No Sticks. No Stones.

We have all been that “one.” The one who was singled out. The one who did nothing. The one who could not stand to just watch and decided to jump in. The one who hurt another. Teens from VOX’s Raise Your Voice Summer Program reflect on their experiences as either a target, ally, bystander or perpetrator in bullying situations. Below are some of our breif but compelling stories.
—Chernail Arnold/VOX Staff

Art by Kamalia Blunt and Chernail Arnold | VOX Staff

My sister and I were visiting my god sister at her apartment in Jacksonville, about two years ago. The apartment complex was a very confusing place to walk around in, and even though my god sister had given us directions before she left for work, we couldn’t find our way to the pool. My sister tried calling her cell phone a couple of times but only got her voicemail. So we wandered around aimlessly for about five minutes before we saw one of the residents of the apartment complex standing outside one of the buildings. When he saw us coming toward him, he stared at the scarves on our heads for a few seconds before deliberately looking away from us. My sister, being the extrovert that she is, just put a smile on her face and walked over him to ask for directions.
“Excuse me,” she said in a cheerful voice, “we’re trying to get to the pool, but we don’t know where it is.”
The guy only glanced at her and didn’t say anything. My sister looked at me with a confused expression, but I only shrugged at her. Figuring that he hadn’t heard her, she tried again.
“Excuse me,” she said a little louder this time. This time we were sure he had heard us because she was no more than two feet away from him, but he only turned his back to her and kicked at the grass in front of the building. We both stood there for a second, stunned that he would blatantly ignore us like that. She tried one last time before he slowly began to walk away.
My sister’s face was suddenly filled with hurt as she realized what had just happened. With just one look, he had judged us and decided he didn’t want to talk to us. I still wanted to find the pool, but my sister was too upset and decided she just wanted to go back to the apartment we were staying in. We argued about it for a few minutes before I gave in. When we got back, she locked herself in the bathroom and cried. I didn’t say anything to make her feel better because I thought it was dumb to cry over someone’s ignorance. She’s always been the kind of person who cares about what people think, and I’ve always been more uncaring about things like that.

­—Mooni Abdus-Salam, Senior
Tech High

Why do you have to be so stupid sometimes? Can’t you see there are clothes already in the dryer,” I scream at Lynika, my younger sister. “Why would you put more clothes in the dryer?” I scream at her again. She just looks at me again with tears rolling down her face. The tears come rushing down her face like hail. She runs out of the room like a freshly wet cat.

—Lynda Bourne, Senior
Clarkston High

Nyesha runs into my room and hops on my bed. Excitement glows on her face. “He is so cute, and he’s a freak,” she tells our little sister Mookie-Bird.
I turn around with the speed of sound. “What?!” I asked her, looking at my cousin Czahki. Czahki breathes out anger and frustration before he speaks: “I will beat the hell out of you.What do you know about a freak?”
“Who are you talking about?” I ask her. “Darius, Johnny’s cousin,” she answered as though it’s OK.
“Oh really?” I replied, hoping I wouldn’t go to jail. “Well, I hope you had a good look at him because you won’t be seeing him again.”
“Hey, Darius, what are you doing?” I was running toward him and his cousin, trying to catch up. Behind me were my best friends Lee, Sym and Lebron. Darius was walking toward the rest of the neighborhood boys.
“I’m finna go play some basketball,” he answered quickly.
“Good,” I said smirking.
Once we got to the goal, I asked Darius whether he liked my sister. He was dumb enough to make an ultimate mistake as he answered, “yeah.” Vigorously, I told him he wasn’t allowed to be around her or to play with her anymore.
He didn’t listen. We were sitting at my house when he came over to jump on the trampoline with everyone else. I was OK with that because everyone jumps on the trampoline in my neighborhood. Everything was all fine and dandy until he landed on my sister. The first three times I didn’t say anything, but once I saw him grab her, that was it.
I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and told him where my foot was going to go if he did it again. The 15-year-old boy tried to retaliate, but he didn’t know that I was a great fighter and fueled with anger myself. As I choked and slammed him, everyone else came and began to ambush him. He wasn’t hurt egregiously. I mean, there wasn’t any blood or broken bones. He was even able to walk away, but he didn’t learn his lesson.

—Octavia Fugerson, Senior
Towers High

In my recollection (which is poor at best) I can’t remember witnessing or participating in overt prejudice. I would never intentionally hurt someone else (save extraordinary circumstances in which I became aware of what I was doing and did everything in my power to remedy my actions), and if I were intentionally hurt, I would find a way to cope with it.
Even if someone has acted with a prejudice against me, I would be able to cope with it, and I wouldn’t feel vengeful or biased against him or her. Call me wrong, really. I’m being sincere. Any subtle prejudice against me, I would be able to cope with by myself. I try to be aware as I can be of inadvertently hurting others, which does happen sometimes. But when it does, I address it, handle it myself and move on.
I think there are certain instances in which bringing prejudice into the eyes of a group is appropriate, but in most cases I believe all issues of prejudice, hate or malicious intent should be dealt with privately between the perpetrator and the target. I’m a confrontational person on most issues. If someone acted with a prejudice against me, I would confront him on it if I actually felt victimized by his comments or actions. I think being aware of prejudice is essential to preventing it, but I also think we all should have the strength to cope or handle being a victim of prejudice.

—Sam Colt, Junior
Pace Academy

People usually always had nice things to say about my skin color; how beautiful I was, or how lucky to have a perfect mixture of Indian heritage and American background. All my life I loved having parents from different countries, I felt unique and apart from others in a good way. When I was younger I heard many more positive comments, but now that I am older oftentimes I hear rude or degrading remarks about being half Pakistani and half American. Once I was asked where I was from. When I replied that my father is from Pakistan, and my mom from America I was called the perfect example of why our country is falling to terrorists. The man told me that I didn’t deserve to have American blood running in the same veins with “that dog s--- from the Middle East.” It’s true, my skin is not white or black, its somewhere right in the middle. Until recently I never thought that a bad thing, but often times I am singled out just because of how I look. I don’t fit into the stereotypical American portrait, nor with the Pakistani physique.

—Yasmeen Malik, Senior
The Weber School

In sixth grade, I had two friends who I used to hang out with in the mornings before school started. Jade* tended to be a little too aggressive and overly mean to Kira* and me, just because she was older and was known for being a sort of bully.
A little way down the street was an elementary school that Kira and Jade had attended; so we decided to walk down there to visit some of their old teachers. After we saw and greeted them and were getting ready to go back, Kira and I realized Jade was once again acting like a donkey. She was bigger than the two of us and calling us things like “twigs” and other unnecessary things because Kira and I were different races than her. So Kira and I looked at each other and decided to run as fast as we could back to our school, leaving Jade because we knew she couldn’t catch up us.
When she finally did get back to the school, Kira and I completely ignored her, rolled our eyes at her, treated her like she wasn’t important and moved away whenever she came near us and tried to talk to us. We knew she had nothing nice to say.
So in this role I played a confronter, an ally to Kira, but most of all, a perpetrator. I didn’t see it as that at the time; I saw it as giving Jade a taste of her own medicine.

* Name changed.

—Modupe Alabi, Sophomore
Stephenson High