No more
“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself.” ~Harvey S. Firestone
In middle school I watched a group of ten boys in the eighth grade team up against a sixth grader who had autism, because they thought he was an easy target. I had never thought people, let alone kids my own age, could be so mean and cruel. I approached the group to see what all the commotion was about and was upset to find out that all of these boys wanted to harass this other boy because he liked dinosaurs. It broke my heart to watch this little sixth grader get picked on over something he enjoyed. I watched as these boys tore him piece by piece until they would be satisfied that he was broken down. Seeing this happen, something came over me. I was angry that these older kids, who were supposed to set an example for this boy, were picking on him instead. So I decided to take a stand. I walked over to him and asked him to come have lunch with us. We just walked away from them because everything they tried to say to him was useless and pointless. To this day I stand up for what I believe in. Bullying is not okay. It is harmful, degrading and hurtful. Promoting anti-bullying will be useless, until we all join together to end it once and for all. We are all human; we are made of the same fabric. You have the power to stop bullying so why not do it? It we work together, this could end. So when you’re walking down the hallway on your way to third period and you see a girl and her friends snickering and teasing the new girl who has glasses, do something about it. I am NOT promoting fighting but you can say something. You can tell the bully that’s not okay or even walk up to the new girl and tell her how much you love her glasses and try to start a conversation with her. Our goal is to make everyone not just feel accepted, but to actually be accepted, to be a part of something. This isn’t a campaign, it’s a movement. It is bigger than one person, but it only takes one person to take a stand. Be the change you want to see.