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TEDx Talks
Published: 2013-05-05
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEHjlaJiXQI
I'm gonna put you on the situation some of you might experience before I'm semi may not of but just imagine for a second you're back in high school and you're being picked on you're being bullied it starts off just a few taunts every other week and starts escalating every day fit kids are calling you sixty little bitch that gets slot quickly it starts escalating the violence
and kids start throwing their books that you pushing up against lockers and throwing food at you at the house at during lunch aside after this going on to go to your parents and talked about it you decide that they need to be involved they tell you go to your teacher go to the administration talk to them so you do you go to your you go to
Europe high school teacher and they say to you just because the administration they'll talk about it the ministrations says to you cattle begets I say just the tough part part of life but you'll be tougher from this after weeks turned into months and you decide to just let it go and slowly you start internalizing it you look at yourself in the mirror and you think faggot
you look yourself in the mirror and you think you little sissy and you look at yourself and you think all the things that these kids I've been saying about eventually you decide to give up you think it's so bad now it's so rough right now why go on you decide it's taken a life this is a story that was far too often told in two thousand
and ten and as you might imagine is a true story but it's not a high school student thirteen year old after brown he was heckled for being for his size for though his religious beliefs for the way he acted and of the way his voice sounded and aside kills it happened more often in two thousand ten than any other year Tyler Clemente killed himself after his
roommate hit a camera in his room and him Tyler and his partner right into Israel had sex and Israeli decide post of the day on Facebook a week later Tyler commit the killings Montana lance was heckled just because he had a lisp and decided at the age of nine he was going to be done kids like Sicily Oakwell may who is eleven and she was heckled
for her size she was called Blackie Blackie ugly fatty and decided to take on kids like Samantha Kelly who at fourteen was raped and she was brave enough to come forward in faith and report her her rapist she was heckled so much after that she decided take her own life again because I killed not who's just criticized for the way he dressed I figured he'd rather
kill himself and try change then you had me in two thousand ten shortly after I was elected soon by president I was starting to get attacked by this is an attorney general just like these kids were being attacked in that same year the difference was that a person who is my bully my aggressor with someone who is meant to uphold the laws of our state and
the thing that's interesting is that the language that he used was similar to the language that we saw and heard kids like killed no here the same language that these kids were experiencing and so I want to talk a little bit about the language that he used tactics that he used and started Chris Armstrong watch this was a site committed to keeping tabs on me the
president external body and my radical homosexual activists races leave flyers and now it's funny because it's interesting and it seems strange but you started posting about me putting with Nazi swastikas on line you started comparing me to Harvey milk who is the openly gay San Francisco %HESITATION its first openly gay things just go city councilman who was killed by a fell city council he started comparing
me to him calling me a racist elitist liar a closet racist posting these pictures that seem pretty aggressive online I even had an internship that year and he started calling the speaker of all out speaker of the house's office where I was interning asking will the speaker one most powerful prominent democratic strategists in the nation continue to allow the grand dragon of MSA to service one
of his into I was just an intern she know who I love I'm glad they got a laugh because it wasn't so subjects I so to a certain extent I know that I've put myself out there I know that I was going to deal with a certain amount of derision a certain amount of criticism because I put myself out and ran for student body but I
got hard when it started to affect my friends when he started sort of saying that parties I'd host in two thousand and nine word gay orgies and he started saying that kids who were my friends who were part of that party were participants in this gay orgy I don't even live in the dorms at that time and calling them fanatical gay activists he started talking to
people who are close to me saying that I was in an ongoing structurally tion ship with my vice president and that where there's a clandestine eyeing me he was my secret boyfriend this was this image was posted online alleging that someone else was getting and he starts talking about other kids who were on the stern assembly thing that we are anti Christian bigots who have no
respect for human life and then even further it starts getting you start attacking my family posting about me and my father calling is dumb and dumber saying that the process to get to figure out legal options was a process of futility in that we are fools for try he called me a little sissy who reports was wealthy Daddy even started attacking my grandparents think that they
are extremely wealthy from Newport Rhode Island they live in South Carolina and saying that we come from old money and Steve Armstrong is a very highly paid Park Avenue attorney none of these things were true but eventually Angie Chevelle decided to go on national television to defend them tell him that you have on your block there's a picture of Chris Armstrong with a Nazi swastika face
%HESITATION there's another with words raise liar scroll on his face you accuse someone pointing to Satan's representative on the family I gotta ask you in your state official this is a college student you do it %HESITATION basically OB if you've been involved in political campaigns before you know all sorts of stuff %HESITATION happens and is just another tactic %HESITATION bringing %HESITATION awareness to what Chris really
stands for do you really think assistant Attorney General targeting some college student because gay as a pro well again I am doing this as a private citizen off work time housing university of Michigan along we're quibbling over tactics were not quibbling over substance the substance of the matter is Anderson Chris Armstrong is a radical homosexual activists he got elected out partly funded by the gay lesbian
