海角大神

When actress Jada Pinkett-Smith took to Facebook to thump the media for cyberbullying young artists via the endless ridicule and flaw-finding expeditions, the media instantly downgrade her concerns by virtually dismissing her as 鈥渁 Mama Bear.鈥�

The听actress听wrote on Facebook: 鈥淭his last week, I had to really evaluate the communication in regard to our young artists in the media. I was trying to differentiate cyber-bullying from how we attack and ridicule our young stars through media and social networks. It is as if we have forgotten what it means to be young or even how to behave like good ol' grown folk.鈥�

鈥淚t seems very much like this was written from a Mama Bear and less from a celebrity,鈥� said Alicia Mendez of Huffington Post Live during a discussion on听Ms. Pinkett-Smith鈥檚 lengthy and well though-out Facebook posting on the subject.听Alicia Menendez is a host and producer at HuffPost Live, The Huffington Post's streaming video network.听According to her bio and that little shiv in the collective maternal ribs, I鈥檓 guessing she鈥檚 not a mom.

鈥淚 get what she鈥檚 trying to say, but they are public figures, and,听being that, you have to report the news to all their fans. But we could do it differently,鈥� added Huffington Post听media reporter Leigh Blickley.

With all respect to听Ms.听Blickley and听Ms.听Menendez, I realize they were trying to walk the tightrope between injured party 鈥� as members of 鈥渢he media鈥� and entertainment reporting. Sadly, they were also far from the only media to take this approach to Pinkett-Smith鈥檚 comments.

I strive not to be one of those people who uses being a parent as a means of dismissing the opinions of those who aren鈥檛, so this barrage upsets me and puts me in the position of having to go to the 鈥淲ell you鈥檙e not a听鈥楳ama Bear鈥� so maybe you can鈥檛 鈥榞et鈥� it鈥� realm.

It鈥檚 just not acceptable to听dismiss, relegate, and downgrade a woman鈥檚 remarks by playing the听鈥渙h that鈥檚 just the mom in her talking鈥� card. The mom in a woman is probably the part everyone ought to be coming from, even if that 鈥渕om voice鈥� talking is the memory of one鈥檚 own mother.

This is doubly true when the topic is something as harmful and potentially life-threatening as bullying. It鈥檚 a not hard to see the problem when the audience for this parade of intolerance and denigration is our non-celebrity children who read and watch it online.

Pinkett-Smith has clearly met and exceeded her personal limit as a human (not a mom) for the mean-spirited way in which some online infotainment media attack young celebrities with the kind of ferocity that generates lots of page views by our kids and lots of snarky thinking too.

Therein lies the lesson in the actress鈥� posting. Our children may never become celebrities, but they are all exposed to the constant barrage of unfiltered, cyber nastygrams posted by some in the entertainment media. Their unchecked bullying of celebrities influences kids to bully the non-famous in much the same way.

When The Onion posted an Oscar night tweet aimed at听Oscar nominee听Quvenzhane Wallis, 9,听using what I consider to be about the vilest slur on the female anatomy, their social networking skills jumped the mama shark and that鈥檚 a pretty dangerous stunt indeed.
听The actress asks the same questions we, as parents, rhetorically ask schoolyard bullies: 鈥淒o we feel as though we can say and do what we please without demonstrating any responsibility?鈥� In Pinkett-Smith鈥檚 anti-bullying manifesto she adds, 鈥溾��simply because they are famous?鈥�

鈥淲hy can't we congratulate them for the capacity to work through their challenges on a world stage and still deliver products that keep them on top?鈥� Pinkett-Smith听asked听on Facebook. 鈥淲e all know how hard it is to keep our head above water, even in the privacy of our own homes let alone on the world stage.鈥�

The reason a bully can鈥檛 congratulate people who work through their challenges is because the challenges often come from the bullies themselves.

Let me pass what I once did when people were throwing stones at my听autism spectrum听child, both literally and figuratively. I picked up one of those rocks and took it home with us. Then I wrote a little听thank you听card and had my son give it back to one of the kids the next day in front of the boy鈥檚 parents who had watched the bullying and done nothing.

The note we gave back with the stone read: 鈥淭hank you for being my rock, the one in my road. The one I had to dig deep to get past. The one who taught me to climb in order to get over you. The one who marked my body and my way. This is so neither one of us forgets.鈥�

I think that some of the stone throwers need to be sent this note and perhaps a pebble as an office paperweight to remind them just what they mean to us. My guess is that some of them would get so many that perhaps they would pave a different, better path to take 鈥� one leading to higher ground.听