Bullying is prevalent, but preventable

Roundup editorial board

It’s time to face the facts.

Bullying is nothing new.  It can range from schoolyard name-calling to

workplace teasing, from classroom criticisms to online commenting.

Unfortunately, in an age of ever-expanding technologies, the number of

forums used to bully are also increasing.

Take Tyler Clementi for example, a freshman at Rutgers University in

New Jersey. Clementi was a student who took his life because of his

roommate’s disparaging actions that revealed his personal life to the

world.

 On Sept. 19, Clementi asked his roommate at the Rutgers dormitories,

Dharun Ravi, to have their room for himself for the night to meet a

friend. Ravi agreed, but turned on a webcam in the room to broadcast

Clementi’s encounter on the internet.

According to CBS News, that same night Ravi wrote a message on his

Twitter account for all to read.

“[Clementi] asked for the room till midnight. I went into [my

friend’s] room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a

dude. Yay.”

The next time Clementi asked for the room, Ravi tweeted again, but

this time his words were accompanied by a live video feed. His tweet

read, “anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the

hours of 9:30 and 12:00. Yes it’s happening again.”

Three days later, Clementi killed himself by jumping off of the George

Washington Bridge.

Sadly, he is not the only one who has experienced this kind of abuse

recently. Student suicides have dominated national headlines in the

last few months, especially in the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual,

transgender, queer) community. There were six alone in the month of

September.

Why should someone face harassment based on the way they love, or for

any reason at all? Whether the abuse is verbal, physical or in the

form of public shaming, these actions can be detrimental and at times,

lethal.

According to the American Psychological Association, suicide is the

No. 3 cause of death in people ages 15 to 24, and the numbers are

increasing at an alarming rate. Suicide accounts for 13 percent of

deaths in this age bracket.

And these aren’t middle-aged people who are sick of their jobs and

financial problems, or kids who are pushed around at recess. These are

your classmates, the students in your math and English courses.

On that note, it seems fit that we all remember a crucial tip our

mothers gave us the first time we teased a little boy or girl on the

playground in our early school years.

“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Cliché? Yes, but nevertheless correct. It doesn’t matter if you

believe every word of what you say, the truth of it is what you say

could really hurt someone. Just one comment can really upset the

balance within a person’s self esteem.

Something to think about next time you insult somebody for who they are.

Repeatedly.

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