If you ever doubt the decline of civility and manners, all you need do is read the comments in a social media forum. Read enough of them, and you’ll come to the inescapable conclusion that not only is nastiness the theme of the day, but that the movie “Idiocracy” was a documentary.
There have always been bullies, and there always will be, but the anonymity of an Internet connection seems to empower the cowardly and mean-spirited among us. Things people would hesitate to say in person, they type with impunity on a keyboard.
It is this growing culture of cyberbullying in social media that is the subject of the recent position statement from IAFC: Human Dignity and the Fire and Emergency Service. The statement, which reaffirms IAFC’s 2013 action, reads, in part:
“As an organization, we must take positive steps to ensure human dignity by avoiding any remaining vestiges of discrimination or unequal treatment including, but not limited to, a basis on race, color, spirituality, gender, age, national origin, ancestry, socio-economic backgrounds, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, ethnicity, marital status or any legally protected characteristic.
Strong words, and nobly spoken, but they’re not enough. It’s going to take action at the department and agency level to lend power to those words, and so far, it isn’t happening to the degree we need.
We’ve all experienced bullying
I’ve fought with trolls on social media forums, people who make up tales and post despicable things. You’ve experienced it, too. All of us have.
But I enter that fray with a thick skin developed over years as a speaker, author and advocate. I accept that, if I’m going to speak out on issues important to me and my profession, not everyone will agree with what I have to say.
I’m going to make enemies. I accept that. When they sneer, post lies and ignorance, I’ve learned to roll my eyes and keep scrolling. The signal-to-noise ratio in EMS social media forums is skewed so much to pointless and counterproductive noise, that I don’t bother to read most of those forums anymore.
What I do instead, is follow a group of EMS thought leaders (and many of those are line grunts for whom, if life were fair, their wisdom would see them in leadership positions) who almost always have something thoughtful and perceptive to say.
For some the words cut too deep
But my approach is a luxury that many don’t have. For some, the words cut too deeply. The bullies can’t be escaped or ignored. And for some, like Nicole Mittendorff of Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, the only escape was to take her own life. No one can know another’s demons, but there is little question that cyberbullying played a role in Nicole Mittendorff’s death. This bullying – from men in her own department – is the kind of odious behavior that the IAFC’s position paper seeks to condemn.
Yet even now, more than two years later, there is no evidence that Nicole Mittendorff’s cyberbullies have been identified or faced any consequences for their words. Battalion Chief Kathleen Stanley, appointed by Fairfax Fire Chief Richard Bowers to head the department’s Women’s Program, resigned in disgust in January, 2018. Her resignation letter is testament to the fact that the culture persists.
Chief Bowers, who retired in April 2018, defended his department and the steps taken to root out and stop bullying and harassment. He pointed out that the people doing the bullying are a very small fraction of his personnel, and that their actions shouldn’t stain the honor of the other members of Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department.
He’s right. The Internet cowards and bullies are vastly outnumbered by the brave and honorable members of the department. The same is likely true of every EMS agency and fire department where bullying has occurred.
Then again, cancer is only a tiny fraction of the number of cells in a human body, but it still kills you.
And that is what bullying is – a cancer. It’s a cancer to your department, it’s a cancer to society, and it needs to be excised and eradicated whenever and wherever it is encountered. It cannot be left to someone else.
Eradicating bullying is OUR job
Without us condemning it within our ranks, making bullies the social pariahs they deserve to be, the IAFC’s words on the subject will remain that – just words. We need to call out bullying and harassment whenever we see it and call for an end to incivility in social media.
It’s harder than it sounds, I know. I’ve been an ass on social media myself. But when I have, I have made it a point to apologize publicly in the same forum I insulted in. I leave the offending comment up – not because I’m unrepentant, but because I’m ashamed – and I do what I can to heal the hurt my words cause. I also post under my own name. No hiding behind anonymous Internet handles here.
I’ve long had a simple rule of conduct on my social media pages; argue all you want, but personal attacks are not tolerated. You get one warning – sometimes not even that – and then you’re banned. And as much as it pains me, I’ve banned friends who could not refrain from personally attacking people who disagree with me.
That’s a policy we could all do well to adopt. High-minded position statements from our national leadership aren’t going to change our culture. We have to make culture change ourselves.
