Childhood bullying has long-lasting effects and its impact should be acknowledged as much as other traumas during this era of mental health awareness. By Khaaliq Crowder CW: bullying, fatphobia, ableism, homophobia, disordered eating, self-harm, suicidality As I approach my 25th birthday, I’ve been examining my childhood trauma and how it plagued my late teens and...
Tag: bullying
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All That Glitters Ain’t Nice: On Tyra Banks, “Niceness”, and Collective Memory
Tyra Banks is facing a retroactive cultural reckoning thanks to audiences removing the veneer of her cultivated image of “niceness” and faux positivity. 2020 has been an interesting year for hindsight discoveries. Like being thrown into a pandemic and finding that we are completely unprepared and with virtually no social safety nets in place. Like...
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Gun Violence and Toxic Masculinity: What Happened in Florida is No Anomaly
Society must be answerable to the lives of those lost to the ramifications of toxic masculinity, in both the moral and physical sense. By Olivia Ahn [TW/CW: discussions about gun violence, murder, domestic violence and misogyny.] On Wednesday, at least 17 people were killed when 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire using a semiautomatic rifle at...
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Keaton Jones, Ashawnty Davis and the White Supremacist Limits of Empathy
We live in a society where empathy and compassion is limited for Black, Indigenous, and children of color and it is instead reserved to white children, who only have agency due to their white privilege, period. It’s hard not to look at the viral video of Keaton Jones, an elementary school boy, looking straight into...
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13 Reasons Why “13 Reasons Why” is Dangerously Problematic
13 Reasons Why had many ambitious goals. Here are 13 reasons why it fails at every single one of them. (Content warning: discussions of suicide, sexual assault and self-harm) Based on Jay Asher’s young adult novel, Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why follows the aftereffects on a school and its community after a student kills herself. After her death, Hannah...
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Candice Wiggins, Stop Crying Cis-Het Tears Over the WNBA
We feel for anyone who has felt hurt, abused and rejected. But for Candice Wiggins, how much of it came from cis-hetero entitlement, internalized misogyny and homophobia? Former WNBA player Candice Wiggins says she was bullied by fellow WNBA players for being heterosexual. “It wasn’t like my dreams came true in the WNBA. It was quite the...
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Brandy Vela Committed Suicide Due to Harassment. Why Her Death is Actually a Murder.
(Content warning: suicide) Brandy Vela, an 18-year-old high school senior, shot herself in front of her family because her peers continued to violently harass her about her body size. Vela sent a heartfelt final text to her family moments before committing suicide, saying, “I love you so much, just remember that please and I’m so sorry...
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Dear Virgie: Do Teachers Promote Fat Shaming and Victim Blaming in the Classroom?
Dear Virgie, A few years ago I decided I wanted to switch careers and become a primary school teacher. I fulfilled my dream, and just finished up my first year with my class of second graders. I was surprised to discover that the hardest part about being a teacher was being retraumatized by watching how boys...
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Daily Share: #MoreThanMean Campaign Exposes Abuse of Women In Sports
Content warning: extreme harassment and abusive language toward women, including mentions of rape. “If you wouldn’t say it to our faces, don’t type it.” Simple idea, but rarely the case when it comes to the way people, especially men, interact with each other on the internet. Just Not Sports, a website and podcast dedicated to...
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Why I Will Not Remain Silent Over Online Abuse
TW: Abuse, Violence On my blog, I work hard to encourage, educate, empower and inspire girls and women. I look for girls and women to take part in my blog features related to body confidence, body positivity, bullying and abuse. These girls and women have a voice that deserves to be heard. I...