The Red Hook Local Leaders, led by Robert Berrios and Henrietta Perkins, hosted a meeting to raise awareness about bullying in Red Hook. The meeting took place in the Red Hook library.
There were nine people at this event in addition to Berrios and Perkins. Karen Broughton, Felix Ortiz’s Chief of Staff, Karen Blondel, an environmental activist and local celebrity Wally Bazemore were three of the community members who attended. They shared stories about how they have tried to eliminate bullying and how bullying hits close to home.
Berrios started off by putting an image on the screen of a young man who was bullied so much that he ended up killing himself because he was alone and didn’t know what to do. He talked about the killer in Florida who killed 17 students in Parkland, Florida.
“Thank God that never happened in New York and I pray it never happens,” Berrios said. He then brought it back to what he sees in Red Hook.
“In Red Hook, I see from time to time people hazing one another or tormenting one another,” Berrios said. “They don’t know that most kids that are bullied wind up being depressed or {even} killing themselves.”
Berrios, who went to Sacred Heart St. Stephen’s school in Carroll Gardens, said that his mother was very involved with him from when he was in kindergarten and she never missed a parent teacher conference meeting, which he thought was important.
This was the first workshop that Berrios led at the library. However, he has led a similar type of workshop at Visitation Church.
“I did a Lures class at Visitation,” Berrios said. “That is basically dealing with intolerance, school violence, drug wars and safety. It is anything that has to do with endangering a child’s life.”
His goal was for people to hear other people’s stories as it relates to bullying but also for everyone to learn to speak out if they are being unfairly treated.
“We were hoping that the people who came today got an understanding of what happens to other people but at the same time we have kids that are too afraid people might say stop being a baby or stand up for yourself,” Berrios said. “Unless you are in their shoes you can’t understand what they are going through in their mind.”
Only adults showed up to the workshop but Berrios did find advantages to this.
“We were hoping for children to show up,” Berrios said. “At least with the adults we didn’t have to hold back with what we were going to tell them. This way they could share their stories of what they went through.”
There were a few people who stood in front of everyone and shared how bullying has affected them and gave their advice.
Broughton said that she has a cousin in North Carolina who had an 11-year-old son who was bullied. Bullies tried to get him to join a gang but he didn’t join.
“She came home one night from work and he had hung himself in her house,” Broughton added. “That was three years ago. She started a foundation.”
She added that kids bullying each other can come from them seeing how adults act towards one another.
“When you talk about bullying and kids, adults need to learn how to stop bullying each other because that is what kids learn,” Broughton said. “If I am bullying you or you are bullying me then kids around us are not going to not bully.”
“Another thing is we as black people, and Puerto Ricans and brown people, we need to be as one,” Broughton added. “We need to stop all of the fighting and the cutting people off when talking because that is not what it is about. At the end of the day, everybody that is here, this is one community. At the end of the day, we are all we have.”
Bazemore, who has lived in Red Hook for more than 60 years, stressed that bullying is a part of life. He believes that you can get bullied at work or home and it’s about how you deal with it.
To try and prevent kids from getting into bullying many years ago he would take kids on a long day trip up to a prison upstate to confront them with people who were in their situations.
“I used to take kids back in the 1990s up to the prison and they were scared straight,” Bazemore said. “This is how I dealt with it. There is nothing I can tell these kids and there is nothing you can tell them. They don’t have faith in you because they look at you as parents.”
“I took them upstate and let the real bullies tell them what it’s all about,” Bazemore added about how he got through to the kids. “We stayed there for eight hours, for the whole shift. We let the kids hear what the prison was all about.”
Bazemore would take at least 100 kids up to the prison upstate for eight consecutive years and none of those kids ever had to go to prison.
One individual that the kids saw up at the prison was the young man that allegedly shot Patrick Daly, who PS 15 is named after. Bazemore thought that if seeing the prison and their peers up there didn’t speak to them about not being a bully then nothing would.
