Breaking the Boy Code - Four Broken Ribs

00:00:00.000 Two things that I want to acknowledge before we get into the story.

00:00:03.360 One is that just a trigger warning that this is a story that involves homophobia, bullying, and some pretty serious physical violence.

00:00:12.260 So if that's going to bring up anything for you, if you're listening with young or vulnerable listeners, just sort of keep that in mind and do whatever you need to do to keep yourself safe as you kind of navigate this conversation.

00:00:24.080 the second thing to acknowledge is this is a story that doesn't really make lewis sound

00:00:28.640 that great in some in some parts of the stories and so two things for that one is to acknowledge

00:00:37.100 the difficulty of actually saying what you did when you fucked up like to really go after that 0.54

00:00:44.400 and say i really did the wrong thing here and here's what i did that's difficult that's that's 0.98

00:00:50.800 courageous. And so I want to honor Lewis for doing that. And I also just really want to

00:00:56.160 acknowledge that that's, this is not where the story ends. And this is not where the story ends

00:01:00.340 for anybody, whether it's Lewis or anybody else in this story or anywhere else around you. Like

00:01:04.940 the story, nobody's beginning and ending is violence. And part of the reason that Lewis

00:01:15.720 is committed to sharing the story right now is just basically to be part of change.

00:01:20.800 and changing that experience of violence for anybody else.

00:01:44.020 What am I going to say to begin with?

00:01:47.460 I thought that was just what you were writing down.

00:01:49.740 I know I have that in general, but like the very first thing to say.

00:01:54.400 Once upon a time.

00:01:57.840 I guess welcome back to the story with myself and Louis.

00:02:02.400 This is episode two in a four part series.

00:02:04.760 So if you haven't listened to the first episode, I really recommend that you go back to season three, episode one, which is where the story begins.

00:02:11.620 In the first episode, we talked about Louis's arrival into a new school in December.

00:02:16.840 Not easy to arrive.

00:02:19.740 in a new place at age 11, halfway through the school year. And so we talked about how he had

00:02:26.660 initially planned on not talking to anybody and just sort of keeping his head down. But how over

00:02:34.000 the span of the first couple of weeks of his time at that school, he had found his way into a really

00:02:38.040 fun and meaningful friendship with another boy who had reached out to him. And they struck up

00:02:43.240 a friendship and ended up with Lewis being part of this group of peers that would really

00:02:47.260 make the year not pass so badly after all.

00:02:52.560 And Lewis, for the record, loves,

00:02:54.960 you've probably gotten a sense of this,

00:02:57.120 but he loves to make people laugh.

00:02:58.800 He's inquisitive, he's thoughtful, he's creative.

00:03:02.440 And, you know, and his group of friends were fun-loving.

00:03:05.260 There was a bit of like an us versus the word mentality,

00:03:07.800 but in a way that was video games and skateboards.

00:03:12.040 I guess alongside all of that,

00:03:13.880 they would also sometimes take things too far,

00:03:16.080 which is where we're going to pick up the story last time we were recording you said there was a

00:03:21.020 kid who was different from you and that's where you kind of started to question how far were you

00:03:25.200 really willing to go so yeah why don't you pick up the story there i was muted

00:03:33.260 so after i made friends with the four guys that i was talking about before everything was going good

00:03:43.960 but there was this one kid his name was matthew and he started he was a lot different than us 0.97

00:03:53.080 so we started kind of calling him a lot of different names like fag and gay 0.95

00:03:59.840 and stuff like that and we would talk behind his back when he couldn't hear us 0.99

00:04:04.600 and you know it was a lot of that that was going on and sometimes we would kind of spit on him or

00:04:14.960 something like that I thought it was funny at first you know how we were doing that

00:04:20.900 but eventually I guess he got tired of it and he told on us and we ended up having to go to the

00:04:29.880 office and she said what the other kid said Matthew and she you know told us the rules and

00:04:42.740 it was like a zero tolerance thing for bullying and we were supposed to write him

00:04:51.180 an apology letter and she said next time it happened we would be suspended

00:04:56.060 so i know i felt kind of bad so i went ahead and wrote the letter

00:05:03.020 but a couple of the other guys did not write the letter at all

00:05:06.820 and they ended up actually getting suspended and one of my friends joseph he said he wanted to get

00:05:15.580 back at the kid because he didn't want to he hated getting suspended because he got in a lot

00:05:22.360 of trouble with his family so he said he wanted to get him back

00:05:28.880 so you know we were walking around we're all kind of in the same neighborhood

00:05:36.220 so we were walking around

00:05:39.080 and we saw him and his best friend there

00:05:44.480 and we started asking them you know why did you tell on us

00:05:52.360 and he didn't say anything so my friend started pushing him

00:06:02.720 and another guy actually punched him so his friend got mad and you know I was kind of

00:06:13.060 in the way I guess and I was saying a lot of things I shouldn't have said

00:06:16.460 so his friend punched me

00:06:18.800 and we all kind of got into a big fight

00:06:21.980 and the one kid

00:06:25.560 Matthew that we were making fun of first

00:06:27.800 he

00:06:28.940 he got hurt more

00:06:31.580 than the other kid

00:06:32.840 and after that he

00:06:37.100 told on us again

00:06:38.900 can you tell me a little bit more about

00:06:42.900 and you don't really have to get into

00:06:45.540 Like it's as much detail as you want, but I like really can't imagine.

