Love is Louder Event Gives a Voice to the Voiceless

The ladies of Alpha Sigma Tau and also the Anti-Bullying club hosted the event called, “Love is Louder” on April 15. This is the fourth year hosting an event like this and it was a success. Not only did the sorority provide information about bullying and how to prevent it, but also facilitated discussions on participant’s experiences with bullying.

The session begin with a video by Aaron Holder titled, “The Effects of Bullying.” The video was about teens who have been physically, mentally, and emotionally bullied. It also provided facts about bullying, such as 57 percent of students that have been harassed in school did not report it. Also, abbout 1 in 4 teachers see nothing wrong with bullying in school.

The video mentioned that every 18 minutes, someone dies from suicide and every 43 seconds someone attempts suicide. Not only does bullying affect teens now, but victimization of bullying leads to problems in adulthood such as lower income. Many students deal with bullying, a negative self-image, discrimination, loneliness and depression.

Alpha Sigma Tau passed out index cards to participants and told them to write down stereotypes they think that fall into. Some of the stereotypes participants wrote included drunk, slut, retard, emo, stupid and fat. Participants were then asked how they would feel if people treated them based on these stereotypes. Most people definitely had a negative reaction to how they would feel if they were bullied or stereotyped. The problem is that many people do not know about the bullying around them and therefore  do not do anything about it.

Participants were then given a  list of how to prevent bullying in a school setting. Some of these included paying attention, not ignoring surroundings, being active when witnessing bullying, avoid becoming a bystander and avoid judging others before knowing them. If someone takes action against bullying, they can save a life.

There are different types of bullying such as physical, intimidation, verbal, indirect, social alienation, and cyber bullying. Cyber bullying has been a problem for the last couple of years on social sites such as “Yik Yak” and “Twitter.” Participants were reminded to remember how they would feel if they were put into a situation of bullying.

One of the questions asked of participants was, “Why do you think people do not intervene?”

One participant answered, “People don’t want to be involved, people don’t like drama, people don’t think its that big of a deal at the time.” 

Unfortunately, over 3.2 million people are bullied each year. Over half (56 percent) of people have witnessed bullying and have not intervened. A great amount of teens, about 160,000, have skipped school because of bullying and 75 percent of school shootings have started because of harassment.

Students can prevent bullying and stop it from becoming a bigger problem. Frostburg State University (FSU) has several resources on campus to help with bullying and abuse. The counseling center is located at the Sand Spring Hall and students can make an appointment for counseling. There are also many websites to talk about experiences dealing with bullying and for people to help that have already been there.

One of the ladies of Alpha Sigma Tau concluded, “We are an Internet generation and people are all over the world trying to help with bullying.” There is also an Anti-Bullying club here at FSU. The group meets on Tuesdays at 7 pm in Lane University Center, room 109.

Students dealing with bullying or those who want to become involved are encouraged to visit www.beatbullying.org.