Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

I am here to bury something that

almost all of us participate in daily, and that I am just as guilty of as you are. Or, at
least, I hope I will be able to bury it. But lets not dive right in, lets have story time
first. Once upon a time, there was a poor kid at a school in a rich neighborhoodthank god for zoning screw-ups. His dad was an addict that left when he was eight,
and his mom was severely physically disabled. After paying the bills, he and his
mom lived off $200 per month- for medical care, food, clothes, and school supplies.
This kid was incredibly smart, but would never go to college without a full-ride
scholarship. At school, he hung out with the orchestra kids because they were the
only ones that didnt make drug addict jokes and tease him for being poor. By the
end of eighth grade, with the knowledge that his friends would either be going to
the IB school down the road or moving to Belgium, he began to drift towards the
only other kids that would accept him thanks to the vicious rumors that he was one
of them. This incredibly smart cello prodigy became a druggie. If the vicious rumors
thanks to his social status hadnt been perpetrated, the other smart kids would
have become his friends. If other groups of kids had accepted him, he would not
have been forced to hang out with the waste cases. He is now in his sophomore
year of high school, and has no chance of going to college or doing anything with
his life. All thanks to rumors. Another story- there was once a girl moving to Japan
from a school in DC when she was 10. She dressed up nice her first day, and got her
locker, and went to first period. A classmate thought it would be a great idea to put
lesbian porn on her computer and then tell the class. By the end of the day,
everyone in the sixth grade was convinced that the new girl was a lesbian. The new
girl thought that this term might mean a person from a country that the US was
probably at war with, and when asked, responded confusedly that no, she was an
American. This school was homophobic. The new girl quickly became an outcast,
relegated to sit with the special ed kids. She often was knocked down the stairs and
got kicked while on the ground. It was an inside joke to flash her in the hallway to
elicit a reaction. People stole her clothes in PE, leaving her to pray nobody looked
while she ran in a towel to the front office where they kept clothes for dress code
violators. Ill spare you the details, but by the end of the year, it ended in
permanent physical injury, 3 people being fired from the school, 2 kids going to
court, her nearly dying, and recurring nightmares five years later. Although peoples
natural cruelty played a huge role, it would not have happened had one tech class
not decided to spread speculation about a childs sexual preference. There are so
many more stories like this- the plot of the book thirteen reasons why recurs
almost every month in the news. Have you all gotten what behavior Im referring to
yet? No? What Im talking about is gossip. How many of you have told friends
something that you heard another friend speculating about? Yeah, well, good job.
Youve grown the rumor mill, and youve probably helped to hurt someone. Did I
offend you? Im sorry, but thats the truth. I recognize that most of us dont directly
put people down to their faces, and thats a start from where we all were in middle
school. I also recognize that most of you dont see what rumors do to people.
Believing something about a person will cause you to treat them differently, and

spreading that belief will cause others to treat that person differently as well.
Believing something negative will cause you to treat the person as if they arent
worth your time, and will affect them negatively. If your friend tells you that Donald
McDonald got drunk at a party last Saturday and cheated on his girlfriend of three
years, and if you think you have a moral imperative to go tell this to his girlfriend,
you just broke up a 3-year relationship, and you dont even know if it was true. If
you think saw the valedictorian smoking at lunch and you tell a friend because you
think its funny, and a teacher overhears, congratulations, you just probably ruined
what theyd been working for since middle school in one fell swoop. And you didnt
even know for sure if it was them. Even if you know that something was true, you
should probably just keep your mouth shut unless life or limb is in danger- you dont
need to complicate something that isnt your business. I know Im not innocent, if I
hear things I might repeat them to close friends if I wasnt told it had to stay quiet.
On the other hand, I make a sincere effort to keep my nose out of drama and to not
generally ruin peoples lives. So, today, class, lets come away from this five
minutes with a new perspective. Anything you say can be repeated- and probably
will be. Anything untrue that you say can become a persons reputation. Anything
that you hear may not necessarily be true. Anything that would be benign to tell
your best friend may end up being heard by someone that loves spreading gossip.
Defamation is a crime outside the twisted hallways of DODEA schools, and for good
reason. If you wouldnt want the entire school to believe the same about you, keep
your trap shut- its not your business anyway, and its not your choice to shape
every aspect of a persons life by spreading gossip.