Bullying starts with a label. It’s a proven fact. Every form of bullying starts with a single solitary label. A single thought or opinion someone used to describe someone else.

It all starts with that girl with the frizzy hair who sits at the back of the cafeteria, all by herself and never looks up from her book. She never talks to anyone and chews her fingernails. Somebody looks at her and labels her as a weirdo, a freak, an outcast. Then that somebody tells that friend next to them, and pretty soon the whole table is laughing at it and coming up with evidence to prove that girl is weird or freaky or whatever.

Then pretty soon that guy tells that girl and then that girl tells that guy and then that guy laughs about it with his football mates and then that guy dares is friend to ask her out and then humiliate her and it goes on.

Meanwhile, the poor girl, whose only crime was to read a book and to be a little shy, is labeled, and given a reputation that she did not want. Sooner or later she will come to know the names being called behind her back. Soon she will find out about the hate notes jammed into her locker. Soon she will find herself standing in a corner, alone at her homecoming dance while people stare at her and snicker behind their hands.

The same thing happens with that boy with the huge glasses or that girl with the XXL T-Shirt. Bullying starts with a label.

What if we just stopped using labels? What if we just stopped labeling things and opening our minds? What if we just put out thoughts and feelings away and just laughed? Would that be so bad?

Bullying starts with a label. If we stopped using labels, by simple logic, we would stop bullying.