"Tell Me How to Fix This"
The Bully Project, a new documentary from filmmaker Lee Hirsch is a heartbreaking look at on-going violence and harassment that plagues school communities. Over the course of the film we meet
- Alex (pictured), whose daily abuse from peers stymies school officials who can't seem to offer much beyond shake-and-make-up solutions.
- Kelby, shunned by her community for coming out as gay, adults and students alike make school unsafe for her.
- Ja'meya, a 14 year-old behind bars for pulling a gun on her tormentors.
But the motivation for The Bully Project is most acutely illustrated by the kids we don't meet – seventeen year-old Tyler Long, eleven year-old Ty Smalley, and hundreds like them – who took their own lives in response to relentless bullying. Their deaths are the tragic effects of a dysfunction readily acknowledged to be everywhere, but nowhere in particular.
It's like alcoholism, said Tyler Long's mother in a Q and A following The Bully Project screening in Washington, D.C. "Until