00:06:49.740 I can't imagine you saying hurtful stuff if I'm being honest.

00:06:54.620 And so if you want to help me imagine that you can,

00:06:57.360 or if you'd rather that I don't, then you don't need to. 1.00

00:07:04.880 You know, I was saying stuff like he was gay and to just get stitches and stuff, 1.00

00:07:11.160 but I was being a really big jerk. I'll be honest. 0.99

00:07:14.460 and the reason I was being a jerk 0.97

00:07:16.620 is because I wanted my friends to like 0.98

00:07:18.640 me more

00:07:19.220 so that's why I was doing it

00:07:22.780 and I wanted to act kind of tough

00:07:24.800 but I didn't like getting punched

00:07:29.240 that was not good

00:07:30.380 yeah so what did that feel like?

00:07:35.580 it felt like getting punched in the face

00:07:37.320 it hurt

00:07:37.780 I started to kind of

00:07:41.420 feel bad after that

00:07:42.580 it's like well

00:07:45.660 I mean I really don't want to be doing

00:07:48.720 what I'm doing but I'm

00:07:50.580 doing it because

00:07:52.000 like I said

00:07:54.720 before I want people to like me

00:07:56.300 I want my friends

00:07:58.580 to like me

00:07:59.420 yeah and we know

00:08:05.920 how much that friendship

00:08:09.960 really means to you at that point

00:08:12.000 yeah it meant a lot

00:08:15.600 so it went from

00:08:21.780 you think it's funny

00:08:23.380 because it's not that big of a deal

00:08:26.140 to

00:08:27.060 okay I don't like this because people are actually

00:08:30.320 getting hurt but

00:08:32.040 I'm still

00:08:34.280 not going to change the way I'm acting

00:08:36.320 because

00:08:36.880 these friends mean too much to me

00:08:42.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:08:44.140 And then you got told on again.

00:08:50.160 Yeah, we got told on again.

00:08:53.060 And my teacher said, you know, we would have got suspended.

00:08:58.100 But since this was not at school, we really couldn't get much trouble for it.

00:09:04.000 But they did call our parents and they let our parents know, you know, what was going on.

00:09:12.000 Can I ask one, one quick thing about that? Telling the parents, at least for, and maybe we'll cut this out afterwards, but like, it occurs to me that telling the parents of some of these guys actually does result in some pretty serious consequences.

00:09:27.920 Yeah, it does. I mean, for me, it wasn't too bad, but I did have a friend in the group that we were hanging out with that got in.

00:09:37.860 well his parents weren't the best people in the world and he got in some really serious trouble

00:09:43.600 so i mean that was not good for him you know when another guy get grounded so

00:09:50.620 it wasn't just telling parents there was some consequences at home too

00:09:57.900 yeah and for anybody listening to this thinking oh well the parents should be providing consequences

00:10:05.200 like what me and lewis are talking about is like beyond the scope of what parent how parents should

00:10:11.960 should be treating their children do you think that and okay my other question about that is

00:10:17.000 do you think that like is the teacher aware that at all like the of the consequences of

00:10:23.400 of being like i'm going to call home no i don't think they think about it they just decide you

00:10:30.500 who we have to call their parents but they don't realize that some parents aren't very good parents

00:10:38.340 at all it's not just like i guess the i guess what i'm thinking about is like the retaliation

00:10:46.260 that follows isn't just you you told on us so we want to get you back it's like you've actually

00:10:53.560 really caused me to get hurt and and that needs to be accounted for I guess does that make sense

00:11:02.380 yeah it makes sense

00:11:04.620 and do you think that factored into like how they responded yeah I think that was a big factor

00:11:14.900 especially for my friend joseph he was um

00:11:20.300 he was the one that wanted to get back at them

00:11:24.780 you know so it was his idea and he was probably the one that got hurt the most

00:11:39.640 okay so i kind of interrupted the story with some of those questions so what were you going to say

00:11:43.300 next so we knew that this kid matthew he liked to barbecue a lot so we were going to find him

00:11:53.440 alone because we didn't like it when his friend was with us you know the first time because

