Today is not just another day.
It’s not a holiday, not a day marked by cards or flowers or candy, not even a day off school or work.
It’s more important – a day to right wrongs, to admit mistakes and pledge not to repeat them, a day to recognize that while we are different, we are the same – we all have feelings, likes and dislikes, we are all human; we all deserve respect, and compassion, second chances.
It is more than a day just marked by pink shirts – a message, a symbol, a reminder that bullying won’t be tolerated, not in this province, not anywhere.
Bullying hurts, and harms.
The scars of those who have suffered from it run long and deep, and are everlasting. They map out lives damaged by episodes of ridicule and isolation, physical and emotional abuse.
Often the discovery and understanding of such acts occurr after the fact, when the victims are young, after the damage has been done, and sometimes there is no repairing that.
No matter what happens to the bully.
That is why Anti-Bullying Day, Feb. 27, is so important, because it seeks to create awareness about the cause and effects of such behaviours, to educate us all in an effort to prevent and end bullying – at school, at home, at work, in person or from a distance.
Take time this day to think about that.
It’s not enough to just not be a bully.
We need to stop others from being one, too, to step in and speak up.
That requires courage, and we need more of it.
That is how this day started, after two Grade 9 boys in Nova Scotia stuck up for another who was being harrassed for wearing a pink shirt.
Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows The News