“Stupid!”

“Ginger!”

“Bony!”

“Pale face!”

The small, shy, 4th grade redhead walked down the hallway with her head down, embarrassed. Even though she did nothing wrong, she still felt like it was all her fault.

According to the National Education Association, every day across the nation, over 160,000students stay home from school for fear of being bullied during the school day. Bullying has become a daily struggle for millions of students throughout the United States.

Senior Katelyn Ivey has attested to being a part of the millions.

“I know a lot of people accept bullying as not a big deal, but I take it as a ”big deal” becauseI’ve experienced it, and I understand the issues it can make.” Katelyn said.

Bullying has started to take a more subtle approach in the last few decades. Modern day bullying looks very different from the stereotypical high school bully that you see in movies. Nowadays, many people try to justify bullying by saying that they were “just joking” or “messing around.”In some cases, people might not actually realize that the jokes they are making hurt anyone, and that has created a slippery slope on a fine line between playfully teasing and offending someone.

“[People] don’t realize they are doing it [in the] moment, but once they see how you feel they feel like they’ve accomplished something.’ Katelyn said.

Bullying issues even made Katelyn decide to quit the Stingerettes. Thanks to the actions of other students, she found herself in a position where she felt obligated to quit something she originally wanted to do.

“It all started with basic drama, and then people started coming up to me in the hallways being rude and making hateful comments, and in the end I didn’t have any friends in Stings, so I decided to quit,” Katelyn said.

The bullying epidemic will continue until we take a stand. It will continue at full throttle until we make a conscious decision to change. Every day that we ignore the issue, it festers and grows, so we need to put a stop to it now.

Jane Dickinson once explained that we have total reign over our future, and how we can do so by simply making an effort. “The past explains how I got here, but the future is up to me.”