The one who is bullied

So as I checked my email I originally decided I wasn’t going to write this but after seeing this show on T.V. where even an employee was being bullied. I felt called to write this in the perspective of the bullied.

I look around me and I hear the girls harsh giggling and the boys obnoxious laughter as I walk through the hall a past everyone. No one seems to notice and to make matters worse I see people kissing in the hall all the time. If that is even what you can consider it I am not sure if eating someone’s face off is considered kissing. But when I try to have a girlfriend and even just give her a little kiss on the lips I get written up for it. As if that’s not bad enough I can’t even change busses like all the normal people not even to an “S” bus which labels me as a person with Special needs. Kids constantly make fun of the bus I ride on, and joke between themselves about their friends riding on it. Or they point at me and call me a “retard.” I don’t think they understand how devastating that word can be to people like me with mental differences.

The word is no different than any other racial slur. I don’t know about you but I don’t hear people going around saying that is so “N” word so why would people go around using another minority slur such as the “R” word in such a way? Sometimes I think they don’t understand. I’d like to take the time to let everyone know that the “R” word is another knife cutting word it can slice through a person’s bright yellow personality and their cool green grass breeze attitude just as quick if not quicker than other negative words.

Don’t get me wrong I am not saying the world isn’t doing anything after all there was recently a law passed named “Rose’s Law” the law changes all phrasing of “mental retardation” to “intellectual disability” in all federal mandates. Even the government who can’t ever agree on anything it seems like has agreed that the word “retard” is outdated, but yet people all over the world and even in our nation and our schools like me are being discriminated at, or laughed at just because we have Down syndrome, or Autism and any other kind of mental difference. That is what I prefer to call a person with an intellectual disability. The reason for that being is everybody is mentally different and if people knew that and understood I feel like the world would be a better place and I wouldn’t have to worry about people calling me a retard anymore. I wouldn’t have to go home depressed because the kids kept calling each other retards henceforth insulting people such as me like a dull blade cutting into a living tree slowly killing it because their comments blade may not be directed at me but it bounces off no matter how that word is used.

I heard Telino one of my bulliers talking to a teacher the other day after he just got in trouble for saying the “R” word and he said “It’s just a word, and if I don’t say that I’ll just find a different one to say instead.” I don’t think he understood that’s what the teacher and people such as me want to see done people using a different one. People not labeling people such as myself as a “retard” we have feelings too. Just because things may take people such as myself a little longer to learn doesn’t mean we are any different. We just want to be respected as equals we are sick of people always looking down on us thinking we can’t do things for ourselves.

My life at times reminds me of a movie “I am Sam” in the movie the main character ends up screaming at his lawyer you don’t understand, people like you just don’t understand how hard it is for people like me, or something along those lines. I believe this is true at times but then I think back to all the times I have seen other people and races oppressed upon throughout history and I even look about in my school to see there still are traces of racism to be found. But I am encouraged as I look back to the history of our nation and see how much of the oppression has just been uplifted by the might of the people who were brave enough to face a pitch black frigidity world and its challenges.

So as a person who has seen and witnessed this bullying of people such as myself I ask you will you help fight bullying and discrimination to decimation against people with mental differences. I know I will because something needs to be done we live in America the land of the free so everybody should feel as free as a vibrant blue ocean breeze regardless of the color of their skin, or sex, or mental difference. I know I want to and I know everyone else wants to too. But we can’t be if we are constantly be bullied just because people such as myself are a little different.

For more information on the movement to end the “R” word please check out "www.r-word.org" it is very beneficial. And the website really helps people such as me get our points across.