Tales of the Bullies and the Bullied – Part 2
ByFaiza Khan
Newport Beach, CA
In continuation of my article from last week I surmise over relational bullying, also known as relational aggression, alternative aggression, or friendship bullying. It is broadly defined as a direct causation of harm to damage an individual’s relationship or social status to an extent that they are isolated and abandoned by their peer group.
Relational aggression can be used to manipulate someone or make them feel excluded from a social group. Ostensibly, in our own South-Asian American communities I have observed this type of bullying as being the most prevalent. It creeps up silently in our social setup and before we know it creates irreparable fragmentation. Statistically substantiated by research, relational aggression is more common in species of the feminine variety. Victims of relational aggression are often embarrassed by rejection of their peers in a self-deprecating and self-disparaging way. Deliberately leaving someone out of a group, refusing to share friends, forcing to pick sides in a situation, creating issues so that two individuals attempting to be friends directly are not able to, giving someone silent treatment in a group setting, relaying gossip about another person under the guise of helping them all have malicious intent. They may seem to be nonchalant and innocent on the surface but are all ways of impacting social relationships negatively via relational aggression.
I had a casual conversation with a subject matter expert who is also a friend on the issue of relational aggression in our communities. Curiosity got the better of me as I wanted to get the perspective of a person looking in from the outside. Keeping her own white privilege aside she said that a majority of her clientele was afraid to even utter the word “bully” in a social setting, let alone accuse someone of it. Poignantly, even if bullying is happening at a house party, or a social event where friends and family are present, the subject is brushed aside with polite smiles “boys will be boys,” “it was an accident,” or “it was unintentional.” Innately, we share a common humane principle to avoid conflict as much as possible, she quipped.
South-Asians (without any generalizations) regardless of age or gender (especially Pakistanis) are known for their perfectionistic to fault, non-confrontational, polite, and mild-mannered attitude. They have an astute sense of maintaining relationships over generations, and do not want to risk damaging this regardless of how much bullying they may think they are being subjected to. Her narrative got me thinking a million questions: what is the nature of friction if/when a South-Asian sued a South-Asian? It was rare, she said, that she came across lawsuits culminating from known bullying issues such as someone building a fence outside of the markings on their property or that a car was parked inappropriately blocking the other’s driveway. Surprisingly, she observed South-Asians demonstrated an antithetical behavior when they were contesting/challenging inheritance via wills and estates, heirlooms/jewelry from their deceased, divorces, and child custody battles. She said overall South-Asians were easier to communicate with and heard all of her suggestions with an open mind, but did not come up with a decision on the spot. Appropriately so she said they wanted to confer with families or friends and took their time before providing her with answers. Once the decision was made, they stuck to it and rarely changed their minds about it. She found this true for all Asian Americans making the movie, “Crazy Rich Asians” anecdotal for our culture. This behavior could putatively be attributed to relational aggression as families or friends tend to stick together whether by force or necessity and would not speak up in order to protect their enclave.
In this brief space I also want to touch upon cyber bullying before I close out the topic for this week. Social media has changed the dialogue around all social problematics, including bullying. Just like any other global citizen, South-Asians get cyberbullied the same way as any person would. At a high-level perspective, my introspection was about decoding the social media interactions of South-Asians with South-Asians (within our own community). In comparison to other ethno-cultural groups our community members generally refrain from cyber bullying. If there are some stragglers, they are more subtle than outside of the core niche. Either there is strictly the “no-comment rule” or “averted eyes attitude” towards cyber bullying. South-Asians are more silent observers than participants. They keep a neutral stance where they do not approve of cyberbullying but also vehemently feel powerless to do anything about it. They voice their concerns and admonish their kids, families and friends from participating in it.
The eye-opener was that South-Asians in America use cyber sphere as venting or a coping mechanism against hurdles, injustices, or prejudices they faced transitioning to a new culture. The most common form of cyberbullying my interviewees found in their experience with social media was self-inflicted superiority - such as exhibitionism, projecting a lifestyle which was aspired to by others, or comments that left others in the group having low self-esteem due to an inability to achieve that level of glamor, fun or affluence as their peers.
In a nutshell bullying is bullying no matter what shape or form it takes. Let us all make a pledge to stop bullying when we see it. No matter how long it takes, or whatever we have to do to channelize a better mindset in any setting, bullying is not acceptable anywhere - period.
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