This week I was witness to a Pink Shirt Day rally at East Three School.

It was an impressive showing of solidarity, with prizes given out to students for random acts of kindness and police officers joining the youth in a game of basketball.

I continue to find it admirable the public school system champions this effort, though itSA国际影视传媒檚 easy to understand why SA国际影视传媒� on the receiving end of an infinite wave of feedback from parents, schools have got a very clear understanding that parents donSA国际影视传媒檛 want their kids feeling unsafe at school.

But it seems in the fight against bullying, schools are largely shouldering the burden alone. This is unfortunate, as bullying is easily one of the biggest ongoing problems we face as a species. Many criminal acts can be thought of as an extreme form of bullying SA国际影视传媒� domestic abuse stands out in particular. Similarly, most of our political problems stem from historic bullying SA国际影视传媒� colonialism was a gigantic exercise in the act SA国际影视传媒� or are typically resolved by bullying. Utilizing social media, far too many politicians weaponize their loyal followers to harass and intimidate their critics, opponents and legitimate journalists. An entire class of people exists that apparently spend their time finding political opponents messages and hitting SA国际影视传媒渓aughSA国际影视传媒� icons to apparently make their statement invalid in some legal form of psychological warfare, and political trolls are well identified by those in the know of their particular circles.

You probably are thinking this is just human nature, but is it? Or is it possible weSA国际影视传媒檝e just become so accustomed to tolerating, accommodating and even rewarding bullies SA国际影视传媒� a former U.S. president comes to mind SA国际影视传媒� that we just cannot imagine anything else.

Adult life is dominated by bullying, some unavoidable, such as the overarching authority of the law or the fact you may have to routinely tolerate very annoying people to pay your bills. But we take it for granted adult bullies need to be catered to or tolerated, or that the skills we learn to survive school necessarily transfer over to the workforce. Walking away from the big kid insulting your parents is one thing SA国际影视传媒� walking away from your boss screaming at you is quite another. Investigating doxxing and other forms of online bullying in small environments like schools is hard enough SA国际影视传媒� adults with enough knowledge to do serious damage to someone professionally could be literally anywhere.

Again, the problem isnSA国际影视传媒檛 just that adults appear to abandon the lessons about bullying taught in school, itSA国际影视传媒檚 that bullying has become a viable source of income. As noted above, social media is overflowing with political pundits and bots pushing memes to make me angry at their political opponents. Most of the information I hear from these sources is dubious at best and is usually just plain bogus. But itSA国际影视传媒檚 everywhere and it canSA国际影视传媒檛 all be volunteers SA国际影视传媒� somebody has to be paying for this garbage.

If youSA国际影视传媒檙e someone who wonders why only certain types of people ever run for government, ask yourself SA国际影视传媒� would you like a bad photo of yourself circulated online with insulting statements millions of times? How about an image of yourself taped to the front of a truck, implying you should be run over? Thousands of people youSA国际影视传媒檝e never even met calling for your head because someone who wants your job told them something false about you? Our politics is so tolerant of bullies thereSA国际影视传媒檚 hardly room for anyone else, aside from those few who can deal with them.

So I commend the efforts of Pink Shirt Day, but until adults accept weSA国际影视传媒檙e the problem our schoolsSA国际影视传媒� work will yield limited results.