The Mouths of Babes

Zenobia:  Welcome to Openly Biased.  Doll County is reopening, but we aren't talking pandemic today.  A larger matter needs our attention.  What's larger than a pandemic?  My guests are the Dean brothers, Frodo and Ty, and the Pike brothers, Tanner and Freddy.  They can explain better than I can.

Frodo: We big brothers have agreed to let Ty and Fred take the lead on this.

Ty: We was both very sad and mad about all the bad stuff people are doing.  Our grownups tried to explain, but we're just little kids.  We don't get it.  

Freddy: So we did a spearmint.  These guys took us to the big mall and traded little brothers.  Frodo walked around all day with me and Tanner did it with Ty.  It was lots of fun.

Ty: Let's trade big brothers like we did then!  (The boys switch laps.)  Tanner took me to a movie and then we got ice cream.  Frodo and Freddy had a big ole pizza and then watched a different movie.

Fred: People asked me like ten bazillion times was I okay and did I know Frodo.  Did he steal me or was he hurting me.  Frodo said it was part of the spearmint.

Ty: Nobody asked me that stuff.  And the big boys said that was the spearmint.  All them people thought Frodo was a bad guy, but not Tanner, and the only difference was what color they were.  So then we found out that even the nice people can be dummies about skin color.

Zenobia: It used to be perfectly normal to own black people.  They were livestock, like horses or cows. 

Ty: Frodo said it's like when you throw a rock in the lake.  Owning black people was the big splash, but then all them little waves happen.  Stuff like when you think the best way is being white and going to church and even being a boy instead of a girl.  That's the waves.

Fred: More like the rock was the moon and the splash made tsunamis!  People think the waves are zag-rated or pretend but they aren't.   I don't want Ty to get dead because he's browner than me.

Ty: Lets show them Grandpa Mace's sign.

 

Fred drags a huge poster board into camera range.

Fred: Red is Jenny, Yellow is Vivica, Black is Ty, and White is me.  We're all friends. 

Zenobia: There are different kinds of each color, too, if you think about it.  Just calling Nakoma and Joe "Indians" ignores the fact that they're different tribes.

Ty:  You're not sposed to say Indian.  You're sposed to say Native American.

Zenobia: You're right.  Nowadays some people get upset about the terms we use.  You boys have been saying black this whole time when you should be saying African-American. 

Ty and Freddy (giggling): Busted!  

Zenobia (to camera): The message is clear here.  We've come a long way, but there is still work to be done.  We all need to work on this, no matter where our ancestors came from.  Barbieville was founded as a haven from racism, but even here, it happens.  

Midna Takes One For The Team

Violet: As your business manager, I have to object to your advertising a competitor's business, but as a citizen of Barbieville, I understand.  Strange times we're living in. 

Midna: I figure the Changs need the little bit of profit still coming in more than I do.  I'm more upset about doing this to my employees than I am about any hit my pocketbook's gonna take.  

Violet:  Are the Changs doing all right?  Aside from the money, there's so many people blaming this on Asians and Chinese in particular.  

Midna: Well, I guess any racists in Barbieville get to cook for themselves or starve. I vote for starve.

Violet (laughs): You're an evil woman, Midna Sunburst. 

After finally getting into and registering at the Unemployment website, Pern browses free on-line courses.  Knowledge has become Pern's new drug of choice, a vast improvement over her last one!

Nova: Mariko?  Why are you here? 

Mariko: Sunburst is closed for the duration.  I was almost to work when Midna called, so I just turned around and followed Jeremiah home.

Nova: We'll muddle through somehow.  We always do.

Jeremiah: Alex, one of us needs to use your computer while the other uses the family room one.  We hear it's a nightmare to get into Unemployment's website.  You got anything on it you don't want us seeing?

Alex: Not that I can think of.  Why not have Mariko use mine, just in case? 

Jeremiah: Good plan.  She's not your dad.