Another woman who was at the meeting named Cheryl, is thankful that her son is alive today because he used to be in a gang. She emphasized that everybody, not just parents, should set the right example.
She added that she could have lost her son if things had gone differently.
“I am understanding that not only are we bullied by other people but we are bullied by gangs,” the Red Hook resident said. “We have to set an example and have respect. I hope everyone takes this message and passes it on to not your kids but your friends because they are coming around trying to get these kids in gangs.”
Cheryl added that her son is now not in a gang. She showed him both of her grandsons and that scared him straight and she added that once she related to him on a mature level he moved on and said ‘you are right.’
Police detective Tyrone Butler, who grew up in East Flatbush, shared his prospective. Butler, who is 51, and has worked in the federal crime unit, said that his unit is involved when round ups are done with gangs who do violence in the community.
Butler added that drug sales and violence go together. He talked about what his community was like when he grew up and how communication is key.
“The community I grew up in had more fear in me at the time when I was a teenager because I hung out with people older than me,” Butler said. “I was bullied, I bullied and I was a bystander.”
“Everyone has been a bully,” Butler said. “You have bullied someone somehow whether it is in a relationship, at work or at school. It is a learned behavior. As adults, when we were kids we saw this in the home someway.”
He emphasized that the only way someone could bully you is if they have you intimidated, which can happen at work. If your supervisor at work doesn’t communicate with you, the key is to communicate.
For the last 10 years, the detective has coached youth basketball at St. John’s Rec, which is near the Albany Projects in Crown Heights. In each of the last 10 years while coaching there he has lost kids to gun violence.
He wants the parents to be there with their children, so that they know they have an interest in them.
“When the season starts, I say to the parents, ‘This is not a Saturday day care for you to bring your kids to so you can run your errands,” Butler said. “I understand everybody has a life. I have a life, but I am here on Saturday and you need to be here.’ I say if you don’t show interest in you child the streets will.”
“The gangs need them because the more they have, the more they can corrupt, the more damage they can do,” the detective said. “What happens is the streets turn around and they take an interest in the kids because they are showing more interest in the kids.”
The detective grew up in a single parent household and he thinks that if his father took more interest in him he might not have done some of the things he did when he was growing up.
“It is only through the grace of God that I didn’t end up upstate or dead,” Butler said.
He stresses the importance of approval, acceptance and association among adults when interacting with their children.
Mr. Smith, who raised his kids in East New York and lives in Red Hook now, shared his story about how his kids were bullied for many years when they were growing up starting in 1998. Smith stressed the importance of parents being involved with their children.
For the first month of school he asked his kids if anyone was bothering them, which is something he recommends of all parents. A month into the school year, he observed a red flag, and after continuing to ask, his daughter told her bullies were bothering her.
Smith’s daughter named about seven children who were bullying her. He went to the school shortly after to talk to the administration.
“I don’t go to the teacher since they have more knowledge of what you children do,” Smith said. “I went to the principal and called the teacher into the office.”
He demanded to have a conference with the parents of all of the students that his daughter said were bullying her. He thought that this was how to protect the child and himself as a parent.
“The first child felt they needed to be accepted in this little 8-person group,” Smith said. “That is peer pressure from kindergarten.
Smith, the principal and the teacher came to the decision that if any parents couldn’t come to the meeting that their child would be suspended.
Berrios said that an issue that kids and adults face everyday includes harassing, bullying and discrimination. Berrios went over many words that can lead to bullying if done repeatedly or become normal.
The words he described that can be harmful included rumors, isolation, drama, hazing, conflict, sarcasm, practical jokes, making a threat, being demeaning, hitting and harassing.
“At least we have a community of people here, which I consider community leaders, that help address issues,” Berrios added about bullying. “We have to take care of our children.”
Berrios was hoping more people would show up but he expects the turnout to be bigger on November 17 for the summit they are having at the library. They will be polling the Red Hook community groups to talk about what is going on.
