Dear Bully

A few months deeper into sixth grade, there was a power shift, and I myself was divided from the herd. I was outraged but not surprised. Such was the nature of sixth grade. I remember toying with the idea of teaming up with Carol, forming a little band of outcasts, but when I sidled up to her on the playground, she held her hand up like a stop sign and said, “Don’t even bother to try!”

Never Shut Up

by Kiersten White

It was the middle of Government and Politics class, and though the teacher was lecturing, the boy sitting behind me hadn’t gotten off the previous topic. He shrugged, whispering, “I don’t think that sexism and racism are problems in our country anymore. People just pretend they are.”

My face turned red and I jabbed a single accusatory finger at him. “White male, you have no perspective!”

It was loud.

Oh, so loud.

I was always inadvertently entertaining in that class. Everyone knew that if you brought up one of my pet topics, I was good for an impassioned debate. Senior year my class awarded the yearbook spots. Alongside “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Best Smile” was my award: “Always Has Something to Say.” But when they put it under my picture, they changed the title to “Never Shuts Up.” Because I never. Shut. Up.

Problem is, for all my not shutting up, I never managed to speak up. In the end, how much did the glass ceiling impact my working two shifts a week at the local sandwich shop? How much did gun control issues factor into my daily life? What good was all of my passion and crusading and adopting of causes doing any of the people around me every day?

I liked having causes and caring about things, but only if they were safe. I could talk for days about feminism because it didn’t impact me, didn’t threaten me, didn’t put me in an uncomfortable position. Safe.

But that day I saw those kids teasing a special ed student in the hallway, making him sing louder and louder while they laughed at his innocent enthusiasm? I didn’t say anything. I knew those kids. We weren’t friends, exactly, but we weren’t not friends. And while what they were doing made me sick to my stomach, saying something felt too dangerous. What if I said something and they decided to be cruel to me instead? And what about the boy? He thought they were his friends, couldn’t understand what they were doing. I wasn’t going to explain it to him. It was too complicated, too hard, too involved.

So I did the easy thing. I walked away. And I’ve always regretted it. I wonder now how much of an impact I could have made if I’d really always had something to say. If I’d said the things that mattered, stood up for people who actually needed my help, gotten involved instead of keeping my head down.

In this era of visibility, where everyone can see what anyone says about anything on social networking sites, it’s even more obvious to see kids being hurt, being bullied, being the victims of cruelty. I wonder if I’d had that access as a teen, would I have been the one to call out bullies and tell them to shut up? Would I have stood up for the people too exhausted by ceaseless torment to stand up for themselves?

Would I finally have decided to really have something to say?

I don’t know. I hope so. Because being a bully is easy, and being a victim is all too common. But standing on your safe middle ground and deciding to reach out where you can make a difference? That is a rare and difficult choice.

Make the choice. Do something. Never shut up.

I wish I had.

The Day I Followed

by Eric Luper

“Only one last test and you’re in the club,” I said to Sam, who was trotting alongside me like a puppy eager for a treat. I could feel excitement radiate off him as we walked to the far side of Henshaw Park.

Sam fiddled with the zipper of his hoodie. “What do I have to do?” he asked.

“It’s easy,” I said, not quite sure what I had in store for him.

Ricky Parillo had told Sam that there was a series of tests you had to pass in order to get in with the group of kids who hung out at the park, and Sam had been begging all afternoon. The least we could do was give him something to do.

I glanced back at the bench near the swings. The other neighborhood kids—Ricky; Mark; the twins, Glen and Gary; and a few guys I didn’t know—urged me on with grins and fist pumps. It had been only a few days since Ricky had pegged me in the back of the head with a basketball and I figured I’d rather be on the dealing side of things for a change. Anyhow, Sam could take it. He’d been putting up with this sort of stuff long before I moved to town.

At least that’s what I’d heard.

It started off simple: sprint a few laps around the park, go buy us gum at the candy store, hang upside down from the monkey bars for five minutes, anything we could think of to amuse ourselves.

On all counts, Sam eagerly did what we told him to do.

And on all counts I was glad it wasn’t me.

“The last test is on the tennis courts,” I said.

“You sure every one of you had to do all these things?” Sam asked skeptically.