Today people around the world are wearing pink as part of a World Wide anti-bullying day. Bullying is a very serious problem that was not always taken seriously. As an "army brat" who moved often, 6 schools in 3 provinces for grade school, 3 different schools in 2 different provinces just in grade 2, I saw lots of bullying during an era when few adults paid attention to the problem. Today, as bullying takes on new forms with young people being bullied severely on the internet through "social media" and while old forms of bullying persist, including name calling and physical assault, people are starting to take bullying seriously.I was born in a small town called Waterville, Nova Scotia where my parents and some other family members live today. It is literally just down the road from Central Kings Rural High School where many of my cousins, nieces and nephews have attended school ... the school where two grade 12 students, Travis Price and David Shepherd, stood up for a fellow student who was being bullied because he wore a pink shirt. As reported by the CBC, they:
"rallied around a younger student after he was bullied for wearing a pink polo shirt on the first day of school.
David Shepherd and Travis Price, who were in Grade 12 at Central Kings Rural High School, asked all students at their school to wear pink T-shirts to combat bullying.
They bought 50 pink shirts from a discount store, then e-mailed classmates to get them on board. The next day, hundreds of students showed up wearing pink clothing. Before long, the movement had spread around the province and across the country."
I am very proud of the students from Central Kings for the stand they took. And I have tremendous respect for every one who stands up for those who are bullied, usually for being different, for wearing different clothes, for their sexual orientation, for their racial or ethnic background, because they have a disability ... in some cases because they are autistic.
In some cases people are bullied because they are the parents of an autistic child fighting for services for their child or simply trying to include him or her in an every day life occurrence like attending a movie theater.
These are just some of my personal connections to the bullying phenomenon. Many people have been bullied in life for many different reasons including at school and in the workplace.
It is time to end bullying in all its forms and wherever it occurs.
And to say thank you to everyone who helps to end bullying.
autism
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