Bullying and the Not-So-Blindside of Sport

Forms of bullying happen all the time in our society. Can happen to any gender, race, age, personality, and the list can go on forever. People bully one another because of the differences in an individual sees as not normal. Most of the bullying that has happened to me was during grade school and high school. Most of it was just verbal assaults, but when sports were introduced that’s when the physical contact would happen. This was an outlet for the violence to happen through sports like football and basketball. One time when I was in middle school, I was in gym class playing basketball and I went to drive for a layup, then a kid proceeds to try and block my shot with his elbow. This as you can guess did not end too well for me and I busted my mouth pretty good and the kid that did it thought it was funny without caring what happened to me. Meanwhile, the gym teacher did not do anything to the kid that struck me because he was on the football team. I feel like he should have used his power to do something, but did not and just sent me to the nurse’s office. My classmate had power of me because he knew he could not get in trouble because he was in sports. This act of violence was just enacted by the regular bully at a school that thinks it is cool to hurt others and be funny. Sports gave him the power to do negative things because he would not get in trouble by superiors.

Another example in middle school was with the gym teacher again. This story was when a grown put his hands on me as a 12-year-old and was using force to get me out of the classroom. I was shocked by not knowing what to do to at this moment when he aggressively put his hands on my shoulders grabbing me by the shirt. I could not believe that an adult with power in the community is trying to remove me with force. At the time I did not thing this was as serious as my mom made it out to be. I am glad I told my mom, but wish the school did more to punish this gym teacher who has been abusing his power for years. Now in present time I see how bad it is to use force as a teacher and try to remove a student from a classroom. That gym teacher was always using his power to get the better of teenage kids and boss them around. He always used the words “fag, gay, and queer” referring to kids he disliked and no one saw anything wrong with this. After this altercation, I went to live with my grandma and changed middle schools for the remainder of the year. This was a huge impact on my life because I had to start over again at another school with not knowing anyone. It was for the better and had a better impact on me. The teachers compared to my old school were so nice and actually wanted the students to enjoy coming to school. This was a life lesson that I will always have with me and that is to speak up for when bullying is happening because it has a negative impact on someone.