BLOODIED AND BOWED

I was glad to read that after 11 days, Anthony Scaramucci, the President’s Communication Director , Favorite Bully and Master of Profanity is no longer in a position to play Trump’s, Game of Thorns. Scaramucci obviously had viewed his job as having the enjoyable duty to stick it to people whom the President wanted to eliminate. Anthony will not even garner a footnote in history after his inauspicious verbal poke at those in power.

When I was a very little girl, my Father warned me about the power of words—that, “Words have meaning and weight, and everything that you say, and  everything that you do, affects other people.”

I adapted this lesson to write the following conversation between “Papa” and “Rachel” in my play, UNDER MIDWESTERN STARS (Kansas City Repertory Theatre, 2003) and it went like this:

    Rachel

It’s a good lesson Papa. I know that Patrick Murphy is going to watch his words from now on.

    Papa

What are you talking about? Who is Patrick Murphy?

    Rachel

He’s a new boy at school. He is in the fourth grade, and his Daddy works at the Army, Air Force Base, and I don’t like him at all.

    Papa

Rachel. He is much older than you. Did this boy bother you?

    Rachel

He called me a dirty German! I told him that I am not dirty, and that I am an American, and I closed my eyes, and I swung my fist, and I hit him on his nose, and he bled all over his shirt. Papa, I have never seen so much blood.

    Papa

Rachel! You were in a fist fight?

    Rachel

No, Papa! It was no fight. He cried and ran away.

    Papa

Perhaps you should ask for his forgiveness for making him bleed. Give it some thought.

    Rachel

I never saw Patrick Murphy again. I was sorry that I made him bleed, but I am not sorry that I hit him. I am an American girl!

Patrick Murphy was my first experience with a bully. As I grew up, I learned to use my words to call out bullies, and I have discovered that not only are bullies cowards, but they have no sense of humor—especially about themselves. That is why ridicule works!
A bully wants attention, wants his victim to act hurt or upset, and he wants a fight, but mostly not a physical confrontation.

Happily in our great Democracy, besides having a free press, we also have a host of professional comedians, who can push back in the one way that bullies cannot stand—nor effectively defend themselves.

Of course, when confronted with a bully, a person can take the high ground. As Michelle Obama said, “When they go low, we go high.” However, once in awhile, a metaphoric bloody nose really does give one pleasure.

Esther Blumenfeld (“The big drum beats fast, but does not realize it’s hollowness”) Melay Proverb