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Tag Archives | Bullying

UFC Middleweight Champion Chris Weidman: I Was Extremely Bullied, Was Hospitalized As Child.

By on December 22, 2013 in News 2

This one goes for all those bullied in their youth, stay strong and heed the wise words of Chris Weidman.  Ossu.

Bobby Razak profiles UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman in the latest of his “Vérité” series.

“I grew up in a decently tough neighborhood,” says Weidman as transcribed by MMAFighting. “I grew up getting bullied and fighting a lot. My brother was probably one of the toughest kids from my neighborhood and he didn’t make it easy on me. He made sure I was getting beat up as much as possible growing up. If he wasn’t beating me up, he was making his friends beat me up. He threw a 10 pound weight on my head because I wouldn’t get him a cookie. Split my forehead open pretty good.”

“I think any type of setback you have, any tough time you’ve got, getting through it is what makes you who you are.

… Read the rest
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Letter from the Editor: A Note on Stalking, Harassment and Bullying

By on January 22, 2013 in News 15

It is very important to me that we keep this site a place where everyone feels welcome, and I think that the majority of our readers feel that way. Most of you do a great job in keeping things on-topic and challenging with a minimum of ad hominem attacks in the comments sections of our articles, and I think it’s fantastic. Heck, that’s one of the main reasons I like to wade in and chat: I know that even though we all may have very strong opinions on politics, Forteana, science and more, things usually stay pretty civil.

Unfortunately, with this being the internet, there’s bound to be the occasional problem: spammers, trolls and the seriously unhinged can and do make their way to the site. Most of them can be safely ignored or, in the worst case scenario, blocked. I hate doing the latter, but I’m occasionally forced to do so for the good of the community.… Read the rest

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‘Little Baby Faces’ Offers Free Plastic Surgery for Bullied Kids, But Do They Need It?

By on July 29, 2012 in News 17
Everyone probably experiences bullying at some time in their lives, and for some it can leave lifelong psychological scarring. For children, the right kind of adult intervention can make all the difference in the world. But what about the wrong kind? One organization, Little Baby Faces, offers free plastic surgery to bullied children, but their services aren't just aimed at repairing disfigurements of various sorts. In the embedded video from CNN, one girl taunted for her "big ears" goes in for a consultation with Little Baby Faces and leaves with a laundry list of her physical imperfections. Is it healthy when an adult not only reinforces the specious insults of a bully but then heaps on even more criticism? Does minor physical imperfections warrant plastic surgery? What kind of lesson does this teach to the bullied, and how will this affect their development as human beings?
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Tweeter Causes Uproar Over Violent ‘Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian’ Game

By on July 10, 2012 in News 7

Via the Toronto Standard (thanks to Warren Ellis for the tweet):

UPDATE: Stephanie Guthrie received multiple death threats following the publication of this article. Police are now involved and the offending users have been reported to Twitter for account violations.

Women in TO Politics organizer Stephanie Guthrie isn’t known for keeping quiet. When gamer Bendilin Spurr launched the violent and sickening “Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian” game, Guthrie took to the Internet: “So I found the Twitter account of that fuck listed as creator of the ‘punch a woman in the face’ game. Should I sic the internet on him?”

The Internet said ‘yes,’ but not without its own share of misogyny. One user called Guthrie “a cunt.” Trolls tried to scare her. She continues to receive death threats.

But Guthrie wouldn’t be deterred. She called out the Sault Star newspaper, which has since picked up the story (kind of), warned potential employers not to hire Spurr, and sparked enough conversation to further increase her ranking as a prominent local tweeter on politics and feminism.

… Read the rest
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Today’s the Worst Day for Mitt Romney’s High School Bullying Story to Come Out

By on May 10, 2012 in News 25

Young Mitt RomneyIs this why Obama chose yesterday to publicly support gay marriage? Elspeth Reeve writes at the Atlantic Wire:

What would be the worst possible news for Mitt Romney to have to deal with the day after President Obama announced he supports gay marriage? Romney’s already had a gay staffer resign because social conservatives were outraged he’d hire an openly gay person. And having a hypothetical family member come out as gay would probably help him seem more compassionate.

