Work From Home Choices

By: Heidi Whitaker

On an Elementary School Playground, They’re Considered Name-Calling Bullies. In the Blogosphere and other Media Venues, They’re Journalists or “Concerned Citizens Exercising Their Right to Free Speech”.

In Viral Copy: Trading Words for Traffic, Brian Clark discusses eleven ways that bloggers can viralize their posts. (Obtain a copy of Brian’s Viral Blogging Free Report) Brian ends his report with a warning to “Avoid the Dark Side” when seeking attention for your blog. Brian then recounts the story of how the 1970’s fictional radio station manager Arthur Carlson, of the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, arranged to have live turkeys dropped out of a helicopter as a Thanksgiving publicity stunt. Because turkeys cannot fly, dropping the birds to their deaths did not bring the radio station the kind of publicity that they desired. Brian’s message: Not all publicity is good publicity; Avoid attention-getting schemes akin to dropping turkeys out of a helicopter.

It was Brian’s advice that came to mind as I spent a few weeks in the blogosphere looking for information about the leading presidential candidates. My intention was to learn the candidates’ positions on issues that affect the self-employed. What I found instead left me feeling as though I was wading through miles of virtual turkey carnage.

My search made it painfully apparent that splatting certain turkeys is not only socially acceptable, it is as American as waving the flag at a Fourth of July parade. Turkeys practicing “weird” religions, turkeys married to guys named Bill, dieting Evangelical turkeys, or turkeys that happen to share the same middle name as a terrorist seem to be fair game. These unfortunate gobblers bring a gladiator colosseum-sized crowd anxious to watch the flightless birds plunge to their deaths from America the Beautiful’s spacious skies onto her amber waves of grain.

I suppose you could look at it as pure genius - Post an article to your blog poking a little fun at individuals, groups, or ideologies that readers love to hate. Then watch the site counter and number of bigoted comments rise. It is the seemingly perfect formula for successful and profitable blogging, but it comes at a greater price.

Words do not stay words forever. They lead to action. In a sense, hateful words will eventually become the proverbial sticks and stones that do the bone breaking. On a similar note, the Mormon chapel behind my home was vandalized a few weeks ago. Mormon buildings in various states have been vandalized and/or burned over the past month. I don’t know what investigators found as the fire catalyst of the house of worship burned in Arizona, but I believe it was fueled by a rising acceptance of Mormon bashing during this presidential campaign.

A climate of mean-spirited political bantering also encourages our children to tease and bully. Bobby Barvish of The MuslimForum of Utah calls this “trickle down bigotry”. In a recent interview with me, Mr. Barvish agreed that current prejudices blatantly expressed during our presidential primary campaigns have worsened the atmosphere for law-abiding Muslim Americans and their children.

Don’t particularly care about bigotry toward Muslims or Mormons?

Well, what about your own kids?

Don’t think for one minute that we grown-ups can go around name-calling and not expect our nation’s children to do the same. The message we are sending our children is that it is okay to tease, pick on, make fun of, discriminate against, or hate someone because of their name, their religion, their gender, their race, their general beliefs, etc.

According to Washington State Lt. Gov. Barc Owen: “Bullying occurs once every seven minutes on school playgrounds…By the age 24, 60% of identified childhood bullies (are) convicted of a crime.” -http://www.ltgov.wa.gov/speeches/OregonWaSheriffsConference.html

Perhaps a no less dangerous bully is now the cyber kind. Cyber bullying was brought to national attention with the suicide death of middle school student, Megan Meier, after being tormented on MySpace. According to polls, 90% of kids say that they have been hurt online in some way. (Source) In 2007 alone, 32% of teenagers claim to have been victims of cyberbullying (CNN.com).

If you want to see prime examples of cyber bullying, type Hillary Clinton’s name into a search engine. You’ll find sites whose sole purpose is to make fun of her. (And we wonder why kids today can be so mean…) While you are at it, check out how blogger Jane Genova treats Mike Huckabee’s sons. (Let’s not settle for belittling a candidate’s religion, middle name, heritage, or marital issues. Let’s beat up on their kids to make sure that we have completely desecrated everything that they hold dear.)

Certain subjects should be off-limits out of common decency. Running for office doesn’t give America the right to rip to pieces everything that is sacred or important to a candidate.

I am not implying that pointing out a candidate’s policies or behavior of which you do not agree amounts to bigotry or cruelty. I am simply saying that leaving comments in blogs or on YouTube proclaiming things like “all Mormons are bunch of #!*% idiots that deserve what they get”, “you can’t trust a candidate whose name sounds like a #&%* terrorist”, or “that woman is an ugly #&!* and needs an exorcism” is eventually going to lead to more prison over-crowding. (And cyber journalists/commentators posting articles to incite such comments for profit and personal gain are just as bad if not worse!)

Last week, I had a chance to discuss this topic with Scott Allen. Scott is the About.com Guide to Entrepreneurs. He is also the co-author of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online. (Click here to grab a free copy of Scott’s eBook.) Scott’s advice to me sums it up best: “In our business and in our lives, peacemaking cannot be a hobby. It has to be a way of business or it is not a way of life.” Scott also went on to say, “We spend more waking-hours working than anything else. You can’t work towards peace in the world if you take an antagonistic approach to business or support others in doing the same… If you are profiting off of bigotry, what does that say about you?”

NOTE: I have not included links to the most bigoted, vile, disturbing, or profane sites that I came across. I refuse to help spread their brand of hate.