We can no longer cower to the bullies who threaten our children | Opinion
Recently, Connie Schultz appeared in Cincinnati to read "Lola and the Troll," a book inspired by the author’s own experiences of being trolled on social media, following the 2016 election and in her proud years of calling our former president a liar.
Lola, brave Lola, is a young girl who fears a troll she encounters on her way to school each morning, so much that she wants to change who she is. Her sidekick is an invisible dog, a support canine of sorts. Schultz read aloud to the children, while her words circled in my ears about the safety of our children. All of them.
Only days ago, an Amber Alert had flashed on the highway sign about a missing young boy. Forty-eight hours later, the body of five-year-old Darnell Taylor was recovered in a sewer drain in Columbus. His foster mother, found in Cleveland, was charged in his murder.
I felt the pull of Darnell’s silent call as Schultz read and talked about Lola. I felt crushed by the unseen hopes of little children at her feet, safe. And for innocent Darnell, who was not. "It’s always about the children,” said Schultz, who has devoted her life to writing about underdogs.
"Lola" isn’t only a book for children. It’s for adults, too. Or those of us willing to admit it. Those who have been bullied (I never grew past five-feet-tall. My stature alone was material. As a high schooler, I was once told, I walked like I had a stick up my a--). Young women who endure unwanted taunts from men. Transgender individuals who are only the latest in the grievances the conservative establishment has with people who live on their own terms.
The likes of Darnell’s death always lead me to wonder, what are we doing here, on this planet, in this life, if not for the children? Am I angrier now than eight years ago, because I’m a grandparent? Yes.
In poetry, a volta is the turning point in a poem that marks a change in tone, opinion, or speaker. Grandparenting is a volta, a call to shift our voices to advocate for what’s next. We’re pressed by time to consider what we’d like to leave behind. There’s a volta for every generation. We’re in ours now.
I can’t imagine being a grandparent or a great-grandparent and wanting such an existence for children where bullies arrive daily in the form: of other children, in the shape of belligerent parents on the sidelines, posing as foster parents or any parent who abuses a child, in bits and bytes on social media, through the shadows of males at bars (the other night, a drunk male said to me, "I love watching you on the dance floor"). And worst of all, in the guise of political, religious, or world leaders who speak about or legislate to control the lives we’ve created out of our passion and will while they roost in towers made of gold.
Schultz wrote "Lola and the Troll" in defense of all of us who have been subjected to bullies over time. I wished Darnell had been old enough to read it, or that he’d been offered a means to escape from a household where certainly bullying existed at its heights.
Schultz reminded her audience of little chattering babes, "If you start young, reading gives you big ideas about your life." Unfortunately, books like this will also find their way to a banned list. Some bully will ensure it. We don’t want children with big ideas, standing up for themselves, right? We want our children to fall in between the lines we’ve drawn, or those our parents drew − because we can’t be bothered to imagine there’s another way so different and accepting.
But children of all ages do want another world. If they’re making dangerous choices, such as stealing guns from cars, attacking innocent bystanders on the streets. If they are snorting cocaine, as my college-aged niece has informed me of its prevalence on campus, it’s because they see no other path to realize their goals. In line ahead of me, one attendee at the book signing confessed, "I apologized to my (20-something) daughters. This wasn’t the world I had hoped for them."
In that vulnerability of a moment, one either retreats from the attacks on all sides or one gathers the stores in their arms and prepares for the oncoming tempest.
Were you Lola at one time? Have you been afraid, as surely Darnell was? Are you now surrounded by other Tommy the Trolls that necessitate calling out? Lola, but more so, Darnell, need us all to be brave this time around. We no longer have the option to cower.
Annette Januzzi Wick is a writer and author who lives in Over-the-Rhine.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: We can no longer cower to the bullies who threaten our children
