I thought that tonight I would post a little about why Tune it Out was started, and how I fit into all these....
When I was a lot younger, I went to a private grade school. MY class consisted of 31 kids, and we were the small one. I had a small group of friends, who talked to me like a person, Joey, Luke, Andrew, and Brandon. They were my guy friends who actually hung out with me outside of school and talked to me like a friend. I wasn't into sports, and I wasn't the smartest kid in the bunch either. In fact, I was 4'3" and weighed about 68 pounds, in the third and fourth grade.
This isn't the reason of why I fit into Tune it Out however; in fact this is the least of my problems. During recess, I was the only guy who didn't play sports; I spent my 30 minutes in the back of the playground with a large group of girls. They all loved talking to me because I was so sensitive, and understanding to their problems. I was what you would call a complete DORK.
I found out later that most of the guys where jealous that girls talked to me so much and looked up to me, but only to realize they called me GAY and a FAG because I didn't play sports, I just hung out with girls. Granted it felt like the complete opposite because of the fact that I had more girlfriends than guy friends. They didn't see it that way because the girls I hung out with always wanted me to help them get with guys they liked. Sort of like the gay best friend.
Once word got out, the name-calling really started, people came at right and me left when teachers weren't looking. One day it got so bad that I was ready to fight to defend myself, but before I could do anything a 7th grader came up to me, and told me to give him all of my Pokémon cards, and when I refused he pushed me down. (Even though I was small, I still defended myself) so I got back up, raising my fists at him, in a defensive position. Before I had a chance to do anything, the older kid smacked me so hard, that I couldn't see, my mouth was bleeding and I wanted to cry. He had broken a blood vessel in my eye.
It was than that my friend Joey came running over and grabbed the kid. Joey was abnormally big for his age; he was about 5'6" and was younger than me, by a year. He took down the 7th grader barley lifting a finger. When a teacher caught word of Joey defending me, she quickly brought him to the principle and he received his first detention ever. His parents were not mad at him, and I was lucky to have a friend like him.
About a year ago Joey committed suicide and nobody really knows why he did it. I later found out that a part of the reason is he was depressed from lack of encouragement from family and friends and that he had been bullied via Facebook messages. I also feel that there was something I missed, like if we still had talked and hung out as much as we did, it could have been prevented.
I think regardless of who you are, what you look like, whether you are black, white, Hispanic, Asian, etc. if you are small or big, tall or short, skinny or fat, loud or quite, gay or straight, you should ALWAYS be treated the same. No matter how different some one may be, it is who they are born to be, and nothing can change that. It is not something they should be looked at differently for or treated hatefully for. In fact this is something they should be praised for, it is what makes them, them. Nobody wants to live in a world where everyone is the same, how boring would that be!
Tune it out was created for people like Joey, and me for the underdogs in our world. I think that with every person we can make a difference, and it can help to end all forms of bullying in this world. Together, WE can make a difference!!
(This blog was done in rainbow because I am a proud supporter of gay rights, even though I, myself am straight, I believe that everyone is entitled to their own separate rights and opinions. people who laugh at those who are gay, are in return bullying those people.)
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