Adult Bullying Needs to Stop

Have you ever taken a selfie and used a filter? Of course, you have. Everyone has.

Last week, we saw a whole bunch of bullies attack a female MHA who made a mistake. She used AI on a personal photo of herself on her own personal Facebook account. The filter removed the Royal Newfoundland Regiment Caribou symbol above the door of The Rooms Art Gallery.

The caribou is the emblem of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and a lasting memorial to the province's sacrifices during the First World War.

Now, in Canada, you have to prove intent for a conviction in most criminal cases because of the fundamental legal principle that a person should not be punished for a "guilty act" unless they also had a "guilty mind". This distinction separates criminal behaviour from legitimate accidents or unintentional mishaps.

So, what was her intent? It was just to show off her visit to The Rooms Art Gallery. She had no “intent” to disrespect anyone.

Many internet bullies and politicians took advantage of this slip-up to get their 15 minutes of fame.

But yet, Memorial University, which is a “memorial” to those men who fought under that Caribou, would never hire any of those young men in the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. That Memorial to those men, posted six jobs that basically said straight white men need not apply.

Where is their outrage? I’m still waiting to hear their outrage from politicians.

On Remembrance Day, I stood at the National War Memorial as I’ve done for many years, and I watched a federal politician lay a wreath. Then she stopped, kissed her fingers, and blew a kiss to the grave of the unknown soldier and then five days later voted to strip Veterans Affairs, which takes care of disabled veterans, of $4.24 billion and reduce protection for RCMP disabled veterans.

Where is the outrage?

Where is your outrage over the genuine issues that are affecting people in Newfoundland and Labrador? The food insecurity? Family who can’t afford to put gas in the car? Young people who can’t find jobs because companies that our government awards contracts to, which are making record profits, are abusing the foreign worker program and will not hire Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Where is your outrage, politicians? Your silence is deafening.

Why don’t women go into politics?

This is exactly why? Women are held to a much higher standard than men.

You can take a fat, bald, troll of a man in a cheap suit, and he will be respected in that house of assembly.

But you put an educated, intelligent woman in the House of Assembly. They’ll pick up their pitchforks and torches and scream: Burn her, she’s a witch!

She’ll be judged for her shoes, her clothes, her hair, her weight, what she says, and how she looks. If she’s pretty, she must be stupid. If she’s not considered pretty. She’s a bitch, and she’s still stupid. The internet trolls won’t stop until they burn her at the stake.

But what really pisses me off is that it was other women.

Other female politicians who phoned the open line show and jumped in front of the media to criticize this woman.

Where was the sisterhood that they’re all about? Where’s your girl Power now?

If I were a politician and the party leader called me to say, "Jump on that bad wagon," I could talk to him. You jump off a goddamn cliff because I will never do something as low as to pretend to be offended by the deaths of young Newfoundland men, just to tear another woman down in the media.

My ovaries are bigger than that.

 I’m sick of politicians preaching to us about climate change in a Province that has zero impact on climate change while they are driving big F-150 pickup trucks and take every free trip out of the province that’s offered to them. 

Why are the media wasting ink on perpetuating this bullying? Why don’t reporters go to ATIP to ask what the government pays for light bulbs and how many family members it takes to screw them in?

Here’s the thing for those politicians who jumped at their 15 minutes of fame. You made a rod to whip your own ass. Because from here on in, you will never be able to make a mistake.

You are now going to be held to a higher standard than this lady. Everything you do, everything you say, is going to be a rod to whip your own ass.

This lady made a mistake.

Adult bullying is real, and it’s insidious.

It’s public humiliation, calculated mockery, it’s not playground drama, it’s psychological warfare in adult clothing… and it’s time we stopped excusing it.