00:11:58.580 he was a pretty good fighter and i mean he we knew he could hurt us so we wanted to find him

00:12:06.900 alone so he was cooking out on a grill like he usually does and we found him alone and he didn't

00:12:17.400 hear us coming so we snuck up behind him and my friend knocked him down and they were kicking him

00:12:25.380 I mean they were kicking him really hard like in the head and in the back

00:12:30.720 and the kid you know it was so bad he was making some noises and we were

00:12:39.880 actually kind of laughing at him because the noises sounded weird I guess and he was gasping

00:12:49.000 for air and I got really scared because I thought well we're gonna hurt him really bad

00:12:55.960 and I didn't want to hurt him you know like that the name calling and stuff wasn't so bad

00:13:02.460 the you know for a kid to be gasping for air and stuff that was really worrying for me

00:13:10.300 so I told my friends to stop you know I actually stepped in front of one of them and

00:13:18.480 um I was getting kind of upset and I started crying you know I got really scared and I was

00:13:28.320 like holy fucking hell and I started crying and my friends you know they they started laughing 0.99

00:13:35.420 at me because I was crying and they called me a pussy and stuff so that really sucked 1.00

00:13:43.120 and i just stepped back and they continued to do what they were doing 0.99

00:13:48.980 and outside of the apartment there was a guy that came up and he was like what are you guys doing

00:13:58.880 you need to go away so we all ran off and i felt bad for just leaving him there because

00:14:06.460 i mean he was hurt really bad and i don't even think he was awake but we all ran off

00:14:16.260 and later i found out that he actually um we actually broke his ribs

00:14:24.820 so

00:14:27.420 okay so what are the so what's the feeling when you go to put your body in front of his and say

00:14:36.180 he's had enough like what what are you feeling in that moment i was so scared i didn't know what

00:14:42.900 was going to happen to matthew i thought like for a minute there i thought well they're gonna

00:14:48.880 kill him or something because they just kept kicking him and kicking him and he closed his

00:14:57.520 eyes and he just stopped fighting and i didn't know if he was passed out or what happened 0.98

00:15:05.880 And, you know, I kind of thought, well, maybe we almost did kill him or something.

00:15:17.500 And then what, so you're crying because of how scared you are?

00:15:21.780 Yeah, I was crying because I was so scared and I felt so bad and I did not want to hurt someone like that. 1.00

00:15:30.420 And then what about getting called a pussy by your friends? 0.99

00:15:33.880 Yeah, it was just shocking because I thought I knew they were my friends and I thought they would kind of have my back, but they didn't. You know, as soon as I started to cry, they kind of turned their back on me. It hurt. 0.99

00:15:58.820 And then what? So then what happened next?

00:16:01.260 I was kind of really upset after that.

00:16:05.400 I actually found out later by a friend that Matthew tried to kill himself after that.

00:16:14.680 So, I mean, that made me feel really guilty.

00:16:18.880 And I couldn't eat anything.

00:16:21.040 I couldn't sleep.

00:16:22.080 I couldn't do anything.

00:16:24.600 That's when I started talking to you.

00:16:26.680 and you know you started telling me about matthew and a little bit about what was going on

00:16:36.160 i really remember who it was i think it was you yeah

00:16:41.620 you were probably trying to make me so bad which i deserved it i mean i thought i deserved

00:16:54.540 what he got you know i wanted someone to do that to me really

00:17:01.320 yeah it was that bad

00:17:06.440 all right so you felt

00:17:14.140 okay i mean i guess i'll say this and you'll just be like yep but you felt so badly about what you've

00:17:23.380 done and about who you'd become i guess that you what you thought you deserved was to be 0.99

00:17:31.280 like knocked to the ground and kicked to shit yep that's what i deserved 0.99

00:17:39.700 even as badly like you know you've seen firsthand how much that hurts 0.99

00:17:49.100 yeah

00:17:52.920 and you know how much a single punch to the face hurts

00:17:57.480 yeah I mean the kid that

00:18:02.700 we did that to did not deserve that

00:18:06.460 at all I mean he didn't even do anything wrong

00:18:09.900 so why should he go through that

00:18:14.120 and me not

00:18:14.840 yeah well i mean i'll acknowledge that's a powerful feeling and i think it's a it's like a

00:18:30.940 a good way of understanding how

00:18:34.960 badly you felt i will say that i don't think anybody ever deserves

00:18:40.900 deserves that no matter what they've done

00:18:43.480 yeah i think i know that now yeah yeah fair enough

00:18:49.980 i'm really i'm really glad that i started talking to you because if i didn't

00:18:58.580 i think i probably would have continued to hang out with them so

00:19:05.380 i'm really glad i met you

00:19:10.400 me too

00:19:13.240 so i decided

00:19:18.040 you know i don't want to be their friends anymore i don't want to hang out with them

