KALI­FA SARAH CLYNE

Au­thor and an­ti-bul­ly­ing ac­tivist Jodee Blan­co says the ques­tion most vic­tims of bul­ly­ing ask them­selves is "What's wrong with me?" Blan­co, who has toured the world, reach­ing out to par­ents, stu­dents and teach­ers was in T&T last week at the in­vi­ta­tion of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion as part of an ini­tia­tive to tack­le vi­o­lence in the na­tion's schools. The ac­tivist vis­it­ed sev­er­al schools and spoke at the ball­room at the Hy­att Re­gency Port-of-Spain, on the ef­fects bul­ly­ing had on her life. She al­so gave ad­vice to par­ents whose chil­dren may be vic­tims of bul­ly­ing. The 48-year-old Amer­i­can said that from the ages of 11 to 18 she had been bul­lied by oth­er stu­dents at her school. "I was the kid that no one want­ed to hang out with. I was the one who cried at home be­cause every school year was a night­mare for me," Blan­co said. De­spite her out­ward con­fi­dence, Blan­co said she would nev­er be the se­cure per­son she could have been be­cause of how her class­mates treat­ed her. She told of the some­times vi­o­lent na­ture of the bul­lies who picked on her. At one time, she said, two boys held her down while a girl shoved snow in­to her mouth. At an­oth­er time a dis­sect­ed ba­by pig was flung at her face. "I al­ways won­dered what's wrong with me? Why every­one was laugh­ing at me? It is a ques­tion I asked most of my life," said Blan­co. She cau­tioned that if the prob­lem of bul­ly­ing wasn't tak­en care of, every year so­ci­ety would be send­ing wound­ed peo­ple in­to the world. She said there were two types of bul­ly­ing-one in which the stu­dent was overt­ly bul­lied and the oth­er where the stu­dent seemed in­vis­i­ble and no one would talk to them. Blan­co said her bul­ly­ing end­ed when she went to col­lege and be­came a suc­cess­ful woman, work­ing in the White House at the age of 23. Even so, she said, her emo­tion­al wounds ran deep. Blan­co is the au­thor of two books, Please Stop Laugh­ing at Me and Please Stop Laugh­ing at us.