Nova: Hurry back.  We're doing cornrows.  Lottie's upstairs admiring hers.   We'll do yours, too.  

Frodo: I guess your mom told you we're out of work for a while? 

Four: Yeah.  I was just getting ready to whip Finnick on COD.  You in? 

Frodo: Sure.  Let me pry my little brother off of Youtube.  

Zenobia: Welcome to Openly Biased.  My roomie and I are both out of work due to COVID-19, so my content will be a little different for a while.  We'll talk about current events, of course, but my only guest will probably be Miss Tris here, and we'll share what we're up to! 

Tris: Tomorrow's topic will be "alternatives to pitching your device out the window while trying to apply for Unemployment".

Whitney (sobbing):  What am I gonna do, Mom?  

Kyra:  Honey, it's not that bad.  You aren't paying rent or anything. 

Whitney: Dad just moved into town and this was my chance to show him.  I'm carrying good grades, working a job, and taking care of Wilma.  Everything he's been saying about me is wrong. Now I'm unemployed and not going to school. 

Kyra: You were laid off because of something you have no power over.  You are still doing your schoolwork.  And you don't have anything to prove to Meanie Grandpa, Whitney.  He wrote you off and that's his loss. 

Whitney (still crying, but not as hard): It still hurts so bad, though. 

Kyra: I know, sweetheart, I know.  He wrote me off, too. 

Openly Biased: Bullies and The Bullied

Zenobia: Welcome to Openly Biased.  Today we're continuing the series on bullying, focusing on why people bully and what can be done about it.  My first guest today are Ryan Guinness and Helena Malfoy, both former bullies! Kudos to them for the "former" part! 

Zenobia: Let's hear Helena's story first.

Helena: When I was a teenager, there was a pair of sisters that I targeted.  I did everything within my power to make their lives worse.  It wasn't until adulthood that I realized how wrong I had been.  

Zenobia: What did you have against them? 

Helena: Honestly, I think it was a case of tearing others down to build myself up.  I had incredibly low self esteem.  I had the power to make them cry and I reveled in it.  And they were easy targets - poor, unfashionable, all of that.

Zenobia: What made you see the error of your ways? 

Helena: As you know, I'm a historian.  In the course of my studies, I saw the harm done by mistreatment of the poor.   Also, in the course of simple maturation, I came to understand that the things I vilified those girls for were not their fault, that they didn't choose to be what they were.

Zenobia: Have you talked to them since?  How did that go?

Helena: One of them has forgiven me and moved past it.  The other, not so much. 

Zenobia: Ryan, what's your story? 

Ryan: If there was anyone around who wasn't obviously a white Christian heterosexual with a good job, or parents that worked, I hated them.  I got beat up at school, lost jobs, all kinds of stuff.  Slut-shaming, fat-shaming, you name it - I did it.  

Zenobia: Often, in a case like this, the bully has learned these things from his parents.  But that doesn't apply to you.  

Ryan: My sister blames her ex-boyfriend.  All I can tell you for sure is that when Dad figured out I was the one causing all the trouble, he hit the roof. Might as well have sent me off to military school.  Then Mom found out we have, like, one drop of black blood.  Seeing my sister treated the way she was, by a man she thought loved her...  That was the last straw.  I've been trying to make up for it ever since.

Zenobia: Next up, I have those who were bullied.  Three of them are peers of Ryan's and one is a former victim of Helena's.  That's not really on purpose, but Barbieville is a small town and I work with what I have.  

Zenobia: Peeta Mellark, Frodo Dean, Batgirl Montez, and Whitney Darling.  We'll start with Peeta and work our way across.  How did being bullied affect you, and do you have any advice for viewers?

Peeta: It was more like attempted bullying in my case.  I am Jewish, so I learned early on to deal with people who didn't understand.  In second grade, I remember a big scandal over my refusal to eat the pork and beans in my lunch. (laughs) Then word got out that I'm gay and people tried to give me grief for that, but it didn't bother me.  Bothers my boyfriend a lot.  He was never, you know, different.

