Blog: When Words Speak Louder Than Actions

True or False? Actions speak louder than words.

False.

In many situations, high school being one, words can speak just as loud, if not louder than actions. The number of insults and mean names that you hear walking through the halls of high school is astonishing. As teenagers, it is assumed to be in our nature to curse or call someone names like “gay” or “retard”. In this respect, I am ashamed of my generation.

Since when did it become “cool” to call someone an idiot when they trip in the hallway? Since when is it funny to laugh and say “gay” when somebody is trying to express themselves? Since when does the bully in this situation become the hero and the victim the class joke?

It seems a little backwards to me.  ? Maybe because we just think it’s fun, maybe because we don’t think that it does any harm. The sad thing is, it does.

What do we expect? The person being bullied to turn around and say “hey, please stop calling me that, it hurts me”? If we’re waiting for that to happen then we’ll be waiting forever. When everybody else is laughing, they are going to turn around and laugh too. They don’t want to look weak, so they act as if it doesn’t affect them and just laugh along with the rest of us. Maybe some or most people take these things as a joke, but there are definitely a few who could do without being called a mean name for a day.

Maybe that’s why WMC has implemented “No Name Calling Week”, a week where name calling is frowned upon and students try to spread awareness of just how often we yell out a mean name. The fact that we even need a week for this shows that we clearly call people names too much.

Last week, No Name Calling Week at WMC, going through the school you would hear “hey it’s no name calling week!” It’s nice to know that people are calling their peers out on their mistakes. Even if they are just saying it jokingly, we are seeing just how often we use mean names and are possibly starting to realize the affect we have on others. This is a step in the right direction, but there are many more steps to take on the road to .