Shaw, known for his ball-handling skills as part of the famous touring basketball troupe, dropped by the club’s Central School site Monday, Jan. 14, to talk about the team’s ABCs of Bullying Prevention, a National Campaign to Stop Violence effort that the Globetrotters promote as they travel the country.

“A lot of kids can relate to bullying, so we gave them the right tools,” Shaw said. “A means action, B for bravery, and C for compassion, and we elaborate on those things.”

Shaw had already visited other schools in the region and a hospital Monday before he arrived at Central School.

The Globetrotters are in San Joaquin County this week and were scheduled to play a game Thursday, Jan. 17, at the Stockton Arena.

While in Tracy, Shaw got some of the youngsters to talk about how they can react when they see someone picking on someone else.

Then came a quick session on the ball-handling skills that have made the Globetrotters famous.

Faith Smith, a player on the Boys & Girls Club team, said she expects the messages he brought will stick with her and the others at the club.

“I learned that basketball is a great sport, and don’t go along with bullying,” she said.

Other youngsters at the club on Monday soaked in the experience.

“I learned to spin the ball,” said Alexis Mejia, 7, describing how Slick got the ball spinning and then passed it onto her fingertip.

Angie Morales, 10, also learned how to pass a basketball Globetrotter-style to the tune of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” the team’s theme song.

“It means a lot, because he came here on his own time to talk to us about bullying,” she said.

Shaw, a 6-foot, 6-inch forward, is a native of the Bronx and was a four-year starter for St. John’s University in New York, where he holds the school record for the most career 3-point shots.

He said the Globetrotters spotted him nine years ago when he was playing semi-professional basketball and that he’s been with the team ever since.

“Besides giving people great memories on the court, we’re ambassadors of goodwill, and we go into the communities,” he said. “This is one of my favorite things about being a Harlem Globetrotter.”

Tracy Press - Globetrotter brings anti bully message to Boys Girls Club

THINK PINK: Philip Patston wants people to not just stand up for those who are bullied but start asking questions about why it's happening.

Bullying is not just a kids’ issue – it’s rampant throughout our society, a leading Auckland social entrepreneur says.

“I think it’s an adult issue and we need to show leadership as adults about breaking down power dynamics and not just accusing kids,” Diversity Works Trust executive director Philip Patston says.

The Westmere resident has helped create the strategy behind this year’s Pink Shirt Day which asks Kiwis: “Where’s the power”?

He is joining hundreds of New Zealanders on Friday in a mark of solidarity against bullying by wearing a pink shirt.

Mr Patston says the Mental Health Foundation’s colourful campaign is a way to not only acknowledge those who are affected by destructive behaviour but to talk about what causes it.

Pink Shirt Day first started in Canada when a teenage boy was bullied for his choice of clothing.

His friends stood up for him by distributing pink shirts to all of their classmates the next day.

The campaign came to New Zealand in 2009 via Wellington organisation SS4Q and for the past three years has focused on homophobic bullying.

This year marks a broader focus for the event.

Mr Patston believes bullying is a symptom of power-driven relationships that exist within all areas of our communities.

It’s often used as a way to get promotions, status, and money.

He says people have a fear of not getting what they want and by engaging in destructive behaviour they deny others what they need.

“You only have to look at the way Parliament operates.

“People try and emulate that leadership thinking it’s a good way to run a business or a school but it’s not, it’s a lazy way to lead.”

Besides, babies are not born bullying each other instead children learn this behaviour, he says.

Mr Patston believes if people learn how to better manage relationship dynamics then situations that lead to bullying can be prevented.

It’s little things like walking away or not talking back that make a difference.

He also thinks a lot of bullying occurs when people focus on their differences.

That’s why his charity Diversity Works Trust uses creativity and diversity to drive positive social change.

“If you sit two people down and point out their similarities and differences then that’s a way to mend the relationships. Because what they’ve missed is their commonality,” he says.
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Getting the anti-bullying message out is a personal crusade for the director who self-identifies as being a gay-disabled-vegetarian-comedian.

“When you think about diversity and start being creative about it, that’s when social change starts to happen.”

He hopes conversations around power dynamics and bullying continue for longer than just Pink Shirt Day.

