| Empowering kids to stop bullying 
By Natalie Hess SPECIAL TO THE SUN Do you know of someone who has been bullied or is currently being bullied? Bullying has increased tremendously over the past 10 years; due to all the technology and social networking sites that are being introduced. With all of these social networking sites, Cyberbullying has increased greatly. According to www.bullyingstatistics.org, suicide rates for young adults have increased 50 percent over the last 30 years due to bullying. Also, one in seven students from kindergarten to 12th grade fall victim to bullying. Something must be done to stop bullying because, it’s affecting too many kids and making their lives terrible and also making them have a greater risk of committing suicide. Over the summer there were two middle school students who committed suicide due to bullying in a nearby school district. Personally, I think that is absolutely ridiculous. What else has to happen to get administrators attention in that school district? I am a ninth-grade student at Southgate Schools. At the beginning of the year, my principal addressed all the students in my school. He did address bullying but when it came to athletes, he said, "The athletes are the leaders of our school no matter what." Last week, I had a substitute in my Physics class. This class is absolutely packed; there are 38 students in there. During class, there was a disturbance in which a student threw a pencil at another kid. Everybody thought he was just playing around with his pencil and just shrugged the situation off. Later in class, I heard eight football players had ganged up on this one kid and call him names like, "squirrel boy" and many other things. As I looked back at the kid, he was crying and the bullies were laughing, because they thought it was hilarious that he was crying. The substitute caught on to all of it and yelled at the kids saying, "Bullying is not cool, I have a kid who was bullied and it just affects your whole life. Think before you do or say something." I’ll give you one guess what those kids sitting in the back did, they laughed at it. The next day, the teacher addressed the situation in class by saying, "I’m not going to let anyone bully anyone in this classroom, especially if you wear a jersey. If I hear of any of you bullying anyone, I don’t care if you have a game coming up or if you ever play football again. You’re not going to bully people. I wonder how your coach would like it, if he heard about that." I thought that was pretty cool of a teacher to say that and stand up to bullying. Like I said before, something must be done about bullying. I created a Facebook page against bullying, so please check it out. You can find my page at www.facebook.com/savealifeandstopbullying. "Together, anything is possible." If people stand together and stand up to bullying, I do believe not only bullying but, suicides due to bullying can be reduced. If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact me at Natalieemmaa131018@gmail.com. | | My principal's a bully  By Tamyre Watkins SPECIAL TO THE SUN Here’s some shocking news! The principal at Marcus Garvey Academy is the bully of the school. Mr. James Hearn is telling students not to go to the candy store in the morning, and that is illegal for him to tell us that. The reason why it is illegal for him to tell us that is because our Student Code of Conduct does not say that we can’t go to the candy store in the morning. Our Student Code of Conduct says, "Students are not to enter the school more than 15 minutes before their program begins and are to leave within 10 minutes after the end of their program, unless they show legitimate cause (athletic activities, school clubs, dramatics, etc.) for arriving earlier or remaining longer." It’s not fair for Mr. Hearn to tell us what to do on our free time. If we go to the candy store from home, it should be ok. My mother said that I could go to the candy store. I did not go into the school and leave out. I was searched and treated unfairly. It’s not fair for him to search us. It feels wrong. It makes me feel like a criminal and like I did something bad. They search our book bags, purses and pockets. And, that’s after we’ve walked through the metal detector. They even search our lunch bags. Why does he have to search our lunch bags? We’re not eating it, until lunch. That’s just wrong for them to touch my food. I don’t want their germs. Mr. Hearn wouldn’t like it, if people touched his food with their germy hands. He wouldn’t like it, if we checked his pockets and lunch bag. He wouldn’t like it, if we suspended him from school for having candy in his lunch bag. He wouldn’t like it, if my mother came up to the school and told him off. Mr. Hearn should act like a principal and worry about his own business. He should go around and tell the teachers to teach and get us ready for the MEAP test. Kids have rights too. What we do on our free time is our business. When he’s breaking the law, he should be punished by the board. He should be sued. We have enough to worry about. We shouldn’t have to be bullied by the principal. Tamyre Watkins is a courageous 9-year-old student at Marcus Garvey Academy on Detroit’s east side. 
| | Mindless Behavior 
By LaTia Reynolds SPECIAL TO THE SUN Have you lost your mind? Many kids are going crazy over Mindless Behavior, a new rap group that features Prodigy, Roc Royal, Ray Ray and Princeton. The group was formed in 2008, when each member auditioned in front of record executives Walter Millsap and others. Over 600 kids came out, but these guys stood out and landed a deal. "We clicked from the first day we met, because we all love music and performing," said Princeton. "On stage, we go all out." Some people are now comparing them to New Edition, B2K and the Jacksons. But, there’s doesn’t appear to be any rivalry or friction going on among Mindless Behavior. They released their first album #1 Girl in September, and it is climbing up the charts and is receiving a lot of love on Detroit radio stations and from fans. "We really want to show our fans how much we love them with #1 Girl," said Prodigy. "We want them to know we’re just like them. We’re all mindless 24/7, and they can be too." And, fans are finding out that a lot of fun can be had by going mindless. "Our fan base is really growing, and we couldn’t be more excited," said Roc Royal. "We give them what they want. We can relate to them, because we’re all kids and we love having fun." The group appears to be having a lot of fun on their single Mrs. Right, which features Diggy Simmons. The song reached #1 on BET’s 106 and Park’s countdown and stayed there for three weeks. Mindless Behavior shows that they’ve got swagger too on their third single, Girls Talkin Bout. "The song shows how all of these girls talk about us, because of our confidence, style, swag and how mindless we are", says Princeton. The group shows that sometimes, it’s ok to be mindless, and they want others to let loose and to get mindless too. "Anybody can be mindless," said Ray Ray. "It doesn’t matter if you’re 2 years old or 82 years old. Be yourself. Love who you are, and love what you do, no matter what it is. That makes you mindless." Getting Diggy By Monet Jenkins SPECIAL TO THE SUN Some people learn to rap, while others are born to rap. For Daniel Dawayne Simmons III, aka Diggy, rap and hip-hop is in his blood line. The 16-year-old rapper is the son of hip-hop royalty, but he’s showing everyone that he can hold his own. Instead of using his famous father, Rev. Run of the old school hip-hop group Run DMC, to help him get a deal, he did it on his own. Prior to signing a record deal with Atlantic Records, Diggy took to the internet and promoted his own mix tapes and received a lot of buzz. His first mix tape, The First Flight, was released in 2009, and over 100,000 people downloaded it from his blog. In 2010, Diggy posted a video of himself freestyling to Nas’ song Made You Look, and it caught the attention of Kanye West who said, "I knew this kid was going to be fresh". That same year, Diggy dropped Airborne, his second mix tape. The kid, who took was in the background to his older siblings and parents on the hit MTV reality show Run’s House, is now in the spotlight. Diggy Simmons is not only a rising hip-hop star, but he is an entrepreneur too. Following in his Uncle Russell Simmons (founder of Phat Farm clothing line) footsteps, he created his own line of gym shoes called Chivalrous Culture. He designs fashions too. As fans await the release of his album, Diggy can be heard on the singles Like Em All by Jacob Latimore, Mrs Right by Mindless Behavior and Yeah Right by Dionne Bromfield. Although hip-hop flows in his blood and he is a descendant of hip-hop royalty, Diggy Simmons is proving that he can hold his own. So, are you ready to get Diggy? | |