The Declaration of Rights of the Bullied

You have the right to feel pain and hurt when someone says or does something that hurts you, even unintentionally.

You have the right to brush off someone else's words and actions and not allow them to affect your life.

You have the right to lose respect for someone who hurts you.

You have the right to be empathetic, and choose to understand that their words don't necessarily mean who they are.

You have the right to believe that someone is bullying you out of sheer sadistic cruelty.

You have the right to believe that sometimes the meanest people are those who are the most hurt inside.

You have the right to stand up for yourself in the heat of the moment. To call out behaviour that hurts you or others. To point fingers and say "This is wrong. This needs to change."

You have the right to stand up for yourself days, weeks, months or years after the fact. Sometimes you graduate from school and you and that bully are both in your 30s. Maybe they've matured. Maybe they haven't. You have the right to say to them, "You bullied me years ago."

You have the right to your own safety. If you suspect violence or escalation from a bully, you have the right to stay silent. To run away and hide. To guage for yourself what your next move should be.

You have the right to tell whomever you want about your bullying. Your friends, your parents, your teachers, the police.

You have the right to stay silent.

Sometimes friends will gossip.
Sometimes parents tell you it's not such a big deal.
Sometimes teachers will tell you to just try harder to make friends.
Sometimes police will tell you that it's your own fault.

You have the right to call out school and work administration on verbal threats. If someone says "I'm going to kill you with a knife," You do not have to wait until violence occurs. You can call the police. You can demand safety. You do not have to treat threats as empty or meaningless.

You have the right to avoid police action if you feel they are untrustworthy or biased.

You have the right to online safety, and a space that is free from verbal and image harassment.

Free speech does not mean freedom to harass.
You have the right to block anyone you choose on any service you choose for any reason you choose. You are not a coward for doing so.

Free speech does not mean freedom from criticism.
You have the right to engage bullies and tell them to stop. You own your profiles and your spaces. Your youtube channel, your blog. You can moderate who gets their words seen by the world and who doesn't. You have the right to tell someone they are being hurtful, and that their words will make them unwelcome.

You have the right to give warnings.
You have the right to block without warning.

Free speech does not mean safety in anonymity.
You have the right to report someone's behaviour to site administration. You have the right to disable and delete anonymous comments. You have the right to record and gather evidence of bullying, to report threats and harassment to the police.

You have the right to talk about your experiences with bullying. You can write journals, news articles and make videos expressing your experiences and opinions.

You have the right to be constantly talking about bullying. You have the right to be obsessed with bullying. You have the right to never stop talking about bullying. You have the right to be "no fun anymore" because you're always talking about bullying. You have the right to take things too seriously.

You have the right to be who you are, online and in person. You have the right to your body, your gender, your sexuality, your religion, your background and your future.

You have the right to like the things and hobbies that you like. To wear the clothes you want. To speak and exist in a way that suits you.

You have the right to conceal yourself.

You have the right to keep your hobbies and interests secret. To never show a picture of your face online. You have the right to conceal your gender or sexuality or personality to keep yourself safe from harm. You have the right to alter the way you present yourself to the world for the sake of survival.

You have the right to transition between these two states. If being who you are openly is so painful, such a target on your back, you have the right to retreat to safety. You are not a coward. You are not less of a person for taking care of yourself.

You have the right to be a leader. Someone that people can look up to and take initiative from. You can spearhead anti-bullying campaigns. You can be proactive. You can contribute to change.

You have the right to defend yourself. You do not owe the world your help. You do not need to break yourself for the sake of others. You can follow. You can be silent. You are not a coward.

You have the right to introspection and reflection. You have the right to spend as much time as you want dwelling on your feelings of hurt. You have the right to imagine how your life would be different without bullying. You have the right to cry, publicly, or privately, over things that hurt you.

You have the right to have hope.
You have the right to feel hopeless.

You have the right to not smile, to not be happy, to not show the world a brave face when you are being hurt. You have the right to emotional honesty. No one can demand from you happiness when you are not happy. You are not a coward. You have the right not to keep your chin up.

You have the right to feel defeated, beaten and bruised. You have the right to feel loss and grief and hurt. You have the right to think that that bully has won, fully and utterly. You are not a coward.

You have the right to feel like you are bigger and better than that bully. You have the right to feel moral outrage. You have the right to feel like It Won't Get Better Unless You Make It Get Better.

You have the right to exist in a space that is physically and emotionally safe.
You have the right to demand that adults take responsibility and make it that way.

You have the right to be permanently damaged by bullying.
You have the right to let your experiences help you grow and become more as a human being.



Know your rights.


(This video will not work for some viewers (USA). It works in Canada. For US residents, try Netflix or Hulu.)
Bully: the Movie (2011) (documentary)