Auckland Now – Pink day targets bullying

So the 14-year-old girl, Alex Boston, is using a somewhat novel strategy to fight back: She’s slapping her two classmates with a libel lawsuit.

As states consider or pass cyberbullying laws in reaction to high-profile cases around the country, attorneys and experts say many of the laws aren’t strong enough, and lawsuits such as this one are bound to become more commonplace.

“A lot of prosecutors just don’t have the energy to prosecute 13-year-olds for being mean,” said Parry Aftab, an attorney and child advocate who runs stopcyberbullying.org. “Parents are all feeling very frustrated, and they just don’t know what to do.”

Almost every state has a law or other policy prohibiting cyberbullying, but very few cover intimidation outside of school property.

Alex, who agreed to be identified to raise awareness about cyberbullying, remembers the mean glances and harsh words from students when she arrived at her suburban Atlanta middle school. She didn’t know why she was being badgered until she discovered the phoney Facebook page. It was her name and information, though her profile picture was doctored to make her face appear bloated.

The page suggested Alex smoked marijuana and spoke a made-up language called “Retardish.” It was also set up to appear that Alex had left obscene comments on other friends’ pages, made frequent sexual references and posted a racist video. The creators also are accused of posting derogatory messages about Alex.

“I was upset that my friends would turn on me like that,” she told The Associated Press. “I was crying. It was hard to go to school the next day.”

Alex learned of the phoney page a year ago and told her parents, who soon contacted administrators at Palmer Middle School and filed a report with Cobb County Police.

“At the time this report was taken in May 2011, we were not aware of any cyberbullying law on the books that would take her specific situation and apply it to Georgia law,” said Cobb County police spokesman Sgt. Dana Pierce.

Police encouraged the Boston family to report the fake account to Facebook. Alex’s family said despite requests to Facebook to take the page down, the company did not do so. The website was taken down around the time the lawsuit was filed a week ago.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes and Cobb County school officials declined comment on the case. The two students named in the lawsuit haven’t hired an attorney and their parents couldn’t be reached for comment.

The thorny issue of whether schools may censor students who are off campus when they attack online has led to split decisions in federal courts. Administrators and judges have wrestled over whether free speech rights allow students to say what they want when they’re not at school.

Justin Layshock of western Pennsylvania was suspended after he created a MySpace parody in 2005 that said his principal smoked marijuana and hid beer behind his desk. The suspension was overturned by a federal judge, who found that school officials failed to show the student’s profile disrupted school operations. The judge’s decision was later upheld by an appeals court.

In West Virginia, Kara Kowalski sued school officials after she was suspended from her high school for five days in 2005 for creating a web page suggesting another student had a sexually transmitted disease. A federal appeals court upheld the suspension, dismissing Kowalski’s argument that the school shouldn’t punish her because she created the site at home.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear either case.

Jason Medley, of Houston, filed a defamation lawsuit in June against three of his daughter’s classmates. The classmates were accused of filming themselves making false sexual remarks about his daughter and posting the video to Facebook.

The complaint was settled months later with apologies from the girls and a small donation to charity, Medley’s attorney Robert Naudin said.

“The girls involved likely now understand the wrongful nature of what they did and the harm that can come of such conduct,” he said. “They made a donation out of their allowances to a charitable organization that fights against cyberbullying.”

In Georgia, lawmakers have given school administrators new powers to punish students if they bully others at school, but legislation that would expand the laws to include text messages and social media sites never reached a vote this year.

Seven states have added off-campus harassment to their bullying laws in recent years, though Georgia is not one of them.

“Cyberbullying really goes beyond the four walls of the school or the four corners of the campus, because if you use a cellphone, PDA or social media site, then those activities follow the child both into the school and out of the school,” said House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, a Democrat from Atlanta who co-sponsored the legislation that would have expanded Georgia’s bullying law. “It’s important for the state to really get ahead of this. It’s already happening, but it’s going to be more exacerbated and more difficult the longer we go.”

Alex and her family have started a petition to encourage lawmakers to strengthen Georgia’s law. Her lawsuit seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages.

“At first blush, you wouldn’t think it’s a big deal,” said Alex’s attorney, Natalie Woodward. “Once you actually see the stuff that’s on there, it’s shocking.”

The Spec – Schoolgirl slaps Facebook bullies with libel suit