Public schools are constantly the targets of those who wish to shape public opinion on every topic from "Coke vs. Pepsi" to abortion. A recent salvo was fired by a group calling itself the "Southern Poverty Law Center", a name which calls forth sympathy, but which in fact designates a wealthy group of northern lobbyists. This organization mails a periodical entitled "Teaching Tolerance", but does this magazine instead engender negative cliches?
A recent issue addressed the topic of bullying. Nobody likes bullies or bullying. The article was illustrated with five cartoon-like drawings. In each of these, the "bully" was an overweight white male student, slightly taller than average, with blond hair and blue eyes. The "victims" of the bully represented the spectrum of race, gender, hair and eye color, etc., with one notable exception: none of the victims were white males.
What should we conclude from this?
