In class we watched a film called, Bullied, which told the story of Jamie Nabozny, a kid who was bullied and harassed every day while at school. Jamie, went through very difficult times. He was yelled at, joked about, and even beaten up while at school because of his homosexuality. This caused Jamie to run away multiple times, and cause a deep depression to creep into not only his but his families life. Jamie tried to get the school involved with constant meetings Witt school officials but change never happened. Finally, Jamie decided to sue the school for failure to act upon his safety. Jamie won the case and 900,000 dollars from the school district. I think that Jamie had every right to sue the school. The presented school officials who were there to stop harassment's like the ones that Jamie faced, did nothing and said merely that, "Boys will be boys." This negligence lead to more brutality that Jamie had to face, and did not protect the students that entered the school. Any and every school is supposed to have a harm-free learning environment, and Jamie did not have a harm-free learning environment while at school. For this reason, Jamie Nabozny had every right to sue the school, for the failure to protect him from the harmful environment he faced while at school.
In class we read and talked about the Rutgers student, Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide because his roommate left a video recorder in his room while he was with another guy, to publicly out Tyler of being homosexual. Tyler's suicide has caused a huge stir and has brought the mere reality of bullying that is going on all across the world. Currently, the the roommate and another student have been charged with invasion of privacy, and authorities are considering whether to add a hate-crime charge. What seemed to be merely a joke in the eyes of the roommate, has turned into a situation where he may face charges of manslaughter, and face time in prison. This in my eyes, is a punishment that the roommate and his accomplishes should have to face. It is not okay to invade someones privacy and publicly show parts of their life they would like kept a secret. This form of electronic bullying is too prevalent in schools, and hopefully this act of injustice will be acted upon and show the consequences of bullying kids and pushing them over the edge.
After reading and writing about bullying in other schools, i was brought back to the bullying right here in DHS. Is it as bad here as it is at any other school? Yes. There is bullying that's goes on at DHS everyday. The problem is that the kids here think that if its a joke, its okay. Just because it may be a joke to one person, doesn't mean it is a joke to another. At school and out of school I was bullied by one of my best friends and he didn't realize the emotional distress he put on me. When I tried to approach him about it, he grew very defensive and said that it was my fault that i didn't understand his jokes. What he didn't understand was that his jokes were hurtful and constant. This form of bullying was one of innocence but of negligence and of the society today. Because of the constant bullying, I had to stop talking to one of my best friends, and I ha vent hung out with him since about Sophomore year of high school. Abandoning that friendship was hard but for me it was necessary, and has made me a happier person. This is just an example of all the bullying that goes on. Most of it is intent ed to be a "joke" but ends up hurting many people in the process. There are many ways though, for this to stop. Schools need to take time to not just talk about extreme bullying, but normal everyday bullying that can really affect the other person. If students could see how those "jokes" really hurt the people around them, i think it could make a difference.