But one thing that might project an image Romney really wants to avoid — heartless outmoded anti-gay conservative — would be a long profile in The Washington Post about how he bullied a gay kid in high school. At the exact moment Romney doesn’t want to talk about gay stuff, the Post‘s Jason Horowitz reports Romney led a gang of boys who singled out a gay kid, held him down while he cried, and cut off the kid’s offensively un-hetero hair.

… Read the rest
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Bully and the Computer that Knows Your Feelings

By on April 12, 2012 in News 5

Bully MovieVia Modern Mythology:

The movie Bully is hitting theaters on Friday, and it is making quite a stir.

The issue of bullying in schools has taken a surprisingly long time to reach a mainstream tipping point, considering its link to many of the school shootings that have destroyed countless people’s lives, not to mention its presence in many of psychological makeups as adults. Some people are challenging its narrative as being too simplistic, overlooking all of the other ways in which bullying occurs in our society.

Be that as it may, it is here now. However, the public discussion on the topic has just begun.

Bullying is not just an issue facing schoolchildren, although in many cases the problem starts there. It is in our homes, our work-places. It is in our language.

That may come as a surprise to some. We all think we can recognize bullying, and certainly sometimes it is obvious: “I’m going to beat you until you can’t walk.”

Few would question that is an instance of bullying.… Read the rest

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Christians Fight for Their Children’s God-Given Right to Bully Gay Kids

By on April 6, 2012 in News 62

INRIWrites Erin Gloria Ryan on Jezebel:

Despite the fact that there’s scant evidence in the Bible that Jesus was an asshole who commanded his followers to bully gay children to death, a group of American Christian parents seem to think Christ has called upon them to act like jerks. That’s why they’re actively working against the passage of anti-bullying laws at the state level — they believe that by making repeated, ongoing cruelty illegal, lawmakers are interfering with their Jesus loving child’s right to point out that homosexuality is wrong and bad and hellbound.

“Bullying children is wrong and bad” may sound like the most basic tenet of human decency, but if you ask conservative lobbying groups like Concerned Women for America and Focus on the Family, making it a crime to taunt someone until they kill themselves is akin to interfering with religious freedom. According to AlterNet’s Katherine Stewart, conservative groups across the country have opposed various anti-bullying measures because they say outlawing bullying is akin to state endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle.

… Read the rest
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Sandusky “Victim One” Pulled From School Due to Bullying and Threats From Students and Staff

By on November 23, 2011 in News 10

Central Mountain HighDon’t tell me the kind of things that happened in Nazi Germany could never happen in the USA … Ryan D. Buell reports in the Huffington Post:

Court records refer to him simply, as Victim One. Outside of a four-and-a-half page section about him in the grand jury indictment of ex-Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, little else has been discussed about him publicly.

Last week, his mother (whom I will refer to as “Mother One”) removed him from Central Mountain High School in Mill Hall, Pa., where he was a senior and an all-star athlete. In an interview conducted last week, she explained why she pulled him from the school.

“They were not helpful,” Mother One said of the school’s administrators. “They wanted me to go home and forget about it.”

Mother One also alleges that since the Sandusky scandal erupted, fellow students and the high school’s football coach (who also serves as assistant principal) have all targeted her son with verbal attacks and threats of violence.

… Read the rest
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On Bullying

By on September 8, 2011 in News 72

Bullying is taught in schools, churches and families throughout America. Bullying is a common practice in our military training. An extremely prevalent form of this teaching is “group punishment.” One person or more breaks the rules or is accused of not carrying his or her weight; and everyone is punished for the perpetrators’ infractions or inadequacies simply because they’re in that class or unit.

This incites the group to pressure the perpetrators into working harder or altering their behavior. This form of bullying is also very common in the work place and is an encouraged form of harassment. This pressure is “bullying” and it takes many forms: Beatings, hostile behavior and threats, ostracism, and many other forms of harassment. At Columbine the victims of bullies bullied back and only after that did people speak out against bullying on a nation-wide scale.

They formed organizations to prevent and stop bullying. All of their efforts are in vain until we stop the unjust practice of group punishment.… Read the rest

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