I was in the 8th grade when my dad passed away. My sisters and I grew up in San Diego, CA and lived there for most of our young lives. It was a melting pot of different races and cultures, and I saw how mean and cruel kids can be. I went to a junior high and high school that was probably about 75 to 85 percent black, with whites, Hispanics, and a small portion of Asians filling in the difference. I’ve witnessed racial violence, hate, and cruelty, and while I admit, I’ve done my share of name-calling, there wasn’t a time when I didn’t feel bad about it afterwards, especially when I was lying on my bed reading my Bible. I knew it was wrong and I often wondered why we had such meanness in us. I was beginning to understand why Christians were hypocrites. It was hard trying to be good when you just wanted to lash out at the world sometimes.

I remember stories circulating around school about a white girl who had beautiful long hair and a group of black girls had shoved her head in the toilet one day when she had gone to the restroom, and then cut her hair with a knife. I remember sitting in the back row of my ninth grade history class and while the teacher was up front explaining something this kid runs into the classroom and starts beating up one of the boys right there in his seat! That caused quite a commotion afterwards. There were a lot of incidents like that at school, but, for the most part, I kept to myself and hung around with the few good friends I had.

Didn’t have bullying laws back then.

There was one girl at school who was constantly picked on because she had bucked teeth and was a very plain and homely looking girl. You could tell she was from a poor family because her clothes were always old, outdated, and either too small or too large and looked like they came from the Goodwill store. Like me, she didn’t wear makeup, but she tried to fix her hair up and would come to school with it all piled up into a lopsided bun. Kids would tease and make fun of her like crazy, but she never let it bother her. She would retort back with her own smart remarks and stand up for herself even when they would throw rocks at her. She was a fighter and it seemed she could take whatever they dished out to her.

I guess while walking home from school one day, she noticed that I lived on the same block as she did, only on the opposite side, and one day she showed up on our doorstep and wanted to be friends. She invited me to come to her house and I didn’t have the heart to say no so I went. She had some younger siblings and her family did look somewhat poor, but she really was an okay person once you got to know her.

She started coming by in the mornings to walk to school together, and when the other kids saw her walking with me they didn’t hesitate to yell out names and insults. I’m ashamed to admit that after a few incidents of that I found myself starting to avoid her whenever I could. I didn’t want to risk the chance of them teasing me too.

One day, while walking home from school, she saw me and ran up and started walking with me. Some of the neighborhood boys who rode their bikes to school came over and started calling her names and were just being really mean and nasty to her. They would call out to me, “Come on, Dee, don’t walk with that blankity blank (insert bad words)!” One of the boys who I had a secret crush on at the time, but was only a friend, yelled out, “Come on, Dee, I’ll give you a ride home on the back of my bike! Tell that donut head to leave you alone!” I just hung my head down and kept on walking with the poor girl keeping right up with me, all while flinging retorts back at those boys. Then one of them rode up and spit right in her face! She went running after him and I remember how embarrassed and ashamed I felt for not having the courage to stand up and help her.

While I greatly admired how she was able to stand up and fight for herself, I was torn between the desire deep down in my heart to help her because I knew it was the right thing to do, or knowing that if I did, my friends would also turn against me and tease me right along with her. So I very shamefully have to say that I chose to avoid her and keep what few friends I did have, which was hard enough for a super shy girl to do. Not long after that, however, the neighbor boy I had a crush on … well his brother, who was a year older than me and drove to school, started giving me a ride as well.

I have so often regretted that choice of not being her friend, and how small and ashamed it made me feel. At times throughout my life, I wonder about that poor girl, and admire the strength and courage she had to stand up and fight back when it seemed that the whole world was against her. It also made me realize that kids can be some of the meanest people on earth. I had gotten teased myself at times, and have teased others as well, but never to that extent. Even so, all of that is nothing compared to the bullying that goes on in the schools today, not to mention the cyber-bullies that kids have to deal with as well.