DON’T pick on somebody your own size

  Reading this article about Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin was very upsetting.  Just the fact that a grown man who has been playing in the NFL for just a few years longer feels that he is in a position where he can harass, bully, and threaten another man is appalling.  The voicemails he left for Martin with sexual and racial slurs and threats to not only kill him but his entire family are way out of line.  I was shocked to read that an estimated 35% of those in the U.S. workforce today are being bullied at work.  I personally don’t understand how bullying is overlooked in school situations, so this bullying of pro-football players is insane to me.  So many players and onlookers are claiming that Martin is “not a little boy” and that he should “defend himself” and so on, but do you really think that a man who made it this far in football doesn’t know how to defend himself?  For Martin to leave the team for “emotional issues” due to Incognito and potentially other “teammates”, this had to be a pretty bad situation.  But regardless of his occupation as a football player nobody should have to deal with this type of bullying in the workplace.  You are grown ups; when will you get over your own insecurities and focus on bettering yourself instead of putting others down?  Hazing has turned into a “pay it forward” ritual on sports teams, in clubs, frats, etc. and I don’t know if it can be stopped.  These members feel that since they were hazed then everyone from then on must be hazed.  But where is the line drawn between hazing and bullying?  Hazing is generally a short-lived process, while Incognito seemed to have “hazed” Martin for quite a long time.  He was not hazing; he was bullying.  Why do these fully grown men think they are so high and mighty?  Just because you make a couple million more than a player doesn’t mean you can leave them voicemails calling them “half-niggers” and saying you’ll slap their mothers.  It’s uncalled for and it needs to be stopped. Incognito should be banned from the NFL for life; he deserves it.