My first mean girl encounter happened at the end of 8th grade. I had seen it happen to other girls, but once I experienced it myself I felt the pain first hand. I had been put in a middle school according to my zip code that meant I was not going to go with my elementary friends. I fought and tried to change my mom's mind but nothing worked. I made new friends, that was easy. Little did I know that because they didn't know me for too long it would be easy for them to turn their backs on me just as easy. It was a big group of girls at least 12 that I can think of. For some reason they were picking on one I don't even remember why but I do remember that I told that girl I would still be her friend as long as she didn't tell the others. I saw this girl cry and be left out and how much it hurt her. I never thought I would experience the same. I had become really close to this girl named Lilian I used to call her my best friend. I used to trust her and tell her everything. I guess I happen to mention one of the other girls in one of our conversations and she went to tell the rest making it seem like I was talking bad about them. They quickly excluded me I don't remember how long it lasted but when it came time to graduate I had no friends. One of them signed a paper kite I had made and she still had the nerve to say "good luck with everything I just hope next time you watch what you say" Thinking about it now it makes me so mad.
I'm just glad that in high school things were much different and that little click disappeared. It's been years and one by one I've been contacted y them through Facebook. I don't hold much against them now since it's been years and I would feel silly if I held on to that grudge. The only harm was a few months of being excluded, threatened to get beat up if I said anything else and maybe other little details but overall there was no physical harm done. I wanted to talk about this because bullying in school never gets old, thankfully schools have adopted a no bullying measure for a couple of years now.
On Thursday, March 10th President Barack Obama held a day long conference at the White House with it's purpose to “dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up." said President Obama. ABC News (blog.abcnews.com) reports that the President said it's not something we have to accept and under-mind. President and First Lady Obama both took the stand sharing with everyone their personal experiences about how difficult it can be to connect with their children. The First Lady said that as parents they must make a greater effort be more engaged with their children. “As parents, this issue really hits home for us,’ Mrs. Obama said, “As parents, it breaks our hearts to think that any child feels afraid every day in the classroom, or on the playground, or even online. It breaks our hearts to think about any parent losing a child to bullying, or just wondering whether their kids will be safe when they leave for school in the morning.” The president read statistics showing that a third of middle school and high school students have been bullied during the school year. The president also noted that because of technology bullying spreads faster.
Sadly more often we are seeing bullying making headlines in the news of students overwhelmed by bullying and been driven to take their own lives by committing suicide. In 2009, 11 year old Carl Walker Hoover of Springfield Massachusetts took his life for being called gay. He was a football player, a Boy Scout and actively participated in his church. His mother, Sirdeaner L. Walker, had plead to the school several times. The day she was going to go and ask the school again to do something about it, she found her son dead in their own home.
How many more deaths is it going to take for schools' to get more involved and do everything they can to stop bullying? I am thankful I never had to witness any of my peers die because of bullying but certainly do not want to hear about it in the news. I know little by little not only are we seeing coverage of such tragedies but TV shows like Glee are doing their part to try and reach as many viewers and educated them on the matter. The Movie Mean Girls in 2004 also did a good job of showing what girls are capable of plotting and they even made a sequel, part 2 this year. Artist Justin Biever recently posted a video of a young girl on twitter and Facebook and added "Think before you say something hurtful to someone else. It may look like they're ok but they're not. Words are more powerful than you think." Here's the link of the video.
http://worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh4pddr7E6739XRbyW
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