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Mean Girls: A Teenager Talks About Being A Bully

Dori'Asia Smith
Basim Blunt
/
WYSO
Dori'Asia Smith

Sometimes you check the news and realize you are right in the middle of it. That happened to Dori'Asia Smith, a student at the David H. Ponitz Career Technology Center; she saw stories about bullied teens and kids who killed themselves because of it. She thought about it and realized, she was a bully. 

My name is Dori’Asia Smith. I am now 17 years old. I’m a senior, and I’m a varsity volleyball athlete. I was once a mean girl back in 7th grade. A mean girl is someone that picks on somebody else for no reason, just like bullying somebody. 

Me and my crew were the mean girls at school, to tell the truth I kind of liked it. Me and my group of friends, used to bully a girl name Donnika.  We didn’t know anything about her besides what we saw at school, that she walked and talked funny.

I felt popular, even though it was not nice. I really only did it because my friends were doing it, kind of like peer pressure, because i felt like i had to fit in with them.

Peer pressure is not all that great because you’re not actually being yourself, you’re being someone that other people want you to be. I didn’t want them to turn on me when they were talking about Donnika because I sure didn't want to get talked about.  I also need friends, so I was going try my hardest to fit in with them. I was basically a follower.

I remember one thing that we did that was really mean was talk about her hair. We were sitting in class one day, and Donnika was in the back of the room, sitting at her desk running her fingers through her hair.

Me and my mean girls went back there with, and one of the girl’s took her pencil and said “You don’t need this, you don’t even know how to do your work with your dumbass.”

The other girl begin to say, “with your nasty hairstyle.”

I stood there and laughed with the rest.  They begin to look at me like they wanted me to do some. So I went behind her and slightly shoved the back of her head and said, “Dummy.”

We all begin to walk away laughing. She started to cry. Donika never told on us.

So one day we tried to get her to start cussing, basically make her one of us. Of course we were the people talking smack to her. We just tried to teach her how to argue back, so we could actually have competition. But again all she did was walk away crying. 

In springtime, at school, it was lunchtime. I had lunch detention for talking back to my teacher. As I went to lunch detention, I spotted Donnika sitting down so I decided to sit by her thinking she would forget all the things I did. Sadly she didn't.  When I sat down she moved away.

I felt a little hurt because I knew exactly why she moved. So I tried to make things right. I got up and moved toward her and said, ”Donnika, I'm sorry.”

All she did was roll her eyes.

I began to say, “I'm really sorry I know it was wrong for me and my friends to that, and I apologize.”

She began to nod her head and smile a little. But she never did say she forgave me.

Dori'Asia Smith is a senior at Ponitz CTC High School. Special Thanks to Ponitz Radio media arts instructors Joanne Viskup and Jeffrey Crowell and to Katie Davis. Learn more at the school's website: http://ponitzctc.org/

Dayton Youth Radio is supported by the Virginia W. Kettering Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council

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