One day at my school, there was a piece of paper stuck to the wall with a large swastika drawn on it. I watched as hundreds of kids walked past it coming in from lunch. None of them took it down. I watched as at least 5 police stood in sight of the paper. None of them took it down. It took the 17-year-old Jew from Racine, WI to walk across the river of students to go and take it down. When I went to throw it away, one of the police men came to me and said, “Thank you for taking that down.” I felt very uncomfortable for the rest of the school day. Someone had bullied me without saying anything about me, or pushing me around. The other students and the police men bullied because of the fact that they literally did not take an action. Don’t make yourself that kind of bully either.
It seems crazy, but Winter Kallah was already four weeks ago! It seems like just yesterday that I was rockin’ out with Mooses, McQueeny, and all 200 of you.
On the Saturday of the event, all of us participated in making videos to fight bullying. Bullying has become an even more prevalent problem in recent months, especially bullying due to sexual orientation. It has even driven people our age to commit suicide due to the effects of constant teasing and harassment. Things like the “It Gets Better” campaign and the Living NFTY campaign have made people more aware of what is going on. NFTY-CANOe has started our own video campaign to fight this bullying - and we need your help to make it viral. We know that bullying is wrong, no matter if you are the bully or if you are bullying by being a bystander, and that we need to take an action to prevent it. We made that first step in creating those videos at Winter Kallah. There were over 35 videos made at the event, and hopefully some more are coming from you in the near future. During the weekend, we encouraged you to make your own videos at home to fight bullying. They don’t have to be anything special (creating a song or a newscast isn’t necessary this time, but it would be awesome!), you could even just reflect on what you’ve done to prevent bullying since Kallah. Personally, I can’t stop correcting the harmful words that people say at my school, and every time I do that I help to fight bullying.
As promised, we are posting our videos online. Below, we will feature one new video each week. Be sure to check back often and leave comments. You can find other videos by going to www.vimeo.com and searching “nftycar”.
Remember, bullying doesn’t have to be punching a kid in the face or making a Burn Book, you can be that bystander and you will be just as much of a bully. Remember what you learned at Winter Kallah 2010, and help make this world a better and safer place for all of us.
B’shalom V’ahava,
Ben Varhula, NFTY-NO PVP
PS. If you want to see some of the videos shown in the beginning of the program follow this link and click on “Video PSAs”: http://www.nfty.org/resources/guides/bullying/