00:19:24.100 and i was going to try to actually be friends with matthew and his friend

00:19:32.100 you know his best friend that he had

00:19:35.300 so instead of the friends that i was hanging out with before i wanted to be friends with matthew

00:19:44.440 that'll be where we we stop the story for now because next next recording session we're going

00:19:54.900 to pick up the story about um about that transition that you sought to make and we'll

00:20:01.200 talk about the feel like we'll hopefully talk a lot about the feelings because i know that was

00:20:04.780 a really difficult and sort of tumultuous time and also just sort of exactly you know what happened

00:20:10.860 as you tried to make things right yeah okay

00:20:18.400 okay well I have one more I have one more question one thing I kind of wanted to ask

00:20:24.660 you about is you mentioned zero tolerance and I don't know if you know this but well I guess

00:20:29.860 you must know this firsthand. That's for a long time been like an official policy of the school

00:20:35.300 system is that we have a zero tolerance policy for bullying. We have a zero tolerance policy for

00:20:40.180 like a lot of stuff, you know, drugs, other forms of misbehavior. Nothing else is really

00:20:47.560 coming to mind, but you get the idea. Zero tolerance. And it also seems like you've seen

00:20:53.560 firsthand how that didn't work. Can you tell me a little bit more about why it didn't work?

00:20:59.860 i think zero tolerance is bullshit i mean they say that but they don't mean it i mean a lot of

00:21:09.560 times when you go to them because i've been um picked on before and i've told on people for you 0.97

00:21:16.360 know bullying me and you tell them and they don't change anything i mean nothing really happens

00:21:23.500 so the whole thing that they say zero to zero tolerance is just a lie they don't really want to

00:21:33.960 help anybody

00:21:35.260 they just i don't even know why they have that policy because they do nothing yeah okay

00:21:48.060 um okay then can you think of anything that

00:21:53.220 would actually make a difference

00:21:59.580 i think if they you know talk to the kids more instead of just saying hey this happened

00:22:09.740 and i'm gonna call your parents or something if they actually took the time to talk to the people

00:22:16.280 and figure out why they're doing what they're doing

00:22:18.380 and try to help them through it

00:22:21.700 and try to help the kids get along

00:22:23.700 instead of, you know, just suspending someone

00:22:29.080 or giving them detention or calling parents.

00:22:32.660 That would make a big difference.

00:22:36.160 Do you remember in the introduction where I said you are,

00:22:39.680 what did I say?

00:22:42.860 When I said you're inquisitive and thoughtful and creative,

00:22:46.280 yeah i remember that okay so this is this is the proof because what you're talking about

00:22:53.440 is called restorative justice and sometimes it's presented like an idealistic complex

00:23:01.960 um i don't know what to say about it but sometimes it's presented as like this

00:23:08.620 really far off distant possibility and

00:23:12.360 I guess what comes to mind is if an

00:23:16.700 11 year old can figure it out you'd think the echelons of

00:23:20.780 the educational system could put something like that together

00:23:23.560 or

00:23:27.660 maybe you should become premier of Ontario

00:23:32.220 yeah I think I would do a good job at it

00:23:37.760 me too my name is jonathan my name is lewis and you're listening to breaking the boy code

00:23:46.260 this podcast is supported by next gen men one of the things that i'm privileged to be able to do

00:23:52.400 with next gen men is be part of both designing and facilitating restorative circles in schools

00:23:58.800 exactly what lewis was talking about is the transformation that is so badly needed in our

00:24:04.060 education system and that's the transformation that Next Gen Men is part of. If you believe in

00:24:09.920 yeah if you believe in the voices of young people if you believe that justice can be done better

00:24:15.740 please consider supporting the work that we do both in schools and also with this podcast by

00:24:20.900 becoming a Next Gen member at nextgenmen.ca join. You can reach out to me at breakingtheboycode

00:24:27.400 at gmail.com or at boy podcast or one more time you can reach out to me at breaking the boy code

00:24:38.140 at gmail.com or at boy podcast on social media um lewis yeah i love you i love you too

00:24:57.400 you know what though what like if you would have been one of my teachers

00:25:11.040 at that time then none of that would have happened

00:25:14.980 yeah maybe i didn't mean to say that on the recording i was just saying it

00:25:22.360 no i i kind of hear what you're saying and i guess that's kind of my hope for

00:25:26.320 doing this project together is that literally if one teacher listens to this and then they're like

00:25:31.700 huh maybe I'll do things a little bit differently then you know between you and me we could make a

00:25:37.040 really significant change in somebody's life. Fabulous.

Breaking the Boy Code - February 15, 2022

Four Broken Ribs

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