My daughter, Alice, is thirteen-years-old and has been dancing with a local disabled dance troupe Open Arms Dance Project in Boise for 3 years now. It’s actually full of dancers ages 7-77 if you can believe it and not all of them have disabilities, but many of them do. There are folks in wheelchairs and with walkers and those on a bunch of machines and those unable to speak. There are probably about 20 of them at this point, and together they form the most accepting, kind and inclusive family. To watch them dance together is a concert of diversity and beauty and really truly opens your heart to what good things can be in this world what is so often a sad miserable place.
Alice with a crew of her Open Arms Dance Project dancers performing at First Thursday in February at LED Studio downtown Boise.
Alice’s disabilities are “invisible” and therefore often misunderstood. She was born with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and has been diagnosed with several other things over the years. As a toddler she tested through the free state special education programs into a pre-school for developmentally delayed kids at the age of three. She’s been on either a 504 or an IEP (formal plans that schools develop to give kids with disabilities the support they need in the classroom and beyond) the entire time she’s been in public school. We’ve also had a team of multiple doctors, psychologists, therapists, teachers, and administrators over the past decade assisting with these things, including numerous treatments, therapies and medications. As a result, Alice has become an outspoken advocate not only for herself, but for others with disabilities or anyone, really, who may need a little extra help and attention.
Alice and her friend Hava who is also an Ambassador for Open Arms Dance Project at Jefferson Elementary School last week for their final performance an presentation for the Upstander curriculum with the Wassmuth Center.
Therefore, it wasn’t surprising to me when last year she was selected to be an ambassador for Open Arms Dance Project and the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights and help teach their Upstander anti-bullying curriculum using dance at two local public elementary schools. They’ve shown the 2nd graders a dance video that they made during the pandemic and told the kids their stories of growing up with disabilities in schools. For Alice, this includes how her OCD, anxiety, and chronic migraines manifest and how she’s often made fun by peers of for being too goofy and energetic, annoying and weird. How sometimes she misses questions and social cues and needs things repeated a lot. Through dance, they’ve been teaching the kids how to be an “upstander” instead of a bystander, which is a person who speaks or acts in support of an individual or cause, particularly someone who intervenes on behalf of a person being attacked or bullied. An upstander is a person who has chosen to make a difference in the world by speaking out against injustice and creating positive change, For example, "encourage your daughter to be an upstander, not a bystander."
Alice sharing part of her personal story with bullying, her disabilities, her love of helping people and athletics with the children of Forge International Elementary School in Middleton, Idaho, via Zoom at Jefferson Elementary School last week for their final performance an presentation for the Upstander curriculum with the Wassmuth Center. She’s also being filmed for a short documentary film on Open Arms Dance Project.
Alice has been talking to and dancing with these elementary school students this academic year on this very topic and last week gave the final presentation and dance performance with these kids on their anti-bullying campaign
and also-
last week, for her own safety, she sat homeschooling alone in our kitchen crying her eyes out as a victim of a large group of 30+ kids at her junior high school have also been harassing, bullying and threatening her for the last six months. It’s included all the worst and stereotypical things you hear about teen bullying, including slander, libel, physical battery, rumors, gossip, name calling, threats that if she tells it will be worse for her, so many social media posts about how hated she is (by individuals and the entire school), kids yelling at her in the halls, flipping her off, lies to tarnish her reputation, hateful phone calls and texts, alienation. She has not been in school for the last three weeks because of the severe trauma and pain of what she has endured recently on campus and online. Honestly, this barely touches what has actually happened and continues to happen to her and words don’t even suffice or begin to touch it.
A snapshot of a bit of Alice’s bedroom wall I took last week while sitting there crying with her.
It's all the rage these days in social justice circles and businesses and schools to say you’re committed to diversity, inclusion, ethics, respect, and civility. There are workshops and certification programs and lots of guest speakers you can invite in to do trainings to do so. (I know because I’m often invited to give them – including in our local school district schools and multiple times at the very junior high my daughter attends.) It’s an entirely different thing to practice what you preach, and unfortunately no one often talks about the realities of what that looks like. Because the truth is - it’s so much easier to be a bystander. Because being an upstander is hard as hell.
