A 15-year-old girl holds her one-year-old son. People call her a slut. No one knows she was raped at 13. People call a girl fat. No one knows she has a serious disease which causes her to be overweight. People call an old man ugly. No one knows he had a serious injury to his face while fighting for our country during the war. Repost this if you are against bullying and stereotyping.
I've seen the above posted all over Facebook at various times, and I must say I am 100% behind the sentiment. But can we talk about the silent implications of this? The way it is written makes it seem as though it would be perfectly fine to insult these people if the 15-year-old had actually been sleeping around, the girl had an unfortunate attachment to McDonald's fries, or the old man was simply not attractive by current social standards. While I do not mean that solutions to rising teen pregnancy, obesity, etc should not be addressed, it needs to be understood that bullying does not need to be tolerated in any circumstance, whether the social norm deems it "deserved" or not. I don't care why the teenager is pregnant, the girl is larger than people think is okay, or the old man is less attractive than some think he should be--No One Should Be Bullied. Period.
1 comment:
I agree.
I can't count how many times I've seen bullying happen and it was discounted (behind closed doors) because the kid was "deserving".
Barbara Coloroso has some great books on bullying and the roles we all play.
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