The Best Example That Hope Lies With The Kids That You’ll Read All Day 

On occasion, and sadly, not often enough, I derive enormous amounts of pleasure from snippets that I read on the Internet. Most articles that you read about kids consist of the doom and gloom about teenagers - how kids are on drugs, or teens are robbing liquor stores and putting it on YouTube, or students are shooting up high schools and colleges, or kids are apathetic general. You know the familar refrain.

This story is most definitely not about any of those topics. This is a story about the best of our kids. The Grade 9 student arrived for the first day of school last Wednesday and was set upon by a group of six to 10 older students who mocked him, called him a homosexual for wearing pink and threatened to beat him up. The next day, Grade 12 students David Shepherd and Travis Price decided something had to be done about bullying. “It’s my last year.
 
I’ve stood around too long and I wanted to do something,” said David. They used the Internet to encourage people to wear pink and bought 75 pink tank tops for male students to wear. They handed out the shirts in the lobby before class last Friday — even the bullied student had one. Wait. There’s more. “The bullies got angry,” said Travis. “One guy was throwing chairs (in the cafeteria). We’re glad we got the response we wanted.” David said one of the bullies angrily asked him whether he knew pink on a male was a symbol of homosexuality. He told the bully that didn’t matter to him and shouldn’t to anyone.

This bit of good news comes via Fark from the Chronicle Herald - in Nova Scotia. The only beef that I have with this is that it didn’t occur in the United States, so I could wave an American flag as I write. Life imitates John Hughes. Can real life have mid-80’s new wave music playing in the background? Today’s Hope For Humanity Award is hereby given to high school students David Shepherd and Travis Price. The world can learn a lot from you two kids. I applaud.