Zenobia: I tried to talk him into being here, but he declined.  

Peeta:  Anyway, my advice to viewers is the same as I tell my boyfriend:  You aren't hurting anyone and these people have no power over you.  That second part isn't true when it comes to lawmakers and stuff, but it sure applies to that jackass who wrote gay slurs on your locker.

Frodo: Most of the bullying I've dealt with has been racial.  Mom's black and Dad's white, so I get it from both sides.  I just roll with it like my parents do. Getting mad is counterproductive, that just "proves them right".  Joking about stereotypes is a good way to show how dumb the whole thing is, though, so I do that a lot.  

Zenobia: I've heard it said the blacks can't be racist. But you said you get it from both sides?

Frodo: If you're talking actual racism, the stuff that's embedded in society, blacks can't be.  But plenty of us are...  We tend to assume the worst.  Like, say I'm wearing the saggy pants and your mom tells me to pull them up.  She doesn't realize it, but she's being racist.  Now, I could get mad and scream at her, but odds are she just thought it looked stupid.  

Zenobia: Because she doesn't understand that it's a big thing in black culture.

Frodo: Right.  The best thing to do is stay calm and give the lady the benefit of the doubt.  If she did mean to be racist, you screaming in her face is just gonna make her even more so.  

Batgirl: I can vouch for that.  Not so much on the race thing, but in general.  If people think you are trash and you don't behave like trash, it creates a chance to communicate.  I'm one of the sisters Helena talked about and, yes, we were trailer trash.  Everyone in town knew it.  We both left town upon graduation and I grew some self-esteem.  

Zenobia: You must have, if you chose to return and raise your kids in the town that treated you so badly. 

Batgirl: I realized then that most of what Charlotte and I went through was our parents' fault.  Kids, especially junior high kids, like Helena was during the worst of it, can't understand that children don't choose to live like we did.  I married Joe and brought him back here, we both work hard to support our family, and the worst my girls have gotten is an occasional comment about going back to Mexico, which they just find funny because they're Navajo. 

Zenobia: So you offer the same advice as Frodo and Peeta.  Roll with it, they mean nothing.

Batgirl: More or less.  

Whitney: I had what I thought was some harmless fun and Wilma came along nine months later.  Those nine months were a living hell.  Mom was there for me, every step of the way, but when you're thirteen, your peers are the most important people in your life. When I see the news stories about kids committing suicide because they've been bullied, I totally get it.  I thought about doing it, myself.  

Zenobia: But you got through it. 

Whitney: I had Mom.  She stood by me, helped me make my choices, even divorced my dad for me.  Held me when I cried, hid the cutlery when I was really down, everything.  But most parents are kind of oblivious to stuff like this. Maybe they aren't even capable of understanding. (Crying)  I think we need to be giving advice to everyone instead of just the kids getting bullied.   If you see someone being bullied, anywhere, any time, step in.  Don't mind your own business, don't make excuses for the bully.  Step in.  You might save a life. 

Zenobia: Everyone out there - don't be a bystander. If you have ideas, advice, anything constructive, tell us in the comment section. (Outro music plays over everyone gathering around Whitney.)

Beginnings

When Albus reports for work early Friday morning, he finds his boss on her phone.

Pocahontas (Waving him into the room): I'll make some calls and everything should be in place by the time she arrives.  I have a lot of connections in this town.  

Albus (once she hangs up): What in the world is going on?

Pocahontas: Anakin's mother relapsed.  She spent the night in the hospital and now she's on a bus to Barbieville.  The judge was happy to pass her on to the system out here.  Apparently that area's been hit hard by the opioid epidemic.

Albus: How did the boy take it?

Pocahontas: He doesn't know yet.  I saw no reason to upset him when everything was still being decided.  

Albus: They've simply released her into your care?  What about all those rules regarding her being an unfit mother?

