It was mid-afternoon on a Wednesday and I was walking uptown on Broadway, around 55th Street. I had on a heavy backpack and was carrying a full bag in each hand. I was hurried and preoccupied when a big scruffy guy stepped into my path. I noticed a distant, strange look in his eyes.

I stepped to the right, he stepped to the right. I stepped to the left, he did the same. It was just one of those stupid sidewalk dances, until I stepped again, very clearly, to the right and he followed me again. I had a quick moment of thinking “yuck, this is weird, you don’t want to be here.” And then my Prepare skills took over.

In a loud, clear voice, I told him to stay still and I would go around him. He complied and I walked away. He followed me. I had to stop at a corner for a red light. He came up beside me, very close, and peered at me over my shoulder. “I don’t want any trouble,” I said. “You stay right there. I am going over to the other side of the curb.”

There were people all around us, staring. I’m sure they thought I was over-reacting, but it worked. The guy stayed put and left me alone. Nothing bad happened, nothing at all. And I had a part in that. I think that’s what verbal skills are all about.

Emmy Laybourne, Basics Graduate

I’m not sure how long he had been following me. I had tried on a few pairs of sunglasses, looked at handbags, and was now in the jewelry department on the first floor of Macy’s at Bridgewater Commons, New Jersey. “They’re all pretty nice, aren’t they?” he said about the earring display I was admiring. I had just become aware that a man was standing near me, and thought, “he must be looking for a gift for his wife”. “Yes, they are”, I replied, without looking at him. “Do you wear earrings a lot?” was his next question.

That was it for me! I stared hard at his wide, forty-something face, and firmly said, “No! I Don’t!” Then I turned and walked away quickly into the shoe department. I realized after a few minutes that he was there too. At first he stayed on the perimeter, just watching me. But soon he was hovering much too close again. I walked over to a sales woman and asked about a pair of shoes. He disappeared, but was there again as soon as my conversation with her ended. “Okay”, I thought, “I have to change the scenario here”. I walked rapidly through the store and got on the escalator to the second floor. Half way up, I looked down and saw that, sure enough, he had followed me onto the escalator.

“I guess I really have to handle this now”, I said to myself. It occurred to me how easy it would be to just kick him down the moving stairs, but I knew that the solution was not that simple. At the top, I started walking straight down the main aisle. I could feel his presence coming up behind me. I decided to just turn and confront him. Being in a public, populated environment, where any type of commotion would be noticed and dealt with by personnel, I knew I had options. For example, I could just yell “The brown haired man in the turquoise velour shirt is following me,” or “Back off; stop following me!” Just as I was about to do that, I became aware of a salesman helping a lady just up ahead and to my right. Without really thinking about it, I turned in their direction. I told them that the man behind me had been following me for the past fifteen minutes and to please call security. As the three of us turned to look at him, he hurriedly turned and actually ran back to the escalator. I never saw him again, but did speak to the security people and gave them a detailed description of my stalker.

Joanne Mazzeo, Basics Graduate

For today’s post, in honor of Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, Donna talks about a recent classroom experience that reminded her of “The Power of Elle.”

Prepare has been hired to teach Walk the Talk. Today, I am pretending to be very mean to 3rd graders at a school in Brooklyn.  Prepare believes in learning by doing — so we focus on role plays — behavioral rehearsals — so students can combine powerful words with confident bodies in real-time settings.

These are the kind of things my teaching partner and I are saying:

“You sleep with a teddy bear; you are such a baby.” 

“We don’t want you to play basketball, you’re a girl.”

“You should be held back a grade, your reading level is so low.”

In each of these practice scenarios, students have the opportunity to stand up to my character’s bias and stereotypes. They replace a normal desire to “put the other person down” or label the aggressor by saying “you are mean” with using powerful, congruent, boundary setting statements.

Additionally, students practice standing up for others when they hear these put-downs. They get to embody what it means to be an ally.