victory fund to promote aids very deeply radical agenda unit in Michigan the biggest issue is gender neutral housing forward talking about is anybody any any man or woman to live together that's a radical read gender norms you say nightly at this all just a little and though eight you're not running for nor is he he's already this year president ntfc your representative that seems like below
the belt campaign I don't know what can think that that is beyond the pale well I don't know I don't think it's beyond the pale like as good I think your work and by the same river is representative well %HESITATION excuse me Anderson that isn't on the blog it's taken from another post things somewhere on the internet I meals on out now I need Denver I
believe and they say cyber believes that we technology to harass embarrassed to talk to someone else and it was the type of content hyperbole meat and we've all heard argumentative messages cruel offense Mars under that definition he was so I verbally hot no absolutely not the local news reporter %HESITATION crossed Jones that did the P. I mean who was very high and I don't know that
it out that on a lot I don't know who that is that's I think right that's not following anybody around I don't live anywhere near I am Arbor on I've been down there maybe three or four times start of the block and everybody was happy no problem fact that %HESITATION honest homosexual at the fact that he I have a problem with the fact that he is
sing a very radical agenda item five ring of the big it's really make you appear intolerant the bird like you he I think he's gay the well Anderson that's your spin on the real big here is Chris Armstrong and my in my body at all because I recognize that child of god however that just %HESITATION homosexual doesn't mean he gets a free pass we size and
vendor that goes not make you a big hit criticize somebody or somebody's agenda he political so we went on Anderson Cooper it stopped being about just me when kids like killed Nov kids like her brown kids like Tyler command see somebody like that on television I know we laugh because he's a little strange but they see a bully and he becomes the manifestation of the things
that are being fed to them every single day in schools and so we went on when he went on there some Cooper became more about the fact that these kids were hearing someone say those things and validate the things that they're being told in their schools then it is about just me and him S. certain point I started thinking about what does it say about our
society when we have any talks about quibbling with tactics we have someone like him waging his chi to campaigns and I thought to myself this is just like he said it's similar to a lot of other things we see in the country and I think about I start thinking about what do we how do we attack Billy what do we say to kids we say a
lot of time to get better put up with it now you'll have a better life later on we but then I think about instances where in our national politics that's on even the case when we have women like and Coulter who goes on national television and calls John Edwards who was at one point a vice presidential candidate to lead our nation a faggot we have Rush
Limbaugh who has millions of followers regardless of whether you agree with him people listen to him and then he called Sandra fluke a Georgetown student a flood that language has real impacts and I started thinking about when I went on Anderson Cooper I felt like I couldn't say to these kids it gets better I wish I could be up here today and I wish in two
thousand ten I could've gone Anderson say that there's a solution that I have a plan to attack believing in our schools believing in our administration pulling in our communities so that kids like after brown have community that we have that in a support network that wouldn't let him kill himself but I don't and I even know how it feels I feel that my honorable I feel
like you want to end it all I even have friends and family in this audience I saw those moments of weakness those moments in two thousand ten when I spite of everything wanted to just give up and thought if this is gonna be away my life is going to be I don't wanna live but I survived because of all of you because the university because of
the friends and family that I hide and because I survived the one thing I do have to impart it's how to survive a bully the first step did not respond I didn't talk I can go on Anderson Cooper to talk about and you sure Val I winners a complete aka kids like Asha and this is the hardest thing to tell a kid who's being pushed up
against the locker being thrown at the facts every single day to not respond but I remember when I was being bullied that I went back to when I sister wellbeing it when I was a kid my sister said to me as being blood she said to me don't respond that's what they want please one a reaction they want a platform like Anderson Cooper three sixty they
want to be able to go up there and say these these things about somebody else the second thing is seek out your resources their resources like Trevor project dot org and other resources that help students with their feeling like they're being suicidal and finally we got finally third find your alley I had friends who I can late Leon yeah during my times of stress and you
need to have someone who can fight your fights for you that finally you can act swiftly and not afraid to be bold I was lucky enough to win a settlement against my against Mr Chevelle because I was in because I could sue him kids can just to their beliefs so what can we do for kids what can we do for these kids and again the reason
I survive the reason I won because I had a huge support network I had Michigan I had friends and family who cared about me and Love Me no matter who I was I had friends who were able to fight battles for me lawyers who were able to help me out and I thought to myself we are incredibly privileged to be a university that knows to stand
up when someone like that is attacking another one of our students but not all kids get to be at the university of Michigan and because of that I started thinking and I realized my job in our job as we leave here today as we leave this university take the things we've learned from at today attacks take the things we learned from it's university and to make
sure the were doing everything we can be someone's resource to be their ally when they're in pay and to be somewhat and to help someone acts roughly and help people be bold and to help kids like after brown who never had a chance to untap his potential tap there's as we leave here today it's our responsibility take the things that we've learned and take the community
