Reading about the bullying lawsuit I am overwhelmed by the pain. The pain of we who bully, of we who’ve experienced being bullied, of we who want to protect our loved ones, of we, the people in authority being blamed for this phenomena and we who are witnessing the greed and further bullying of the judicial system process — it is indeed overwhelming. I agree with my neighbor who said”bullying is all of our responsibility. She means, I think, we need to cut to the cause of this kind of thinking and acting. Where does the behavior start?

I recall some years ago folks on Vashon considering ways to move in the direction of a Community Justice System where we could learn to listen to each other’s experiences, take responsibility for how our actions can hurt one another and learn to understand the source. I believe there are many pockets of island folks continuing to work towards making the shift from a blame and victim model toward a healing, growing, learning model. To wit, “All Island Reads” is a wonderful action of facing and discussing deeply embedded blind spots of white privilege and race. This is not unrelated to the bullying problem. Please let’s continue the shift toward rooting out our tunnel vision.

— Karen Chuki Nelson