Pocahontas: As long as she doesn't live in the same house as Anakin and has supervised visits, it isn't a problem.  I do have to find her a job and a place to live - not with you, pothead.

Albus: I was going to say... Can she work for you?  

Pocahontas: No, but I'm sure I can call in some favors.  And there's always Midna.

*****

 Zenobia's studio is bursting at the seams.

Zenobia: Today we start the Openly Biased series on bullying.  I'll let each of you introduce yourself.

Suzie:  I'm Susannah Dean, elementary school phys ed teacher.

Dean: Dean Mellark, principal of Barbieville High.  Go, Spiders!

Nancy: Nancy Guinness.  I teach Sex Ed on the Middle and High School levels.

Guinness: I'm Alec Guinness, Middle School Social Studies.  I'm related to Nancy by marriage - namely our own.

Zenobia: Strangely, only the local public schools seem willing to admit bullying happens on their campus.  Several others refused to consider allowing faculty to appear on my program. (Snicker from off-camera.)  Including the one attended by my camera operator.

Guinness: Your camera operator attends a private school.  To admit such a thing could hurt the image and, frankly, income of the institution.  Of course bullying happens there - it is ubiquitous. 

Nancy: One thing that comes up often as a means of preventing bullying is the adoption of school uniforms.  I speak from experience when I say uniforms won't stop bullies.  A bully will always find something. 

Dean: Another problem in defining the term.  Where does peer pressure end and bullying begin?  My son can ignore obvious bullies, but some of his peers crumble at a passing remark.  

Suzie: Yes.  There are so many variables at play, it's almost impossible to know.  I have a group of friends in my classes who show affection by insulting one another.  The days of the obvious "Give me your lunch money" bully is ancient history.

Zenobia: And bullies are slick, too.  They don't walk up in front of the teacher and call you names - they do it away from adults and cry victim when you take a swing at them.  The one who retaliates gets in trouble. 

Nancy: I once had a student who was instigating every one of the incidents that she reported.  We only caught on when she was overheard.  She all but confessed, not knowing there was a student teacher standing right behind her.

Zenobia: So you, at the school, are powerless?  

Suzie: Of course we aren't powerless.  We just can't do it alone.  Parents undermine us all the time, usually by refusing to believe their little angel could do such a thing.  Adults don't always treat others with respect, and children mimic adult behavior. It really is an uphill battle.

Guinness: Nancy and I recently had to deal with learning that our own son was a bully.  We, and the other adults in his life, made it clear that his behavior was not acceptable. It took a united front to show him the error of his ways.  

Zenobia: And he's agreed to guest on the Reformed Bullies segment of this series.  Viewers, feel free to ask questions in the comments section.  If I must, I will have guests return to explore the issue as completely as we can. 

The outro plays over footage of Zenobia and her guests chatting.

******

Early evening, back in Pocahontas's office.

Bonnie: I'm Bonnie Carson, probation officer for Doll County.  I'll be handling Pernilla Nedakh's case now.  Do you have all the paperwork ready for me? 

Pocahontas: Bonnie, you don't need to be so formal.  We graduated together.  (Both women laugh.) I've found her a hotel room until she gets on her feet - the judge said that would be acceptable - and she'll be cooking at Sunburst. 

Bonnie: Sunburst?  That's not far removed from being in your employ, but I guess it will do.  Midna makes her employees toe the line.  (She leaves after reviewing the paperwork.)

Pern:  Thank you so much!  All the things you've do for me.... 

Pocahontas: I haven't done anything for you.  This was all for Anakin.  That boy loves you so much.  More than you deserve, from what I can tell. 

Pern (blinking back tears):  You are so right - I don't deserve his love, he's such a wonderful boy.  Will you help me be strong, for him?  Will you help me like my so-called friends back home didn't?  

Pocahontas: Of course.  But fair warning... I'm the queen of tough love. 

Pern: Tough love is probably exactly what I need. 

