Two Bullied Boys Stand Up to Their Bullies
Tonight I want to talk to you about two amazing stories of bullied young men who stood up to their bullies in remarkably different ways.
The first story comes to us out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, where a 16-year old named Billy Wolfe resides. According to Billy’s mother, Penney, he has been bullied since he was in elementary school, but the bullying became physical when he reached the middle school. He tells of a time when he was in shop class, and another student came up to him out of nowhere and hit him in the face. He was injured seriously enough to require stitches. His parents report that he has had more black eyes than any boy his age, and the video reveals many bruises from various encounters with bullies over the years.
Two of his attacks were actually caught on video. On November 15, 2004, a video camera on his bus captured another student attacking Billy, hitting him in the head repeatedly and slamming his head into the window. And another attack was captured on a cell phone of Billy being attacked when he got off the bus and was walking home.
And, of course, there’s the cyberbullying; a Facebook page was established entitled “Everyone That Hates Billy Wolfe.”
What astounds me is that since two of these incidents occurred in school or on school property, a school bus, shouldn’t the school system he was in have taken some pretty drastic action against the perpetrators? Seems to me these incidents would have been well documented and decisive action would have been taken to remedy the situation.
But, Billy’s parents say the school did little or nothing to deal with the regular bullying their son had to endure, although, the school system states that those allegations are unfair. They claim they did take action, but they are unable to disclose what was done due to privacy issues. I don’t buy that! Billy’s parents have a right to know how these incidents were handled.
So, what are Billy and his parents doing to fight back? First, they have filed a lawsuit against one of the bullies and are looking at the possibility of adding other names to that lawsuit, including the school system which they feel has let Billy down.
The other story comes to us out of Australia, where a young man, whose name is not revealed, is caught on video (I assume a cell phone) being badgered by a much smaller boy, who approaches the bigger boy and begins to hit him. It looks like a situation where the kids involved have planned the attack in advance so that they can capture it on video, because that’s such a macho thing to do.
You can see from the video that the bigger boy is trying to pull away and is clearly uncomfortable, when suddenly, he charges the bully, picks him up, and body slams him to the ground. And I do mean body slams! It is a miracle that the bully is able to get up at all, although he is wobbly and obviously physically hurting from the attack.
What you learn, as you delve a little deeper, is that this bigger boy has been picked on over a long period of time and very regularly, especially by this boy in the video, who apparently is notorious in the school for tormenting other students. So, this was not a random, first-time event; this was just another day-in-the-life for the boy who was attacked. Meanwhile, the bullied boy has never been in trouble before.
As it turns out, both boys were suspended for four days by their school. And you can only imagine the flurry of comments this has opened up. I understand that fighting is fighting and both boys needed to be disciplined, but some are arguing that the bullied boy should not have been suspended or should have had a shorter suspension. But, here’s the silver lining; I don’t think that boy is going to be bullied any time soon, do you?
Two bullied young men standing up to their bullies in very different ways! And I find myself applauding them both for the courage it took to finally stand up and say enough! What about you?