take on more than one victim. Maybe Carol hadn’t been alone to start with, but whatever friends she’d had abandoned her in fear and self-preservation when they saw that she had been selected as my prey.
I knew that what I was doing was beyond bad. My family would be absolutely horrified if they knew. Horrified and shocked. Actually, I was horrified myself, but that added to the rush. It was thrilling to be so bad. It made my whole body practically vibrate with life and power. And after a few minutes of tormenting Carol, I felt a sort of peace as my heart calmed back down and the sweat on my hands tingled and evaporated.
Tormenting Carol was like a gateway drug to the thrill of being bad. The next year I learned to smoke cigarettes and weed. Soon after that I was popping whatever kind of pill anyone offered. But that’s a different story.
A few months deeper into sixth grade, there was a power shift, and I myself was divided from the herd. I was outraged but not surprised. Such was the nature of sixth grade. I remember toying with the idea of teaming up with Carol, forming a little band of outcasts, but when I sidled up to her on the playground, she held her hand up like a stop sign and said, “Don’t even bother to try!”
Never Shut Up
by Kiersten White
It was the middle of Government and Politics class, and though the teacher was lecturing, the boy sitting behind me hadn’t gotten off the previous topic. He shrugged, whispering, “I don’t think that sexism and racism are problems in our country anymore. People just pretend they are.”
My face turned red and I jabbed a single accusatory finger at him. “ White male , you have no perspective!”
It was loud.
Oh, so loud.
I was always inadvertently entertaining in that class. Everyone knew that if you brought up one of my pet topics, I was good for an impassioned debate. Senior year my class awarded the yearbook spots. Alongside “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Best Smile” was my award: “Always Has Something to Say.” But when they put it under my picture, they changed the title to “Never Shuts Up.” Because I never. Shut. Up.
Problem is, for all my not shutting up, I never managed to speak up. In the end, how much did the glass ceiling impact my working two shifts a week at the local sandwich shop? How much did gun control issues factor into my daily life? What good was all of my passion and crusading and adopting of causes doing any of the people around me every day?
I liked having causes and caring about things, but only if they were safe. I could talk for days about feminism because it didn’t impact me, didn’t threaten me, didn’t put me in an uncomfortable position. Safe.
But that day I saw those kids teasing a special ed student in the hallway, making him sing louder and louder while they laughed at his innocent enthusiasm? I didn’t say anything. I knew those kids. We weren’t friends, exactly, but we weren’t not friends. And while what they were doing made me sick to my stomach, saying something felt too dangerous. What if I said something and they decided to be cruel to me instead? And what about the boy? He thought they were his friends, couldn’t understand what they were doing. I wasn’t going to explain it to him. It was too complicated, too hard, too involved.
So I did the easy thing. I walked away. And I’ve always regretted it. I wonder now how much of an impact I could have made if I’d really always had something to say. If I’d said the things that mattered, stood up for people who actually needed my help, gotten involved instead of keeping my head down.
In this era of visibility, where everyone can see what anyone says about anything on social networking sites, it’s even more obvious to see kids being hurt, being bullied, being the victims of cruelty. I wonder if I’d had that access as a teen, would I have been the one to call out bullies and tell them to shut up? Would I have stood up for the people
I knew that what I was doing was beyond bad. My family would be absolutely horrified if they knew. Horrified and shocked. Actually, I was horrified myself, but that added to the rush. It was thrilling to be so bad. It made my whole body practically vibrate with life and power. And after a few minutes of tormenting Carol, I felt a sort of peace as my heart calmed back down and the sweat on my hands tingled and evaporated.
Tormenting Carol was like a gateway drug to the thrill of being bad. The next year I learned to smoke cigarettes and weed. Soon after that I was popping whatever kind of pill anyone offered. But that’s a different story.
A few months deeper into sixth grade, there was a power shift, and I myself was divided from the herd. I was outraged but not surprised. Such was the nature of sixth grade. I remember toying with the idea of teaming up with Carol, forming a little band of outcasts, but when I sidled up to her on the playground, she held her hand up like a stop sign and said, “Don’t even bother to try!”
Never Shut Up
by Kiersten White
It was the middle of Government and Politics class, and though the teacher was lecturing, the boy sitting behind me hadn’t gotten off the previous topic. He shrugged, whispering, “I don’t think that sexism and racism are problems in our country anymore. People just pretend they are.”
My face turned red and I jabbed a single accusatory finger at him. “ White male , you have no perspective!”
It was loud.
Oh, so loud.
I was always inadvertently entertaining in that class. Everyone knew that if you brought up one of my pet topics, I was good for an impassioned debate. Senior year my class awarded the yearbook spots. Alongside “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Best Smile” was my award: “Always Has Something to Say.” But when they put it under my picture, they changed the title to “Never Shuts Up.” Because I never. Shut. Up.
Problem is, for all my not shutting up, I never managed to speak up. In the end, how much did the glass ceiling impact my working two shifts a week at the local sandwich shop? How much did gun control issues factor into my daily life? What good was all of my passion and crusading and adopting of causes doing any of the people around me every day?
I liked having causes and caring about things, but only if they were safe. I could talk for days about feminism because it didn’t impact me, didn’t threaten me, didn’t put me in an uncomfortable position. Safe.
But that day I saw those kids teasing a special ed student in the hallway, making him sing louder and louder while they laughed at his innocent enthusiasm? I didn’t say anything. I knew those kids. We weren’t friends, exactly, but we weren’t not friends. And while what they were doing made me sick to my stomach, saying something felt too dangerous. What if I said something and they decided to be cruel to me instead? And what about the boy? He thought they were his friends, couldn’t understand what they were doing. I wasn’t going to explain it to him. It was too complicated, too hard, too involved.
So I did the easy thing. I walked away. And I’ve always regretted it. I wonder now how much of an impact I could have made if I’d really always had something to say. If I’d said the things that mattered, stood up for people who actually needed my help, gotten involved instead of keeping my head down.
In this era of visibility, where everyone can see what anyone says about anything on social networking sites, it’s even more obvious to see kids being hurt, being bullied, being the victims of cruelty. I wonder if I’d had that access as a teen, would I have been the one to call out bullies and tell them to shut up? Would I have stood up for the people
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