|
Bullying can be visible, as in Physical and Public, but it can also be INVISIBLE, as in verbal, emotional, and even cyber and virtual Bullying. The commonality is the intention to INTIMIDATE or HUMILIATE the victim
With all of the recent teen suicides, it seems that bullycide has reached an epidemic high. Bullycide is a term that refers to kids or teens that commit suicide because they are being bullied.
The unrelated suicides of 18-year-old Lance Lundsten and 16-year-old Tiffani Maxwell are the most recent in a string of tragic suicides. Lundsten, an openly gay Minnesota high school student was bullied over his sexual orientation.
Maxwell killed herself after her peers falsely accused her of doing drugs at school, which got her expelled. She had also been receiving harassing text messages, a form of bullying called “cyberbullying.”
Another 2006 incident involving a cruel cyber-hoax lead to the death of high school student, Megan Meier. This story is most shocking of all because in this case the bully was an adult, Lori Drew – the mother of Megan’s former friend. Lori Drew created a bogus MySpace account to bully 13-year-old Megan Meier. Lori posed as an online boyfriend, so she could break-up with Megan and spread vicious rumors about her. The humiliation pushed an already fragile Megan over the edge. Though the Meiers pressed misdemeanor charges against Drew, the judge could not convict because the law was too vague for Drew to be convicted of any "crime" at the time.
Since then, a new Missouri cyberbullying law has been implemented as a direct response to Meier’s suicide. In 2009, Elizabeth Thrasher was the first person ever to be charged with a felony over cyberbullying after posting personal information about her ex-husband’s girlfriend’s daughter on an adult site geared toward people interested in arranging sexual encounters.
Though many schools in the U.S. and the U.K. currently have anti-bullying laws in place, cyber-bullying laws are not always effective or clear-cut. In the U.S., laws on cyberbullying vary from state to state. Some states such as Maryland leave it up to the schools to establish their own policy for punishment.
.
 A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE
As a teenager, I was subjected to a group of girls bullying me several times during my middle school and high school years. Though I defended myself and told them that I didn’t care what they thought of me, they weren’t dissuaded to stop their bullying, which consisted of verbal and emotional abuse.
I felt angry and frustrated, but I also felt inexplicably ashamed, so ashamed, that I never told my parent's about it, although I know that if I had they would have taken it very seriously. At the time I thought it was something that all teens go through – a rite of passage that paves the way to our adult lives. I now know better. Bullying is not only aggressive behavior, it is anti-social and potentially pathological, and must NOT be tolerated.
The worst bullying that I've ever witnessed involved a close family friend we'll call "Jane". Two girls from Jane’s high school bullied her because one of the girls had been rejected by the boy she liked, and he was interested to date Jane instead. Jealousy, and it's attendant feelings of "inferiority", is a strong cause for the "insecure" to use bullying tactics to assert themselves, as if to regain some sense of power by dominating or trying to make others "less" to make themselves "bigger". These girls harassed and bullied Jane on a daily basis. They physically beat her up and even went as far as to bash her parents car window when no one was home. They gossiped about Jane, and tried to destroy her reputation by making up lies as well as threatening her younger sibling.
Jane's parents got involved, they notified the school and filed a police report, and the police said that there was nothing they could do. The school suspended the two bullies. The bullying eventually stopped, but Jane was so humiliated and traumatized from the experience that she transferred to a private school, a luxury that many parents can’t afford.
So what did I learn from these personal experiences of bullying?
I learned compassion. I have sympathy for anyone that is bullied because I know how absolutely rotten it feels to be afraid, ostracized, and put down. As a teen it was hard for me to look to a brighter future, and realize that I wouldn’t always be a vulnerable kid in high school. As any teen, I lived very much in the moment, where EVERYTHING feels just so final, so important. And in that moment I felt miserable, like the fear and aggravation was never going to end, even though it did. As an adult looking back I am thankful that I got through it, but I can easily understand how some other sensitive young persons might not have the inner strength or the outer support to sustain them through the worse of such ordeals.
.
RAISING AWARENESS WITH THE 8th ANNUAL "NO NAME-CALLING WEEK"
In order to raise awareness against bullying, several U.S.-based organizations have hosted the eighth annual “No Name-Calling Week”, this year from January 24-28. The No Name-Calling Week included educational activities intended to end name-calling of all varieties and provided schools with the tools to initiate an ongoing dialogue about ways to stop bullying from occurring in their communities.
Thousands of schools in the U.S. participated in the event inspired by the YA novel, The Misfits, by James Howe. The book chronicles the life of four best friends trying to navigate their way through fourth grade in the face of constant bullying.
.
ENFORCING LAWS TO GUARD AGAINST UNCIVIL AND UNCIVILIZED BEHAVIOR
On January 6, 2011, New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, signed the strictest anti-bullying bill in the U.S., requiring a school official to head up a special anti-bullying program in every New Jersey school, as well as investigations of incidents, training for teachers, and yearly assessments for schools. This bill gained momentum after a string of suicides involving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students occurred, including that of 18-year-old Rutger’s University student, Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide after discovering that his roommate used a webcam to spy on him during a sexual encounter with another male. The New Jersey law is also inclusive of public colleges, requiring that the codes of conduct include anti-bullying.
Raising awareness about bullying in schools and communities will help people realize how serious bullying is and that it’s NOT a rite of passage, NOR something to take lightly. Creating strict anti-bullying policies in schools establishes a baseline of what is not acceptable, thus making it harder for bullying to escalate to a point where a persecuted youth feels that their only way out is suicide. It’s up to each and every one of us to speak out against bullying in our communities, until our societies and communities no longer need those external guidelines to define what is civilized behavior.
INTERVIEW ABOUT BULLIES AND BULLYING with CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER, MORGAN POWELL, MSW ... by Irene Knoop
|
Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