The Point And The Cove

Zenobia: Welcome to Openly Biased.  I'm your host, of course, Zenobia!  Today we're talking to a representative from Save The Point, a local initiative to block the destruction of a Barbieville landmark, and to someone from Witch's Cove to talk about changes to the park next summer.  My first guest is Helena Malfoy, director of Barbieville Museum.

Helena: Thank you for having me.  It is vital to this community, for many reasons, that The Point be saved.  We may think an RV park and campground is an eyesore, but it is an integral part of Barbieville and Doll County's economy.  

Zenobia: And not just the economy.  Almost everyone in this town has fond memories of The Point.  One of our local characters lived at the point for decades and had to find another home.

Helena (glances off-camera):  Yes, Albus Dumbledore is as much an institution in this town as any of the businesses. The community rallied to help him, even those who disapprove of his lifestyle, and he's recovered nicely from the blow.

Zenobia: I have to wonder.  Why would a person do this?  It can't be a sound business decision - nothing they put in is going to bring in more revenue for either the owner or the town.  

Helena: I'm reluctant to discuss this, so all I will say on the matter is this:  I have it on good authority that she is motivated by revenge.  She was badly bullied in school.

Zenobia (to camera): And this, kids, is why we don't bully.

Helena: I hope you're trying to inject a bit of levity, Zenobia.  

Zenobia: Yes, I am. Of course, being bullied is not a free pass for being a jerk.  The new owner of The Point is the sister of Batgirl Montez.  Batgirl was bullied just as badly and she's a sweetheart.

Helena:  I just had an excellent idea!  You could do an entire series about bullying, look at all the different perspectives.  I was guilty of bullying in my youth and would be willing to discuss the matter on your program.

Zenobia: That is a good idea.  

Helena: Back to the subject at hand.  Save The Point is taking action - several of the local business owners have filed to block a zoning change.  We can't legally do anything to stop her purchase and closure of  the business, but we will not sit idly by. 

Zenobia: Can a citizen file?  From a sentimental standpoint? 

Helena: Many have done so because their jobs are in danger - closing The Point is going to harm almost all the local businesses - but sentiment is a valid reason to oppose the zoning.  I urge every adult citizen of Barbieville to do just that. 

Zenobia: I know I'll be making a trip to City Hall soon.  (To the camera)  Even those who don't live here can help.  Contact the zoning office using the information in the video description.  

Helena (to the camera): Now that I've said my piece, I'll give my seat to Zenobia's next guest.  Albus Dumbledore, Head Ride Technician at Witch's Cove. 

Albus: Actually, my job title is Director of Ride Maintenance.  (laughs) Something like that, anyway.  I do a lot of odd jobs, too. 

Zenobia: I know a lot of us were disappointed when the Windigo failed to open this year.  What's the news on that? 

Albus: Pocahontas specifically wanted safety features allowing older children to be able to ride, but the cars delivered were designed only for adults.  I tried to convince her to use them in the meantime, but she's a stubborn gal.  She returned them to the manufacturer.  The correct cars are in place, but the park has already closed for the season.  We will open next year with the Windigo running. 

Zenobia: What about the haunted house?  Was anything salvageable after the fire? 

Albus: The building itself was not, but we're using some of the elements from it to update the wild west train.  Not a lot of people cared to ride a wild west train, but the haunted house was very popular.  We're hoping that combining the two will be a win-win.  

After signing off, they visit.  

Albus:  They signed on the house yesterday and can move in next week.  The kids are thrilled - the property backs on Windu Acres.  Nakoma is driving Pocahontas nuts, bringing wedding planning books home from the library.  

Helena: Nakoma might have found her calling.  (her phone rings)  Yes, what is it?  I'm at Zenobia's apartment.  (gasps)  No, no, absolutely not!  You leave him there and I will deal with this!  (hangs up, crying)  Albus, I am so sorry.  I'll do anything I must to make this right.

Zenobia: Mom, what's happened?

Helena: Draco's been arrested.  He was the one that destroyed Albus's camper.