The Making of a Bully
In my blog entry I Was Not Born A Bully for slidingintohomethebook.com I discussed the impact Steve’s racist bullying had on Flip. Research shows that those that bully are also harmed by their bullying of others. In Flip’s story we see that Steve’s father is a racist bully himself and Flip’s mother reminds us of the fact that no one is born a bully.
In the blog interview Circles II: An Interview with Cassidy Friedman the multi award-winning film director of Circles speaks about Restorative Justice.
“Restorative justice is storytelling. It’s what you and I do as a filmmaker and an author. When I look at your book through a Restorative Justice lens to me the greatest gift of Sliding Into Home is that it cultivates deep empathy between the reader and Flip. The book is Restorative Justice because Flip is given the opportunity to share his story so he can feel seen. The reader gets to see the world through Flip’s eyes. Without people opening up and sharing their story we don’t get to see it. When you hear it from the source you realize not everything going on for someone is as you expected. Everyone who reads this book can feel the impact of what Steve did to him. The reader is sitting in circle with him. The adults in the story see Flip in limited terms and they impose adult solutions that don’t work and don’t heal anything for Flip.”
After our interview Cassidy mentioned that he couldn’t wait to read Steve’s story so that we could perhaps cultivate the same empathy for him that we had for Flip. I am in the process of finishing Steve’s story. In what is now titled The Making of a Bully we learn about how Steve was impacted by an embittered father whose job loss leads him to focus his failures and rage on his son.
In The Making of a Bully Steve and Flip meet again and with the help of Restorative Practices the ending to their story is very different. I am hoping to have the continuation of Steve and Flip’s story published within the next year. In the meantime share Sliding Into Home with family and friends so that they too can eagerly await the telling of Steve’s story.