Persuasive Speech: Say NO to Bullying

by Paola | February 25, 2013 · 9:56 am

We are living in a world where some people think that violence is the only reason to solve every
problem. If people keep this violence around us, it’s not going to get better. Violence has been
in this world for centuries now and for the same causes, to gain power of authority. Kids in
schools feel superior to others by calling other kids horrible names and making fun of them. Men
hit women so they can “earn” their respect back. The point is that violence won’t make you a
better person, it will make you a monster and nobody likes a monster.

There are many different kinds of violence. One of them is called bullying. The victims of this
violence are mostly kids and teenagers around the ages of 10-18. Bullying is when someone says
mean things to someone in person or in a social network. Most of the time it happens in the
social network because kids thing that by making fun of someone in a social network area, they
won’t get in trouble by an adult. This is one of the worst violence in the world because is
between kids and teenagers. Most of the teenagers today have very low self-esteem because of
the media. They haven’t still found what they want to do with their lives, so, by saying mean
things to them, it won’t help them be successful since they think that what they are saying is true.

There are over 3.2 million of students that are victims of bullying each year. Because of these,
approximately 160,000 teens skip school every day to avoid the bullies. Some of these students
drop out of school. Some schools don’t even help the victims that are been bullied. Over two-
thirds of students believe that schools respond poorly to bullying, with high percentage of
students believing that adult help is infrequent and ineffective. I didn’t know that harassment and
bullying has been linked to 75 percent of school-shooting incidents.

There have been many cases of suicide because of bullying. One of the recent ones was the
suicide of Amanda Todd. She committed suicide on October 10, 2012 at her home in Port
Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada. She was 16 years old when she died. On September 7,
2012, she posted a 9-minute video on YouTube titled My Story: Struggling, bullying, suicide and
self-harm, which showed her using flash cards telling her experiences being bullied. The reason
she was bullied was because when she was in 7th grade, she used video chat to meet new people
over the internet. People she met would always give her complements about her looks. A
stranger convinced her to bare her breasts on camera. He later blackmailed her with threats to
expose the topless photo to her friends unless she gave a “show”. The photo of her circulated the
internet. She moved to different places to start fresh, but the individual would always disguise
himself as a student coming new to school. She tried to kill herself by drinking bleach and an
overdose of drugs, but it didn’t work. Students from her school would make fun of her because
she failed in her suicide and in her grades. After the entire nightmare, on October 10, 2012 at
about 6:00 PM, she was found hanged at her home.

Like I said before, most of the teenagers have a very low self-esteem and by telling them mean
things, they will only become worst. Everybody makes mistakes. Kids today are always in the
internet and they meet strangers everyday. As a parent, you need to pay attention to everything
that the kid is doing. If you don’t want to have problems like this, don’t talk to strangers over the
internet. Once it’s on the internet it stays there forever. If you see someone that is being bullied
over the internet or at school, contact an adult or confront the person yourself. If we all stand up
together against bullying, the world will be a better place. You might think that the one that you
are making fun of is a monster because of the stuff he or she has done, but in reality, you are the
monster for making them feel worst.