To Love Takes Courage, Hatred Is For Cowards

    Bullying has been a serious issue around the area recently with the death of Jamey Rodemeyer. Within the past week the Democrat and Chronicle has published numerous articles pertaining to bullying. 

   

    The first article deals with a girl in high school who goes out and does her own thing instead of following the other girls. That's right, that means that kids actually started bullying her for not conforming to their 'cult.'  But then again isn't that a common reason why kids start bullying in the first place; because other people aren't like them? For some sick reason people don't accept diversity and difference, probably out of fear and ignorance, but isn't it said that God has made everyone unique and in his image? Everyone is made to help better this world, but some people need help in understanding that so that bullying of every sort can come to an end.  

      

    Luckily, for this local girl it did, but only after she spoke up and got help and continued to fight through the bullying. 

    The second article that I read was about a boy who got bullied all of the time, until he was diagnosed with Asperger's. After that he found a peer group, his social skills were bettered, and he has stopped being bullied. The same logic works with this case as well as the first. It is understandable that maybe some kids would be a bit apprehensive about approaching him sure, but bullying him because they didn't understand is unacceptable. Children need to be taught how to treat others who have medical conditions, and that is to be nice just like they would be with anyone else. 

    The third and final article concerned a girl who didn't agree to go on a date because she wasn't allowed to. She didn't do anything wrong, and actually did the good thing by following her mother's rule, but after that other kids started physically abusing her. At one point her mother had to pull her out of school because it had escalated so much. It is sad to think that someone should be denied the right to go to school and receive a good education because some bratty pre-teens were threatening her well being. 

     Now as I mentioned earlier, the reason that bullying cases such as these have been in the media, is because of the recent suicide case of Jamey Rodemeyer. Jamey was relentlessly bullied by classmates on countless social networks. Although Jamey was tormented himself, he encouraged others on the It Gets Better project on Youtube to fight off bullies. Jamey's suicide makes it so much more hard to accept because of this fact. 

     From everything that I've seen about Jamey, he seemed like such a sweet and caring person, not one who deserved to be harassed at every turn. No body deserves that. So RIP Jamey, you have made more of an impact than you'll ever know.

    As for the connection between him and Lady Gaga, she was his idol. After his death, Lady Gaga dedicated a concert to him, and because of him Lady Gaga met and talked with President about anti-bullying with past weekend. Her hopes are to get a law passed against bullying in Jamey's honor. 

    For some other opinions about bullying I asked some of my friends what they thought on the subject. Alicia R. said, "Bullying kills. I think everyone should do whatever it takes to stop it." The second quote is from Melanie W. and she said, "If you bully a person, and that person commits suicide, you're basically a murderer." Lastly, my friend Danielle C. said, “Bullying is for losers, and it needs to be made illegal before more people commit suicide.”

    First of all, let me say that I agree wholeheartedly with every single one of those views. However, one thing that disturbed me that I observed to be a trend in all three of my friends' opinions was that they immediately related bullying to death and  suicide. Something does need to be done to stop bullies, and that first step is you. Help educate people between right and wrong and spread awareness. 

    In my opinion, bullies are just people who are insecure of themselves and are narrow minded. They are intolerant of views outside of their own, because they are learning that kind of thing is okay from politicians and other adults  around them, because that is who influences them. For a different future without bullying, these kids need to be taught that, as Americans they are entitled to their opinions, but they need to be open minded towards other people and their opinions, personalities and lifestyles.

    At Bishop Kearney, the hand book says about bullying, "The student will receive disciplinary consequences including but not limited to suspension or dismissal, depending on the severity of the incident." This means that Kearney has a zero bullying policy, which is great and the way it should be everywhere. The only trouble is that it is hard to tack down bullies and prove that they are bullying other kids, especially when it is cyberbullying. As soon as this is fixed, I think that the number of kids being bullied might not drop, but the number of bullies caught definately will improve. 

    As a final word about bullying-in case you haven't learned anything yet-don't do it. Because kids: "Bullying is for squares." -Mr. Miller 

Links used for information in this post:
 http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110925/NEWS01/109250359/Hateful-texts-voicemails-end-after-visit-school-psychologist
 http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110925/NEWS01/109250357/It-wasn-t-fear-kept-bullied-teen-from-talking
 http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110925/NEWS01/109250354/Bullying-leaves-tormented-students-helpless-parents?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Home
 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/jamey-rodemeyer-suicide-ny-police-open-criminal-investigation/story?id=14580832
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/27/jamey-rodemeyer-bullied-after-death_n_983926.html


    

    

Family Belongings

In my family I believe that there are some things that are owned personally, and other things that family members share between themselves. We can't just take anything that we want just because we want it.
Some people have worked hard for or received certain things that were meant for their own use only, and everyone else in the household should respect that.

People who lie to me

  When someone lies to me they won't easily gain my trust again, if at all. Trustworthiness is something very important to me and when someone lies, that original level of trust that I had for them is gone. My reasoning behind this is that once I know that this person has lied about one thing, how do I know what else they could be lying about? It could be anything, and I'll be wary about believing other things that they say.
  I might find that I'm able to forgive sometimes, but I definitely won't forget.