Oprah Calls For National Debate On School Violence

Recently, a friend emailed me to say that Oprah was going to be doing a show on bullying.  Oprah is automatically recorded on my TIVO, thank Goodness for TIVO!  The show featured the moms of the two eleven year old boys who were sexually harassed at school to the extent that they took their own lives to stop the pain and humiliation.  I don't think there was a dry eye in the house.

Something struck me by the show.  Oprah pointed out that the words that the bullies used to taunt these innocent boys, "gay", "fag", etc. amounted to SEXUAL HARASSMENT.  Wow!  That really gets me even now.  School aged bullies are now "sexually harassing" their victims.  Many of these children don't even realize what they are saying nor do they understand the implication of those words and how the victims carry those labels through their life times.  Or do they?

Bullies bully for power.  They bully to intentionally humiliate their victims.  They are very effective and 99.99% of the time, they get away with it.  So, maybe these children do not realize the long term affects of these sexual slurs, but they know how to use them to cut like a knife.