For you, may be a happy new year but not for a particular family of New York City. Let me tell you something, I hardly watch news because is pretty depressing. Yesterday I grabbed a copy of AM New York just to find out that Amanda Cumming committed suicide on Monday just two days after celebrating her last Christmas with her family. Now, What's so special about Amanda that I have decided to include her in one of my entries? Amanda Cumming was a 15 years old girl victim of bullying. She just couldn't handle it anymore. I have included her memorial blogspot page for you to visit and pay your respects if you like. I was thinking of creating a collage of latest victims of bullying including that of that famed video but I didn't think was appropriate.
Bullying has always been present not only in our schools but in society, later on in this article I will tell you why I think people bully. But it has taken a tremendous step lately where teens are not only getting bullied in school but even in their very own living room, in silence. I'm talking about cyber bullying perhaps more dangerous thankfully easier to document. Technology which much help to stay in touch but also helps bullies to trespass into your home's walls. Let's take a look at some of most recent cases.
September 2010 Piscataway, New Jersey Tyler Clementi suicide after a roommate broadcast to friends Tyler's sexual encounter with another man.
You think this is the American way? think it twice. I'm not sure when this happened but I just typed "bullying 2011" and this article dropped in. Kwangju, Korea a 14 years old boy took his life as well after being incapable of dealing with 3 bullies who beat him in 29 different occasions.
Just to prove a point of how Cyber bullying is a problem and everybody is at risk, here's this video is in Spanish unfortunately but this time hit close home. My own cousin had a moment to be scared when she won a competition on Facebook I wonder why people compete anyway. She won a little competition called "who is the most beautiful?" is popular in Hispanic countries usually get two girls to compete head to head. In this case the losing girl got very upset and getting her mother involved. Well the press got involved, police got involved and came out "as a miss-understanding" turns out the mother of the other girl was a cop as well. But the family had to be concerned because just 3 days before tragedy happened involving Facebook.
October 10, 2011 Dominican Republic (click here) the article is in Spanish but here's the synopsis of what happened. A 18 year old downloaded a picture of her 20 years old Facebook friend and uploaded her on her Facebook captioning it "this girl is a pig, her mouth stink" obviously an online argument ensued, then they met at a grocery store and there the 18 year old ended up stabbing to death her former friend and to what some other sources say, she might have been pregnant.
October 10, 2011 seems this was cyber bullying week. Amber Cole a 14 years old girl become news when a video of her practicing oral sex on her former boyfriend receive millions of views. Apparently the video was consensual but was not meant to be shared, the boys decided to share it and encouraging their friends on Facebook and twitter to pass it around. I agree with one of the articles I read, the names of the guys should be released they are in fact the ones who are supposed to be in the mud.
What's the deal with bullying? Why people bully? first of all we are all humans and I don't care how attractive a person appears to be at the end of the day, there's something on that person that is not that charming. Bullies have an eye for that and just pick on that. Of course they know their own defects but try to divert the attention toward someone else. I'm thankful I came from a good high school at Newcomers High School there's no place for bullying, they enforce the fact that we are all new to the country and should stick together, look after our fellow classmates. Let see, my previous high school don't count neither. I went through three different high schools those who don't know. In the previous high school I was the youngest in the class it was a night high school obviously for those who work. I just couldn't find a spot in regular school when I changed city. But in my first high school there was this one guy. He did his best to annoy me, he picked on the fact that I have a gap in my front teeth and he teased me constantly about it. "window tooth" what he was trying to cover was that he was missing two teeth right in front. Think about it, I was window tooth I would accept that, he was St Louis arch tooth. But he was covering that by picking on me instead. Once I learned this fact, I wasn't feeling bad no more, I knew what his objective was.
We live in a society where you can't be. You are smart, study like crazy? you get picked on for being so smart, but then everybody is your friend when tests come. You better cooperate or you get bullied. You are dumb? well you gonna be the comedy topic for your classmates poking jokes about you all the time, you are good looking? likely may get picked on no matter what you do. Just for being good looking you have people hating you particularly those of the same sex. If you are ugly you get teased and on and on. Like I said before, just divert the attention toward someone else and see them get mad.
I get my point across, bullies are insecure of themselves and just to feel good they seek for some defect on someone else. Often lack self esteem and don't want their ego to be hurt when someone pick on them, so they decide to pass that responsibility to someone else. In the case of Ms Cumming she was dating a guy her main bully liked, but that's not the case all the time, sometimes bullies do it without a reason.
- As a parent you have to make sure your children are respectful toward others,
- Be your children's friend never encourage violence.
- This go for both ways bullied kid or bully. As I said before, bullies have their own problems and just to avoid being picked on, they pick on someone, plus is a way to entertain themselves tormenting someone else.
- Always remind your children of their good qualities, talk to them constantly, they are sensitive beings looking for attention and very important, get to know their friends.
Now to the bullies behind Ms Cumming case. Are you happy now? thank to your actions a fine young girl lost her life. She could have been the scientist who would discover the cure of many illnesses, she could have been the greatest artist yet, a great mother. But we would never know because you decided was better to torture her existence. Tell me, Would you live at peace knowing that thank to you someone took her life? Would you be happy knowing that your own daughter 30 years from now is been bullied the same way you bullied Amanda? And how about you bullying Amanda because she was seeing "your crush" would you be happy knowing that your happiness with that guy was thank to the loss of a young life? Did it worth it? I bet you have your answers and you know well this was your responsibility not her. She was just a teenager like you, all of you put effort to kinda fit in, she did too, now she's gone. Think about it, 30 years from now that could probably be your daughter going through the same, or indirectly killing someone else. Is that the kind of society you want?
OTHER LINKS
CLICK HERE FOR SPECIAL MESSAGE
Amanda Cummings Memorial Blog spot page
This article on Tumblr
Stop Bullying dot gov
Preventing Bullying
Check this youtube Video with Joel Burns
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