And people don’t really like upstanders at all.
I know because I’ve been an upstander my entire life. Upstanders break the rules. When I was in the 2nd grade I hid in the bathroom at recess and talked a few other girls into doing the same to wrap small gifts from our desks in toilet paper to hold a birthday party for a classmate no one liked. I got in trouble and called to the office. Upstanders speak up. When I was 14 I wrote a letter to the editor of my local city newspaper decrying the fact the school district was removing the two whole pages on reproductive education from our junior high health textbooks. I was called a “slut” and my friends’ parents would no longer let them be friends with me. Upstanders buck the status quo. Thirteen years ago I began publicly speaking, writing and making art about fat positivity, debunking diet culture, promoting diversity and acceptance. And if you’ve followed me for long you know the list of how that has made me one of the most dangerous women in the country.
Thirteen years ago I also gave birth to Alice so she has been taught to be an upstander her entire life. In our house we don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. And is it ever hard right now.
Alice is an exceptional athlete on her junior high girls softball team as well as a club team and has been playing ball since age 5. She was excited this year to also make the junior high cheerleading squad.
School bullying and teen suicide are hot topics right now in the news and in research and for good reason – because both are on the rise. They can seem so abstract, though, when you read about them in the paper or see them on TV or your favorite show addresses them but are a whole different ballgame when they enter your home and your heart. It’s hard enough to be an upstander for yourself let alone others. My Arlo has already learned the “bro code” that “we don’t tattle on each other for doing anything” at school at age 7, from kids as well as some adults. He’s learned, just like his sister and I have, that sometimes people don’t like you for who you are, what you look like, the way you talk. Honestly, we teach them that it’s fine for someone not to like you, but it’s also fine for you to stand up for yourself when someone says mean things to you. And if that person who doesn’t like you convinces or joins forces with other people who also don’t like you and they all gang up to do mean things to you over and over again? That’s called bullying and it’s wrong.
And despite how we glamorize it in the media and in fiction and teach it in the classroom, standing up to bullies isn’t always well received. In fact, the results are often disastrous. I have a lot more to say on bullying in particular – how it is promoted in our larger culture and taught at home, especially to girls. How we teach our children to respond to bullying in theory but in practice it isn’t protected or upheld in our school and legal systems. It’s not surprising to me, then, that more people are bystanders than upstanders. They see what happens to us and who wants that? It’s hard enough being an upstander for yourself let alone others. Being an upstander doesn’t often leave you feeling empowered and brave. It leaves you feeling alone and helpless. And, honestly, sometimes you are.
For us, being an upstander looks like a lot of tears and fear. It looks like police reports and screenshots. It looks like losing friends and family. It looks like being ostracized by your peers. It looks like blocking and deleting. It looks like “you deserved it.” It looks like “being difficult” to those you look to for help. It looks like fights and death threats. It looks like protection orders and constantly watching your back. It looks like giving up sports team memberships and losing jobs. It looks like outing “good people.” It looks like gaslighting and victim blaming. It looks like discomfort and anger. It looks like sadness and depression. It looks like self-harm and suicidal tendencies. It looks like therapy. It looks like being labeled a “snitch.” It looks like bad grades and not eating. It looks like asking for help and being denied. It looks like dropping out and letting go. It looks like being failed by the system(s) even when those working within the systems have proven wrongdoing. It looks like changing schools. It looks like panic attacks and vomiting. It looks like sleepless nights and research. It looks like your heart being ripped from your chest. It looks like second guessing everything, including yourself. It looks like you’re the bad person for fighting back. It looks like the bullies win.
But also-
being an upstander can literally change your life – and sometimes your world – for the better. It’s a cliché, and it takes time to see it and it’s painful as fuck. But I know, from so many years of experience, as a mother and an activist.
It looks like freedom.
It looks like truth.
It looks like it will hopefully all be worth it.
UPDATE May 24, 2022 AND BEYOND: This is how Alice has gotten back up after being knocked down. This is how you upstand. Click the images and articles below to see how to be more.
Alice was part of this summer 2022 PBS mini documentary talking about some of her bulling with her dance troupe, Open Arms Dance Project: