Previous Challenge Entry
Topic: Bullies (08/09/04)
TITLE: Bullies By Heather Roberts 08/16/04 |
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT SEND ARTICLE TO A FRIEND |
“This book,” she began coldly, meeting each child with her piercing gray eyes and waving the book in front of them, “is not acceptable here.” The children fidgeted restlessly. Some stared at her blankly. Others shuddered.
“Do you know why it is unacceptable?” she asked. No one moved. She held the book still in front of her and finally, a tiny girl in the back dared raise her hand.
“Because it is bad?” Gretel answered in a small voice. Frau Schmidt smiled approvingly and directed her next statement to the child in front of her. “John,” she said, in a hushed tone, “this book was written by a member of an inferior race.” John stared back at her. He didn’t comprehend the word inferior, but he did understand his teacher’s tone. He remained silent
Then Frau Schmidt aimed her frigid stare at the back of the room. “Isaac, do you know who wrote this book?”
The children trembled in their desks as Isaac shook his head silently, staring downward. The teacher’s gaze did not feel good.
She spat out her next words quickly: “A Jew!” The teacher held her stare a moment longer and then turned on her heel distinctively.
She dropped the despised book, only to open a textbook on her desk and point to a drawing it contained. “This mushroom is growing in the forest, surrounded by other mushrooms,” she said plainly, pointing out the picture for all to see. “It looks normal, doesn’t it?”
The children nodded.
“But,” she paused for effect, “it is not normal. It is not a mushroom you could harvest and cook for dinner. It would not taste good in a salad. No, children...this...is a poison mushroom!”
Staring menacingly at Isaac, she shouted: “JEWS are the poison mushrooms in the forest of our world!” Surveying the class, she asked invitingly, “And they are not welcome here, are they children?”
“No!” all but Isaac chorused. “They are not welcome here!”
Bullies have been around for centuries, spreading their dogma in different forms. Over sixty years ago, they threatened impressionable children in the classrooms of Germany. Today, they scream humanistic claims in the ears of Americans. They yell right in front of us, but we are often too preoccupied to notice.
You may have heard them shouting the right to die while insisting they believe in life.
Or perhaps you have found them asserting their belief in human rights while failing to recognize the rights of unborn humans.
They frequently proclaim sexual freedom but fail to address the victims of such brutal acts as rape, incest, or pornography.
And they call intolerance unacceptable while all the while scoffing at Bible-believing Christians.
If you haven’t noticed, the poison mushrooms today include anyone who dares challenge the norms of a humanistic society. And the bullies brainwash, intimidate, and threaten anyone who thinks Biblically.
By the way, children are their favorite targets. Bullies find them readily—as receptors to their television programs, as participants in their video games, and as perfect targets for their dogma in newspapers, movies, books, and even some text books.
Have you done anything lately to combat these bullies?
As in Nazi Germany, some day it may be too late.