For this post, I'm writing in response to recent reports, especially through CNN and Anderson Cooper, about the "bullying" phenomenon going on the public school system. For the record, I must point out that I am heterosexual and a Christian and I didn't receive this treatment due to sexual preference, race, or religion. I've always found this subject uncomfortable for me to talk about and I thought airing the subject would be too crass, but I now think it is time for me to tell the story. What I experienced, I believe, is a form of conceited discrimination that I dealt with for nearly 8 years of my life.
Before the "bullying" started I was 8 years old. I was interested in meteorology even during those days (I first got interested when I was 5 after watching the PBS special Cylcone) and even took a tour of my local NBC station's weather center with my father. What I remember from those days was a mostly positive life with the creative experiences that come with childhood. This creative impulses that I felt so often during those days are those that ultimately lead to me writing poetry, and stories when I came to college. School was school during those days (even with it many administrative quirks) and I learned what I needed and left, and I even had a few friends during those times.
However this all changed in the fourth grade and what followed was what I call a deep and persistent spiral into isolation and ridicule. It started out as your usual immaturities but then I began to feel more and more distanced from my peers, even the ones that I knew before this began to happen. Many seemed to take an extreme displeasure to my presence. By sixth grade even though I changed schools, this sense from the people around me grew by such a large extent (one student even suggested that I drop dead) malicious rumors began to fly around (I believe of something an explicit nature) and soon I became a social outcast, something to be parodied like the subject of a South Park episode. The teachers and administration either didn't care and in some instances exacerbated the problem. Ultimately I left this public school because of death threats against other students.
When I moved to my new school the direct threat of violence ended, however the new people I began to know at my new school started to follow in the same good ol' American tradition of alienate the weird kid that's so different. This ultimately mushroomed in my sophomore year of high school where I literally almost went an entire school year isolated and without any friends to speak of. I was a cast away in my own thirsty mind among the rebellious and the condemning. All sorts of new expressions such as punk music, myspace, MTV, and other things spoke about freedom and having a sense self worth, but the same culture denied me the glittering friendship that it promised. I pretty much had no friendship at all and was something of an emotional punching bag when someone had a bad day. These desolate times that I call "high orbit" even affect my fashion sense today and is why I utterly refuse to buy Hollister, American Eagle, and other products that I associate with the treatment I endured.
In the end I graduated third in my class and retained high academic honors that have lead me to the college years that I am almost done with. With these memories still deep in my psyche I still question of what I am really worth. Am I a true member of this "free" American society? What is so wrong about me that someone would literally take the time to effectively devalue my own existence and make me feel at time like I am a life form lower than rotting pond scum? Even in college I still sense some of this bitterness and though I don't do all the things everyone else does, is my personality that much of a pestilence and a bother?
Now you know a little bit more on how I think and how some of my opinions and style choices were made. Not by a simplistic flow of trivial trends and memes, but by enduring a state of malicious condemnation and pure hatred that I lived with for a very long time. Anderson Cooper and the activist groups have only just unearthed the skylight of an entire underground cavern that has been interwoven among American society. So if you decide to dodge hanging out or preach to me about accepting other lifestyles due to college "liberal" ideals think twice, because I have already lived and learned the sensibilities and lessons that you are only now considering because it is politically advantageous and finally "cool" to understand.
In closing I consider what happened to me not "bullying" in the regular sense. Rather, I use the word ostracism to describe the interaction I had most often with my peers during those days. I remember one the first of my childhood's creative moments (a dream) that I have always considered close to my religion. Even with all that has happened and may happen again, I still keep this image in my mind and in my soul.
I behold the perfect afternoon, pure and unending, drenched in the patchwork of love and words. I feel no evil and I relinquish my connection to avarice. Each day is a story, a second is a metaphor, everything around me is a blessed actor. Even if I find emptiness, I'll travel back to this world, and find all the connections to my inner purity once more.
Have a fulfilling day,
Justin Reid
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