So how do Bias and Stereotypes connect to anti-bullying work? In the above examples, you might notice that ageism, sexism, and ableism are at the roots of the put-downs. If one holds biased beliefs about difference, it is easy to express those beliefs through mean, aggressive, or thoughtless statements — even without any (conscious) intention to hurt the other person.

The scenario that stuck with me today was the following put down:

“I feel really bad for you because I am going to Disney on vacation and you have to stay home.” I delivered this micro-aggression with sincerity and concern, not any mean-spirited attitude.

Kids often struggle with this one ’cause everyone knows a Disney vacation is better. Right? Wrong! The student immediately understood that a classist belief was fueling my character’s pity. He confidently said, “That’s not true, vacations are about relaxing and spending time with family.” Right after that, another student, acting as an ally said, “And if it snows, he can go sledding and build snowmen.” 

As I said, these role-plays happen in real time and as the aggressor I was shut down. The room exploded in cheers.

This reminded me of my first year teaching Prepare when another room roared with cheers. I was in a classroom of students, one of whom used a wheelchair. Her name was Elle. I’ve already mentioned that I inhabit a character in these role plays who is mean, so I took a deep breath and decided she deserved to have as mean a role play as everyone else. “I feel bad you use a wheelchair.” ‘Cause everyone knows that is bad. Right? Wrong! Elle became calm and powerful and stated very clearly that she did not need my pity.

Spontaneously the entire room stood up. I was bombarded with a classroom full of students acting as Elle’s ally. I was shut down! The girls explained to me that they made a pact that they would never say anything to hurt Elle’s feelings. And while they were being kind and inclusive to Elle, they decided they would do the same for each other.

When I met that same group several years later as 6^th graders, an age notorious for mean behavior, this group was still honoring their pledge. Elle was a popular, well-liked kid. And it was a grade that had deep respect for all of the students. Elle told me that she remembered her role-play and how proud she felt standing up to me and how supported she felt by her classmates.

That experience, 18 years ago, was an “ahah” moment. First, communities can change their beliefs — even ones deeply held around ableism, or sexism, or classism, or lookism, or racism. Second, once those beliefs about difference and otherness shift — it naturally supports inclusion and kindness.

Anti-bullying work that includes a deep understanding of Bias and Stereotypes can deeply impact the community. That is the power of Elle.

For further reading on the power of a single young person to rally a community and shift a culture away from bullying, please read:

Canadian teen responds to bullying with a positive post it on everyone’s locker at school. In trouble for littering, her community rises up to support her.

#positivepostitday

Watch this story about how Jetta stands up to bullying after she donates cut hair to cancer patient charity and kids at school behave cruelly

#standwithjetta 

NJ teen turns body shaming graffiti message into a campaign for body acceptance. Her awesome pic and message on her mom’s facebook page goes viral.

Thank you Donna for sharing your experiences teaching Walk the Talk. We return next week with more in the series on media coverage of the Ray and Janay Rice story looking at allied behavior from James Brown, Terry Crews and others in the world of sports.

Please join us again and invite others to do so as well.

Karen

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It was a typical late afternoon subway ride, at 3:30 p.m. on a Thursday. I got on the C train at 23^rd going downtown. The train was almost full of seated passengers and a handful of people were standing. A man came onto the train with a large black canvas bag, and the telltale white cords of an iPod in his ears. He stood directly across from where I was seated, near the train door he entered. He proceeded to rummage around in his bag vigorously, which seemed to be filled with something large, wrapped in white plastic bags. A brief thought passed through my mind – the reminder to alert the MTA if you see any suspicious bags. He occasionally mumbled something – not too loud but nothing he said made sense so it’s wasn’t the words to the song. He briefly was quiet, then, suddenly, started shouting much of the same, nonsensical stuff but now it sounded like a rant. The train stopped and I bolted out of my seat and towards the next train car’s open door. He was just too close, too loud, too strange, and now I really didn’t like my initial thought about the way he was pawing through his bag.

