This year marks a decade since two high school students purchased a stack of 50 pink shirts and distributed them to their classmates.
It’s probably safe to guess David Shepherd and Travis Price weren’t thinking their gesture would become a world-wide symbol protesting bullying. They were just making a statement in support of a fellow student who was bullied for wearing a pink shirt on the first day of school.
Though the day chosen varies, their actions inspired governments, first in Nova Scotia—followed by B.C. in 2008—to set aside a day to take a stand against the never-ending problem of bullying. Pink Shirt Day spread around the world, with even the United Nations taking a stand, proclaiming May 4 International Anti-bullying Day.
Statistics collected by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research paint a chilling picture of bullying: At least one in three adolescent students in Canada have reported being bullied. It doesn’t stop when you graduate, with an estimated 40 per cent of Canadian workers experiencing bullying on a weekly basis.
Figuring out why people bully would be a lifelong quest, with a different answer for every bully. But a number of studies, including one by the Yale School of Medicine, have linked youth and adolescent suicide with bullying.
Bullying may be an age-old problem, but it seems the Internet, and increasingly social media, has expanded the bully’s range.
Seven per cent of adult Internet users in Canada report having been a victim of cyber-bullying at some point in their life, with the most common form of cyber-bullying involving receiving threatening or aggressive e-mails or instant messages, reported by 73 per cent of the victims.
Wearing a pink shirt, or other clothing item, one day out of the year isn’t going to solve the problem. But raising awareness of the damage bullying does is far better than telling the bullied that “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”