Mark O'Mara reflects on his accounts of witnessing bullying as a criminal defense lawyer, and how they can affect all aspects of the victim and their families. Bullying isn't a little matter of name-calling and teasing, but blatant harm to one for no apparent reason, except to make one person feel humiliatingly miserable. O'Mara proposed a bill in Florida to make bullying illegal, but it quickly died out. People don't want to simply accept bullying as a crime. Photographer Rich Johnson recently completed a series of photos taken to show the internal pain bullying causes. The children look like they are abused, but the abuse is verbal. This puts things into a new perspective.
What are your views on bullying? Do we legally punish kids for calling each other names? Do we let kids whip their peers with verbal abuse that leads to tragic events? We need a common ground. We need to teach our kids to stand up to bullying and confront the "mean girls" into stopping a little fun and games for the bullies from turning into a tragic death of a victim.
Check out the pictures here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/03/opinion/omara-bullying-legislation/index.html?hpt=hp_c3
No comments:
Post a Comment