Dez Bryant, a rookie wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, is receiving widespread news coverage lately, but, depending on whose reporting, maybe not for the right reasons. It has been tradition for NFL rookies to carry the equipment of older players. This is just one of many different "traditions" that rookies must undergo. But, on Monday Bryant refused to carry the pads of fellow wide receiver Roy Williams, which were left for him.
"I feel like I was drafted to play football, not carry another player's pads," Bryant said.
Williams disagreed, as did much of the sports media. "Everyone has to go through it," Williams said. "I had to go through it. It doesn't matter if you're a number one pick or the 7,000 pick, you've still go to do something when you are a rookie. I carried pads. I paid for dinners. I paid for lunches. I did everything I was supposed to do, because I didn't want to be that guy."
Another sports reporter, whom I like, said that people a lot better then Bryant have had to carry shoulder pads and do other things so he should basically just do it and shut up.
My take on this is that this is hazing, a very mild form, but hazing none the less, and as we've all seen hazing can have serious negative consequences. It is William's last line that speaks volumes. Hazing takes place, and is allowed to continue, because no one is willing to step up and be "that guy" and refuse to do it. Everyone wants to belong to the group on the inside that is perpetrating the hazing. And then once you are on the inside you become the perpetrator, if for no other reason than the one that Williams said, "I did it, and so you are going to have to do it too."
Studies have also shown that people will self-justify these sorts of incidents on the back end in order to make them seem necessary and important. Because if they were unnecessary and unimportant then you have to face the realization that their only purpose was to demean, humiliate and degrade you, and who wants to say they intentionally chose to do that for no good reason? And so we justify it, and say it's about building "team", "camaraderie", "tradition" and other catch phrases to make them sound good. But ultimately it's not, it's about demoralizing another person in order to make yourself feel better and more important. And hazings finally stop when when someone is brave enough to stand up and point out how wrong the behavior and activities are, that their only purpose is about power and to show who has it and who doesn't.
Sadly to say, this behavior also takes place in the church, and especially in the ordination process. I have experienced things and have witnessed it for others, which I will not share for my own protection and those of the other victims, that should not have ever taken place but did. Although I have not been told this by the perpetrators, but other elders have said it to me, it happens all to often simply for the reason that those now doing it had it done to them, and so they are simply passing it down the line. When does this stop?
My position, and others in hazing situations are a little different than Bryants, because Roy Williams does not control Bryant's future. My future as a minister rests in the hands of a small group, the vast majority of whom use their power with good judgement and kind hands, but there are some who abuse it. And, they can abuse it with impunity because there is no method of redress or recourse for those of us in the process, and so far no one who is "protected" by being an elder in full connection has stepped forward to publicly address it.
There have been some who work through back channels, but unfortunately until someone steps forward publicly and says "this is ridiculous and it needs to stop," it will never stop. We will continue to have to carry other people's pads, and then some of us will force those behind us to do the same in order to justify our own treatment.
Similar things also happen in the local church. I know one pastor who was hounded by a member of the SPRC because she was not working enough or spending enough time at the church. But, what was really at work was that the SPRC member's husband had also been a minister and routinely put his family and other responsibilities on the back burner in order to work at the church. And so now the woman either had to say that her husband had been wrong in the decisions he had made and that he should have spent more time at home rather than making his ministry his primary concern, or she was going to have to prove that he had made the right decisions by forcing someone else to do the same.
In order to justify our own victimhood, and to put a positive spin on what we went through, we perpetuate negative situations and cause the hurt and the disgrace to continue. So, although my opinion doesn't make a difference in this situation, I say good job Dez Bryant, you have made the right decisions and you have my support.
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