The train doors remained open at the 14^th Street station. I was nearly at the door to the next train car, perhaps 6 feet away, weaving though slower-moving folks near the edge of the platform for the next train. I could hear him yelling, “She ran out of the train because of me!” Then he yelled repeatedly, “Why did you run out of the train into the next car?” He ran out of the other car and caught up right behind me. I hoped to make it through the crowd and through the closing train door before he caught up. However, the doors were still being held, and I was about 3 steps into the car when I heard him, closer, still yelling to me. He made it in right behind me. I wheeled around and without thought or conscious direction my body was in ready position. It felt as if I looked over my shoulder, pivoted 180 degrees, and got my hands up simultaneously and in less than a second. That all felt good, but I was not at all happy that he was yelling and that he ran after me.

In what felt like an out-of-body experience, combined with hyper-consciousness of the expression on his face, I snapped into taking charge of the situation before he decided to do more than continue his rant directed at me. Out of my mouth, again without any conscious directing of my voice, are the words, “Stop. Back up.” Gosh, it is just like what other graduates say when they tell their own success stories and describe just having the training flow right out of them automatically. In the moment I was so pleased my voice didn’t catch or fail to work. I said, “Back up” over and over, perhaps a half a dozen times. He gradually seemed to ease out of his aggressive demeanor into less tension and perhaps towards a decision not to persist with me. I was conscious of pausing between each iteration and making sure my voice wasn’t aggressive, just firm and directive. I was also very conscious of how quiet the train was and how much I wanted to turn around to look at people’s faces, just out of curiosity. I fleetingly considered dropping my packages, then thought “I won’t have to drop my bags to physical defend myself.” The train doors were still open and his attention moved towards the open door. He could still exit. He finally said, “And so I will.” I found a seat and sat down. Not a single person said a word. No one asked if I was OK.

I thought to myself that I would never be flip again when someone asks me if I ever used my Prepare training in “real life.” Of course, boundary setting and clear directive language are a part of daily life in NY and I often say so. What I think people want to know is, have I ever had to use physical resistance skills* and strike someone to end an attack? Maybe they just want to know if under pressure I could do what I do so comfortably in the classroom. Or, perhaps they just want to be assured that these skills can be successful in fending off a dangerous situation. That situation, being chased from train car to train car by a ranting man, felt very threatening. I was very grateful that I had the ability to ward him off, without a single strike and without any assistance from a train full of passengers who witnessed him yelling at me and chasing me. I can still happily say I have never had to deliver a blow, but I know that under the fear and danger of a real life situation, my Prepare skills are there for me.

* Note: I like the more expansive definition of physical resistance that includes anything you do with your body to keep yourself safe. I used stance, breath, voice, visual awareness, and trusted my gut feeling.

Copyright 2005 Karen Chasen, Instructor

Last week at a relative’s home I encountered an unpleasant type (ya know the ones who give you the uh oh feeling ;)). This was not my first encounter with this person and as soon as I saw him I froze. And then as I was about to close the bathroom door to hide he jumped in the doorway and started yelling and saying that he was going to get me and I better get ready for round 2…my first instinct was to shut down, close my eyes and let it happen. And as I struggled to close the door I remembered PREPARE. I waited a moment, took a deep breath, let go of the door and took a step back. Boy did that surprise him…he thought he had me but he had no idea what was coming…I screamed “Oh no! Not again! Ever!” And then “Eye Strike! Knee! Groin!” And he’s like “What the hell? You’re like a madwoman! Get off of me and give me what I want! You’re never gonna win this! You’re a girl!” And I just smiled and said, “You’re right! I’m like a madwoman, cuz I’m freaken mad!” Strike up and under the chin. Strike the groin. Under the chin again. Eyes. And he was like “What the hell, you’re not worth this you piece of ****!” And he took off really fast. Well as fast as he could go…I hit him pretty hard….I slammed the door and cried for an hour in the bathroom but I WON!! I thank you for literally saving my life because there is no way I could have done that without your help! And the fact that I could tell you about this….huge step for me! I haven’t slept since then but I’m better off than I ever was …. Feels so good to say that….

Anyway. Thanks for giving me my life back 😉

Forever grateful,

Sara