Bullying

Bullying is an epidemic that is plaguing this society at a fast pace. Some may think it is a small issue that is only in schools and has little or no effects on people lives. That is completely untrue. It is in schools, on the internet, and in the workplace, almost everywhere. Also the effects are sometimes log-lasting and have more severe consequences than most people realize. Bulling has been going on for year, decades even. In the book The Bully society, author Jessie Klein, talks about the effects or consequences from people that have been bullied dated back to 1979.

Bulling is "aggressive behavior in which there is an imbalance of power or strength."(Dan Olweus) Bullying can be verbal, physical and also mental. Physical abuse is unwanted hitting, pushing, kicking, and harming other belongings. Verbal bullying is teasing, spreading rumors about the person, threating, and even name- calling. Mental bullying is intentionally making a person an outcast. It's we=when you single someone out, telling others not to be friends with that person, or making that person feel as though they are unaccepted and unwanted. Because there is no set definition for bullying, and everybody has their own take on bullying, it's up to the authority figure over the incident to decide what's actually bullying and what's not. Therefore there are no laws against bullying but there are laws against harassment. Harassment is bothering or making someone feel uncomfortable due to race, gender, religion, disability or sexual preferences. Sexual harassment is also against the law. Harassment is the extreme form of bullying when you look at it altogether. Due to many people's different definitions of bullying it seems to only happen in working class, middle class, and in rich communities and suburban or small town areas. Also it can be inferred from the media that it happens mostly in Caucasian societies.

Bullies target people they believe they can run over or over power. They go after people that are different, the people that are not conforming to the "norms" of their community, or the weak. Social norms are patterns of behavior in a particular group, community, or culture, accepted as normal and to which an individual is accepted to conform. (Dictionary, 2013) The people that are being bullied are: the people that don't have the most money, or the best clothes, in a society driven by self image and material value, the people that don't play sports, cheerlead or fit the criteria of the "popular student". For example the two boys Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine high school were picked on, teased, and tourmented because they were not popluar , they didn't plays sport or hang with the right crowd of people. That constant bullying led them to be enraged and take drastic steps to find revenge. They on April, 1999 walked into their school and began a killing rampage. Killing students, a teacher and hurting several others, all because they were bullied. (history) Carl Jospeh Walker- Hoove was an eleven year old, from Springfield. He Comment suicide in 2009 because he was being bullied at school. He payed sports and was an active Boy Scout member. The day his mom found him hanging from and extension cord in their home, he had called her and said that he had been suspended from school because of an altercation with a classmate. He had accidently bumped into a television with his backpack which made it hit a female student. She then started to threaten him and calling him names. His mom says that her son was repeatedly targeted. Bullies called him gay and talked badly about his clothes, and threatened him. She did her best to stop it but it is now too late for Carl. He could not handle the abuse. (Mass, 2009)

Another case is Phoebe Prince also commented suicide after being bullied. She was from Ireland and moved to Massachusetts. She was called names like slut and "Irish Slut" by other girls in her school. She was also bullied on Facebook; this is an example of cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is buying over the internet. On the day of her death as she walked home her bullies drove by in a car yelling insults at her and throwing things like cans of energy drinks at her. When she got home,