'Words As Weapons Are Sharper Than Knives'
Forgot bombs, guns, knives. The worst weapon you possess is your mouth.

"I'm rubber you're glue!" "Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me!" and the childishly simple "nah, nah, nah, nah!" are all comebacks to playground fights. What could little kids fight about? Oh, who flushed someone's Barbie doll down the drain, who might have taken someone's cookie, and who likes whom of course!

Words as weapons are sharper than knives. Teasing in fun is fine, but harassment is a horse of a different color. Harassment is singling a student or person out on looks, personality, ethnic background, sex, etc., alone and insulting them that way. Harassers also refuse to let up when their chosen victim asks them to. Harassers need serious help.

Many children--those who are simply 'different,' those who are overweight, those who are cursed with the burden of being smarter-than-average, etc.--are harassed. And those tales of being beaten up where the lunch monitor can't see (a la "The Kid") almost never happen. Physical threats? The chances of them telling someone? Ha. Don't make me laugh.

Words are the new weapon. Here are some excerpts from an unprovoked instant message conversation I had with a classmate: (I'm chickychat)

chickychat: anything else you want to say before I return to writing?
RedHawks80: NO IM NOT IM STILL YOUNG BITCH HOWEVER YOUR PIMPLES R NOT
RedHawks80: U SHOULD BE WRITIN YOUR OBITCHUARIE CUZ IM GONNA CUT UR THROAT!" And also, "RedHawks80: hope this affects u F*** YOU!
chickychat: nope
chickychat: No change
chickychat: Try again
RedHawks80: K
chickychat: don't even bother trying
RedHawks80: HOW BOUT I TRY TO GET THROUGH ALL THOSE CHINS ON UR NECK AND CUT UR THROAT AND ADAMS APPLE!"

I didn't make that up for my own amusement. Yes, harassment is a pressing problem in America. It can totally destroy a teenager's self-esteem. We're often told, "put up, and shut up." In all the recent school shooting every attacker had been submitted to severe forms of alienation and harassment. This is a serious pattern that needs to be broken.

Many students never tell. Many instead, simply allow themselves to be battered. This kind of verbal torture leaves invisible scars. You may not be able to see them, but their there.

Growing up harassed I can say that it really DOES leave lasting affects. I do not wish to delve too deeply in them, but they do. Harassers are ruthless. Yesterday, over summer break for crying out loud, a male student called me up and told me to "suck his d***," and then some.

Weigh your words carefully. They truly are sharper and more hurtful than anything you can imagine. When you're dead, you're dead. When you're harassed you have to keep on dealing with it. So don't make fun of the girl everyone thinks is weird, don't insult the guy who happens to have a genius IQ. You wouldn't like it, would you?