What are we going to do?

Lately, to my surprise, I've witnessed bullying on several accounts. I remember bullies bullying and kids being bullied in elementary, middle, and high school, and I've been hearing bullying-related stories on the news, but I feel like I haven't encountered bullying face-to-face in a long time...or I've been oblivious to it. I'll go with the latter.

Let's see, where to begin? The other day, a friend of mine received a phone call from someone she hadn't spoken to in a few years. The caller wanted to let her know that her picture was up on a website and people were commenting on it. Basically, from what my friend told me, people post pictures of girls on this specific website to call them "sluts." That's the website's sole purpose. When a new picture is added, people tweet and retweet the picture's link, giving access to other people who have not yet seen or commented on the picture. When my friend pulled up the picture, random people had commented on her photo, making assumptions about her, criticizing what she was wearing, and calling her names.

A few Thursdays ago, I was observing at a local high school. During one of the classes I sat in on, one student was being silly. At one point, he couldn't stop giggling. To me, someone who has only observed that particular class a few times, the student seemed like he was just being himself. The other students in his class, however, have labeled his being himself as being "annoying." When the student couldn't control his laughter, a student sitting in front of him turned around and stared at him blankly for two minutes straight. The giggling student smiled at him. However, the staring student broke his silence and said something along the lines of "Shut up - I don't want to hear your voice." In another class, another student angrily told him multiple times to turn around and she did not want to talk to him.

Those were just two accounts that I witnessed. I can name at least three others that I saw and heard in the past week. Things like this happen? But why? I really don't understand. That's not the only question to ask, however. Whether we like it or not, bullying exists - all kinds of it. The question we have to make sure to ask and answer is what are we going to do about it?