Sunday 25 March 2012

Bullying needs to stop!

It amazes me how easily we can make fun of someone for being different or just because we think we are funny. It might be funny for you but for the person involved its anything but funny, it pushes them further down a hole filled with depression and self hate. Making fun at someone else's expense is bullying and it needs to stop!

Even a simple post like "Don't wear skinny jeans if you don't have skinny genes." (not aimed at the poster) can have a major impact on someone that is dealing with weight issues or hates how they look. Not everyone is perfect skinny models that can eat what they want and wear what they want, some people have real issues when it comes to what they look like. I know that because i am one of those people!

A young boy at the start of his life took his own life simply because other people could not handle his taste in music and decided to bully him for that. When did we as a society get to the point where we harass someone to the point of suicide because of what or who he listens to? Its sickening! Why should someone that love Justin Bieber or anyone else for that matter be treated different, what gives us the right to decide he is wrong?


We call people faggots, gay, queer, fatso, lesbo, geek, freak and many more, do we ever stop and think about what we are saying... the answer is no, we don't. We say that because we can and because we think we are very funny.

Do yourself a favour, goggle the term "Bullying needs to stop" its amazing how many pages there is and yet its still happening. We are selfish ass holes and we don't care about anyone but ourselves, anything for a laugh.

Look at these statistics courtesy of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL):
  • 19.3 percent of high school students have seriously considered killing themselves.
  • 14.5 percent of high school students made actual plans for committing suicide,
  • 900,000 youth planned their suicides during an episode of major depression. 

While suicide does not seem terribly common, it is nevertheless a major cause of death. The CDC reports that it is the third leading cause of death for youth ages 15 to 24. The only two things that cause more death among teenagers are accidents (usually in the car) and homicide. And even younger children do not escape. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 10 and 14.

Loosing even one person to suicide and depression because of bullying is one person too many. Its not only a tragic death but also a death that was preventable!

In the LGBT community all you have to do is look at the brilliant it does get better video made by the L Project to see how it is affecting us. Immediately after the song is a feature about gay people that is no longer with us, not only makes it me very sad seeing that, but it also angers me that people saw no way out because of bullying.

Recently in glee one episode showed just what bullying can drive a person to, one character tried to take his own life because school bullies outed him in public by spray painting the word FAG on his locker in pink. What stuck with me from that episode is not the fact that he tried to take his own life, what stayed with me was a comment made by another character after they found out, She said what he did was selfish and that he didn't want to hurt himself, he wanted to hurt every one around him....

We cant understand what someone with depression is going through, but what we can do is help them, stand up for bullying and make work of people that do think its funny to bully someone else if they cant fight for them self. Bullying does not only involve violence, its mostly done through words.

There is a saying Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

That could not be further from the truth, words do much more damage than being beaten up. Think what you are saying to someone, being funny might just be the trigger that will end in a mother and father crying next to a grave.

Please share this and make people aware!

Love
MG


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