This is Pink Shirt Day, and it’s a day to talk openly about bullying. In schools all over Canada, teachers and students put on pink shirts and take a stand against bullying.
It’s a day to confront victimization, and a day to talk about personal ethics amid hypocrisy.
When I ask a class full of teens whether they’ve ever been bullied, every hand goes up. Every kid knows what it feels like to be looked down on, pushed around, and belittled.
Then I ask them, how many of them have ever bullied someone else, and the hands rise again. Not usually all the hands this time, but awfully close. 95 per cent, say. Let’s be honest, who hasn’t snapped at his sibling, made a rude remark about the kid who wasn’t cool, just so you’d feel a little better about your own status?
“Look! I belong because you don’t.”
So wearing a pink shirt is fine, and I’ll be wearing mine. But I’ll be asking the hard questions. Not just “Did you feel bad when you were bullied?” but “Why did you do it to someone else?” “Why do you gain your personal power on the back of someone’s self-esteem? ”
Kids don’t get shaken down for lunch money any more. I’ve never seen a kid shoved into a locker who didn’t request his friends help him get in.
Kids learn to bully.
We have role models after all, of what civilized behavior looks like. We watch our political leaders shout obnoxious comments back and forth in the House of Commons and in our provincial Legislatures.
We watch talk show hosts encourage guests to jump on one another, as we gleefully anticipate the moment when all hell breaks loose.
We scream obscenities at rival sports teams.
We insult other cultures and religions. Red, brown, black, yellow, white. Everybody seems to have a colour that isn’t quite right.
We send soldiers to settle issues by fighting.
Why wouldn’t kids bully each other, when that’s what they see modeled every day?
So wear your pink shirt, but don’t think it’s going to stop anything, until the leaders quit using violence, obscenity and insult to get their way.
Don’t allow yourself to be bullied.
Take a stand and celebrate your unique place in the world.
Demand the respect you deserve.
Be proud you’re you.
.
.
Rather than feeling sorry for yourself, stand up proudly.
Don’t allow yourself to be bullied.
Take a stand and celebrate your unique place in the world.
Demand the respect you deserve.
Be proud you’re you.
Like Balpreet Kaur of Ohio State University, whose intelligent and courteous response to cyber-bullies taught them something valuable. When Kaur was mocked for her facial hair, which she isn’t allowed to cut because she is a devout Sikh, she took the time to explain her faith, and in so doing, made the bullies aware of their small-mindedness.
Don’t allow yourself to be bullied.
Take a stand and celebrate your unique place in the world.
Demand the respect you deserve.
Be proud you’re you.
Shawn L. Bird 
Pink re-think? March 27, 2013
Tags: anti-bullying, bullies, hypocrisy, people of walmart, pink, prisoners, shirt
My shirt is pink!
That means I think each day about those wimpy nerds
who cry unheard in bathroom stalls
and that’s not all.
A pink shirt proves
I’m sensitive, to those less competitive
in this dog eat dog world of grinding cogs in
mean machines that devour
gentle flowers.
I wear a pink shirt
not to subvert the status quo
’cause don’t you know,
I hurt , too.
I hurt just as badly as you!
Those Wal-Mart bodies overflowing with fat
riding their scooters
Are too much of a hoot to resist staring at
and sharing to all five hundred of my Facebook friends.
Ha! Look at that
pathetic loser!
Why respect his dignity?
Why contain my bigotry?
Hey! I’ve been bullied, too!
I hurt just as much as you.
But that guy, seriously?
Why act so furiously at me?
Why are you lashing at my humour
I’m just laughing, I’m not some tumour
of society, I’m just a guy, so quit it with the anxiety!
Look, here’s a brilliant warden
who puts all his prisoners in pink. What do you think
of that? Anti-bullying, hard-labour, and bread and water.
I agree! I’ll share that will Facebook, see!
A prisoner should not expect respect
while serving time for their misdeeds, not rehabilitation
a trade, or improvement in his station. No, he should be humiliated
even if being affiliated with negativity destroys personal dignity.
They wear pink shirts and think of their hurts.
Just like me.
I think, in pink, that every day I have a choice
to promote or demote
to improve lives or remove lives.
To embrace what is different without mocking
to try talking with who’s different, in grace,
To show compassion, and kindness, and care
everywhere.
To keep my mouth shut, when I’m inclined to giggle
at the size of some butt,
not to repeat the smut.
Because, who knows?
Perhaps I’m peaking now,
and in twenty years,
my best behind me,
my butt expanding from hours at my computer.
When I want to shop I’ll be on a scooter at WalMart
still just as smart, ready with a kind remark
at bullies snapping my photo with their phone
mocking me, not knowing I was once just like them
condemned to future hurts,
by hypocritical displays
in my pink shirt.
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