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Bullying
"I was experiencing the high school equivalent of a crucifixion everyday."
Listen
to this Commentary!
When I was 15 years old, suicide was the last thing I thought about before I
went to sleep and murder the first thing I thought about when I awoke.
I wasn’t fighting at school, or fighting my parents, or the social order
that I had grown up to respect. I was fighting my own weakness, which was I
not being able to stand up to people who were bullying me.
I was experiencing the high school equivalent of a crucifixion everyday. I was
either being spit on or punched or pushed or talked about…because I had
different views than my peers. For example, I choose to live an atheist lifestyle,
but I go to school in a bible beating predominately Baptist community. When
all my classmates cried like young widows over the death of everybody’s
R&B idol, Aaliyah, I didn’t feel that she was important at all people
died everyday, it wasn’t fair that she should get anymore of an outpour
than I would, if I died. All of these opinions were taken as assaults on my
classmates’ character.
I couldn’t tell my teachers or anybody about what was going on. In high
school telling is being weak. Kids are like sharks, they smell that weakness
like blood in water.
I reverted to making subtle threats within the daily reflections we wrote in
English class. But even then, it didn’t keep people away from me. They
continued to torture me on a daily basis. When it’s the whole school,
against one person, your friends can’t be everywhere at every time. And
when all your friends are feeling sorry for you, it doesn’t make it any
better. You don’t even want to live anymore.
Things are better than they were before. Back then I was really focused on academics
and things like that…But then I figured out, if I didn’t let go
of my chemistry book carrying ways and sink to my classmates’ level by
starting to sag my pants and slur my speech, it was another two years of being
picked on.
Now I keep my opinions to myself at school and listen to 50 Cent records. It’s
not me, but it’s a less tortured me.
With a perspective, I’m Quincy Mosby.
Host Back Announce: Quincy Mosby is a Senior this fall at Oakland’s McClymonds
High School. He comes to us from Youth Radio.
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