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Defusing cyber bullies
It took some guts to be a bully back in the olden days.
You had to stand behind your words; be able to back them up. That, as much as anything, probably helped a good number of us keep our meanness in check.
No longer. And as a rash of bullying-related suicides, including Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi, shows: virtual abuse can cause as much, if not more, damage than the real thing.
So what do you do about cowardly cyber bullies who take potshots from their safe, often anonymous bunkers?
Experts say bystanders can make the difference between a bullied kid who shakes it off, and one who simply can't. Kids like Hope Witsell, a Florida middle schooler who killed herself last year after suffering months of verbal abuse by classmates. There are others -- too many. Some are calling bullying-related suicides an epidemic.
Celebrities are speaking out -- sex columnist Dan Savage, for example, is recruiting people online to help inoculate kids against bullies -- and everyday people, too. About 200 people turned out to an Iowa City rally Wednesday night to remember Clementi and other recent victims of anti-gay bullying. It's not difficult to speak out against the idea of cyber bullying when another tragic death makes the news.
It is harder, though, when that bullying is happening in your own school hallways. It takes guts to stand up to cyber bullies in practice as well as principle.
Harassment laws and demonstrations can't reach the far corners where cyber bullying lurks. At bottom, the answer lies in standing up to bullies in real time -- in real life.
In this Oct. 3, 2010 file photo, people participate in a candlelight vigil for Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi at Brower Commons on the Rutgers campus in New Brunswick, N.J. Clementi jumped to his death off a bridge a day after two classmates surreptitiously recorded him having sex with a man in his dorm room and broadcast it over the Internet. A recent spate of teenage suicides and two apparent anti-gay attacks have drawn attention to the gay community. In addition to the sympathy and outrage, manifested in campus vigils, viral videos by the likes of Ellen DeGeneres, a call for awareness by comedian Margaret Cho on 'Dancing With the Stars,' and even state legislation addressing the New Jersey case, political strategists think it might be an opportunity to advance gay rights. (AP Photo/Reena Rose Sibayan, File)
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