JACKSON, Mich., Oct. 21 (UPI) -- A Michigan boy stayed home on National Bullying Prevention Day because he felt he would still be bullied anyway, his great-aunt and guardian said.
Phyliis Kuteron, said her nephew, third-grader Ajani Rivers, 8, of Jackson, has been bullied on the bus and in the playground, mainly for being overweight and wearing his hair in long corn rows, the Jackson Citizen Patriot reported Thursday.
Kuteron didn't think Wednesday's bullying prevention day at Sharp Park Academy, on which students were to wear pink to display their awareness and disapproval of bullying, would make any difference in the way Ajani's peers would treat him.
"I just felt (keeping the boy home) is our way of celebrating or honoring this day. He's probably going to be bullied (today) when he goes back," Kuteron said.
Kuteron said the school needs to do more to halt bullying. She said a school assembly on Pink Shirt Day would have been helpful.
Some students call Rivers fat. He's overweight due to medication he takes for asthma and skin problems. They also call him gay, probably because of the corn rows, Kuteron said.
"I feel like I want to punch (the bullies) in the face. But I don't do that, because I'm not that kind of kid," Rivers said, adding he sticks up for himself more than he did in the past.
Kuteron is thinking of sending Rivers to a Catholic school.
