Some of my Canadian?readers will recall that on the 10th of October 2012, the?young girl in the video above,?a month shy of her 16th birthday, a milestone for any kid, hung herself in a bedroom in Port Coquitlam?(affectionately called Poco?by residents), a Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada?suburb, the victim of vicious attacks and bullying both by a exploitative pedophile and later, as a result, “slut-shaming” by her peers.
But what would cause a young girl to take her own life? She wanted what we all want ? love and acceptance. And she found it in all the wrong places. The video below?is her final, tragic message to the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyHX7wMJBY0
The late Ms. Amanda Todd?was a teenager who had, like many young girls do, taken provocative pictures of herself and made webcam videos depicting pseudo-sexual activity. When some of these photos?were extorted from her as a preteen?from a pedophile,?they ended up all over the internet.
I encourage you, by all that is holy, not to go Googling them.
Ms. Todd was bullied at school not just for her desperate attempts for acceptance from others, but for her cries for help, which manifested themselves in promiscuity, even with guys who were much older and in supposedly?committed relationships?of their own.
She was also the victim of bullying for her learning challenges, leading to anxiety, depression, substance abuse and said promiscuity, not to mention suicide attempts, including an incident where she chugged an entire bottle of bleach and had to be rushed to hospital to have her stomach pumped.
The signs were all there of a young lady?desperate for help, but she never got the help that she so desperately needed. Her parents, the system ? we all let Amanda and those like her down, perhaps because (and this should truly frighten you if you are a parent or a teenage girl) many secretly identify with these sorts of deviants.
For example, R. Kelly the singer is?a man who not only had intercourse on tape with underage females, but married the late singer Aaliyah?when she was just 15 and he was 27. His career has continued in the way one would expect of a person with a clean record. As a result,?it is clear that some of us consider some sexual activity between people of such ages acceptable in society, even when it is clear the younger party is being terribly and unmercifully exploited.
But what does else it say about society beyond the fact that young women?seem increasingly willing to compromise themselves and their dignity and self-respect (and sometimes their personal safety) for ?acceptance? and no one is there for them? What about what I just touched on? That males seem to think it’s okay to mack on ?an underage girl? What are we teaching young males?in our schools? We can’t even get them to read and write at their grade level, let alone teach them respect for women. It’s cool somehow for a guy to ?get laid? any way he can, even if it is at the expense of and exploits someone they are pretending to care about.
Destroying someone else just to get off is ?acceptable.? What the hell is wrong with our society?
Apparently this ?girl power? and female empowerment?and feminist movements have?done little in the way of curbing bullying. All that has accomplished is getting women into criminal corporations and committing acts that previously only men were guilty of and their own reproductive freedom.
Amanda Todd never experienced respect or love from anyone, including the people who mattered most in her life. She had spent time in 24 hour psychiatric care at a hospital. What exactly did they do for her? Pump her full of drugs, tell her to stop her substance abuse and then push her out the door? I don’t understand this society. Everyone is looking out for Number 1. We live in a selfish, self-absorbed society looking for the next high, the next moment of self-gratification, even if it has to be at the expense of someone else.
Here in?Canada,?we tend to think we are socially superior to America. That we are more tolerant and understanding of others. We have social programs like healthcare to prove it, right?
Those things are great and I wouldn’t want to live in any other place in the world. But government programs?do not replace or exemplify our humanity or our compassion. We still have a responsibility as human beings and individuals to stand up for what is right and just. We might ask, how does this happen to someone like Amanda Todd? This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not here. Not in Canada. Certainly not in progressive Vancouver.
I want to talk to her. Tell her how things are. That she wasn’t alone. But I can’t. All I have left are videos and pictures of a human life that was taken far too early and needlessly.
Rest in peace, young lady. Your life meant a lot to people you never even knew ? including myself, who never even knew you. Girls’ lives matter.
For more on her story, please see this video from CBC’s THE FIFTH ESTATE:
