Westport 8th Grader Fights Bullies With YouTube Video
WESTPORT, Conn. (CBSNewYork) -- A Westport Junior High School student has posted a YouTube video expressing her feelings about bullies.
WCBS 880's Paul Murnane: It's Stirring Conversation
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The 13-year-old girl identifies herself as Alye in the video. She remains silent, holding up signs to express her feelings. The message has come through loud and clear.
The signs read "I am bullied. Not a day has gone by without one of these words." She then holds up a sign with a number of derogatory terms written on it, the mildest of which are "freak," "ugly" and "weird."
"Will high school get worse? HELP," read additional signs in the sequence.
One says "Think before you say things."
(CONTAINS SOME STRONG LANGUAGE)
The video is called "Words are worse than Sticks and Stones" and has been viewed over 12,000 times as of Tuesday morning.
Her school superintendent said efforts were being made to help stop the problem of bullying.
"We have specialty programs in place to try to get kids to understand how important it is to deal on a pleasant level with others. Not to be mean, not to be nasty, not to make others' lives miserable," Elliott Landon told CBS 2's Derricke Dennis.
The girl's mother tells local news sites that she learned of the video only after it was posted.
One middle school parent told WCBS 880 reporter Paul Murnane that her daughter feels bad about Alye being bullied and wants her to feel welcome at school. "In the video, the girl said she had only three or four friends, and my daughter said, 'If you have three or four good friends that you really care about, you're doing pretty well in life. Who wants a hundred friends that don't even care?'"
A seventh grader said this video is changing the conversation.
"A lot of people think different of the girl now and they try to stay more, like, more cautious," the boy said. "Some people have different, like, lifestyles and different backgrounds."
The girl's mother said the parents of children doing the bullying need to get involved too.
Is enough being done to prevent bullying? What do you think about the girl's decision to post the video? Sound off in our comments section.
