't have very many friends."
And in that moment I learned one of the most important lessons of my life, though it would take me many years to really understand it. I learned that what saved me that day was simply that he had made a choice to notice. To see me as real, and to treat me as human.
I'm sure nobody else who was in that locker room remembers that day, I doubt that even the guy who spoke up does. Just another day, to them. To me it was the day I stopped getting bullied in gym class. And the day I came to understand something huge about human nature.
That experience taught me that privilege is the freedom not to pay attention to something, and kindness is choosing to anyway. So thanks Dax, wherever you are, we lost touch a few months later when you went to a private school but your kindness has informed my life ever since.
(Updating thread to add: I framed this positively, because I value that. But one dude choosing one day to notice also taught me that everyone else chose every day not to. And learning to accept that without hating them for it took me years.)
(last addition - I've done another thread examining my reflections on this tweet, and it's not nearly as positive but it does address some serious healing work. I consider these to be two halves of the same real expression.) https://t.co/BQVEBkbDiI
That bullying thread has had me thinking about my own bullying experiences and I realized last night that I've massively underestimated their impact on me. I was severely bullied almost daily for most of my schooling, and I literally never think about it. That's a clue.