Bullied, the movie.

Equality Cincinnati did something so wonderful last night that I am going to try to put into words.

Aaron (my bro) got us tickets to see a movie called Bullied (created by the SPLC) which was followed by a panel of 4 people representing different equality agencies in Cincinnati.

The movie was about a young man from Wisconsin who was bullied to the extent that he sued the school system. On a daily basis since sixth grade, Jamie Nabozny was verbally harassed, physically beaten, and even had his life threatened. Because of this, he attempted suicide, ran away twice, and lived in constant fear that someone was going to kill him for being gay.

Instead of dealing with this harassment like the school claimed they would, the assistant principal blamed the victim; "Maybe he shouldn't be so openly gay." The very people responsible for protecting Jamie sent out the message to his bullier that it was ok to make his high school career a living hell. They sent out the message that his sexuality was a fine reason for harassment.


Representatives to Disco, GLSEN, Human Right Campaign, and Equality Cincinnati introduced themselves and told what their agency did. Then the floor was open to questions. I loved the grassrootness of it all! I mean, here you had maybe 50 people in a small, independent movie theater thinking of ways to deal with a real problem our kids are facing or will face. How do we turn our children into allies and assertive bystanders? How do we make sure our teachers are doing their jobs? Also, the victim has help available, but what about the bully and his/her the cause of the problem.

During this question and answer session/discussion, I made a suggestion. There should be a packet available to ANYONE with every agency, their goal, who they help, and how to contact them. This packet should appeal to the bully, the victim, and the bystander. It should look like an excel file, if that makes sense. For example, under the victim column it should say age (elementary, middle, college, adult, etc), level of harassment, and what to do/who to call.

If these packets were available in all schools, kids who don't have support could have something at the tip of their fingers. They could be empowered by helping them self, or if not, at least they would know there is help available.


Also, GLSEN offers a free class to school that teaches children and teachers who to approach bullying.

I'm so glad Equality Cincinnati showed this documentary. We needed to put a face to bullying. And now that we have one, we can take it apart piece by piece.



p.s. The last man on the panel (I don't even know his name) is some dude running for office in Ohio. He said he was openly gay, BUT he wasn't running to help with LGBTQ issues. In fact, he might have even said those issues weren't on his agenda (but he would vote for equality if it came up). So what was he doing on the panel of agencies?  Telling us to vote; constantly.


What a d bag.