Tuesday, in New York, another young teen felt he couldn't take anymore. For whatever sad reason or reasons, this 12 year old boy hanged himself in the bathroom of an apartment he shared with his mother.
For months he had been harassed at school by bullies, for his intelligence, his height, and his deceased father. After enduring incessant taunting for months, Joel Morales transferred to a new school, but the bullying persisted at his new school.
Kids chased Morales, threw sticks and pipes at him and teased him for his smarts and his 4-foot-9 stature. Morales’ anguish reached a breaking point when bullies taunted him about his father, who died when he was four years old.
His mother, Lisbeth Babilonia, found him hanging in their apartment at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, hours after she had organized a search party when he didn’t return home on time from an after-school club.
A classmate told Morales’ family that the boy had said he was tired of the bullying and told them the details of the remark about his father that sent him over the edge, according to the News. School officials declined to comment on the alleged bullying, citing privacy issues.
How many kids are going to die, or kill themselves, before adults in this country demand school officials and our elected officials put a stop to the bulling in our public schools? How many before we make the officials accountable for their actions or inaction? How many?
Perhaps it's time for the bullied students of America stand up and make their voices heard throughout this land. NOT through violence, not through hate for the hate, but by their feet. Walk away from the schools that refused to stop the harassment, the hate, the violence, the bulling.
How can any child be expected to learn in an environment as they find themselves in? No wonder our country's youth scores so low on tests compared to other nations. They don't have time, during the school days, to learn and study, when they are always looking over their shoulders for who may be coming up behind them, for an attack! Or watching their feet, as they are walking the halls, for fear someone will tripped them. Or having to hear the racial, homophobic, or ethnic taunts.
Every student that has been bullied should stand with every student that is being bullied, and every student that knows in their hearts that what is taking place in our schools concerning bulling is wrong, should also stand with these students and say, No more. stop the bulling or we will strike and not return to school until new rules are in place that stops the bulling. Every parent that has a child in school should stand with these students and back them. One day it could be your child found hanging and all life gone from the body.
It's time for a change, and not the type promised by politicians. It's the kind of change that starts at the grass roots of this country, We The People.
This story can be found HERE
Please, give a damn.