Conquering Bullying: My Tale of Self-Advocacy

Sticking Up for Myself

Is bullying a dehumanization? To me, no doubt it is a YES. Have I ever got bullied before? Well, many people have tried to bully me since kindergarten, but nobody have actually made me felt bullied, I suppose I figured out a way to avoid being bullied. That is, always stick up for yourself, hide your weakness from bullies, and always fight back to show your strength, this is one of the thing that happened and indicated my concept.

It was back in China when I was 5th grade, our PE class work a little differently than in the US, we usually have about twenty minutes of free time at the end of the class to do whatever we want to do, this attempt of bullying happened in the middle of this free time. I was playing basketball

with my classmates on the playground, we started playing for a while already, but then suddenly there were six to seven people from 6th grade walked into the basketball court we are using. All of us stopped playing and looked at them, all of them are taller, bigger and stronger than us. As soon as I saw them, I knew, they will either join us and annihilate us in the game, or kick us out of the court, that is what upperclassman usually do. A guy that seems to be their “leader” came forward, he was tall but fat, his body was stretching the school uniform out of shape, every step he took was shaking his fat in waves. He said: “ Get out of my court and give me that ball you little freaking pigs, you guys suck at it anyways!” My classmates though were angry, but looking at those tall and big guys behind him, they didn’t think they had choice, they were about to leave. I stopped them: “Guys, don’t go, we are here first, he don’t have the right to kick us out”, I turn to the fat dude and said, “We are not leaving, you can join us, but you can’t kick us out! What you can do about it?”
What happened next, started a fight, a fight of my dignity. That moment, pain strike through my body, he punched me right on the stomach without warning. I tumbled a few steps backward, my classmates run to me and tried to see if I am okay, but he yelled: “Get away from him, or I will knock all of you out!” That scared them and they got away from me. His friends were pointing at me and giggling. My anger burst, I charged and ran toward him and swing my fist at his ugly face, but he caught my fist and punched me on the chest. Bearing the pain burning in my chest, I used all my power and kicked him away from me. This time, he tumbled a few steps backward and he tended to lose his balance, I didn’t let the chance fly away from me, I charged with full speed and striked him to the ground. Before I have the chance to add some bruises on his face, his friends pulled me off of him, and they were about to land some punches on me. At this very moment, I saw a man running toward me, and a deep voice shouted loudly: “Stop!”
While the shout was still ringing in my ear, the man separated us apart, he was my PE teacher, Mr.

Chen. Another teacher followed up, he was the 6th graders’ PE teacher I suppose. I stood back up, and I wiped off the little blood coming out of the wound on my lip created by the 6th grader’s scratches while he was on the ground. Mr. Chen took me and my classmates aside, he asked: “What happened over there?” One of my friends answered: “ We were playing basketball at the court first, then they came, and want us to leave the court for them to play. Michael refused, so he punched him, and they just got in a fight.” “Michael,” he then turned to me, “ Even though it is just self-defensing, but you could’ve just run and find me to solve the problem, and you won’t get hurt, why didn’t you do that?” I looked into his eyes, and I said determinately: “I can’t be a coward in his memory, I have to show him what I got, so he won’t try to bully me next time I see him in this class. Plus, a man won’t run from a fight.” At the end, I did not get in trouble for fighting, and those 6th graders have never mess with me again.

This event is only one of the things that indicated my thinking of avoiding bullying throughout the years. Certainly, I am not trying to express that it is fine to fight people, but just that fighting is one of the ways show your strength and toughness. However, other ways could be making a good argument, having friends to back you up, having teachers on your side, or even showing your talents and prove that they are wrong. At the very end, showing what you are good at is what you can do to tell the bullies to leave you

alone.