His name was Mitchell Wilson. He suffered from muscular dystrophy. But that didn't save him from being savagely bullied. When he learned he would have to testify in court against his alleged attacker, it was too much for the gentle boy, and he killed himself.
But now his words will speak from beyond the grave.
A judge has ruled that written statements will be allowed as evidence against a boy charged with bullying and robbing Mitchell Wilson, an 11-year-old Pickering, Ont., boy who took his own life.
The Crown alleges that Wilson, who suffered from muscular dystrophy and used a walker, was bullied and attacked in November 2010. He was walking in his neighbourhood and allegedly attacked and robbed of his father's iPhone. Wilson suffered broken teeth in the attack.
As you know I hate bullies of all stripes. From Stephen Harper and his thug Cons, to those who bully children for being different or gentle, to those who beat helpless old people in senior's homes.
So you can imagine how I feel about those who bullied and assaulted a disabled boy and drove him to suicide.
“He was never the same after the mugging,” said Mitchell’s father, Craig Wilson, who found his son’s lifeless body on Sept. 6 — a plastic bag tied around the young boy’s head — when he went to wake him up for what would have been his first day of Grade 6. “Ultimately it shattered his life.”
Or how I felt when I read what his grandmother had to say today.
“He said to me, ‘Mimi, my biggest issue is that I can’t protect myself, and if a man cannot protect himself, then he is not a man,’” recalled Ms. Wilson.
I wondered why a gentle child would have to become violent to live in a place like Canada. And then I discovered this.
Among the other findings, 45 per cent of all the Canadian youths in this survey agreed with the statement that “to be a man, you need to be tough.” That compared to 13 per cent in the U.K. and 26 per cent in Rwanda.
And it explained so much. Why we have bullies in our parliament, so many goons on our hockey rinks, and why we don't take bullying seriously enough.
For the record, I was a gentle child who was forced to become violent, or take martial arts, in order to survive. And although I did get a measure of revenge, what I can never forgive the bullies for is forcing me to be someone I was not.
Because boys should not be forced to conform to such narrow old-fashioned gender roles. And neither should girls.
The report, released Thursday by the development agency Plan International, found 31 per cent of Canadian boys aged 12 to 17 believe a woman’s most important role is feeding her family and taking care of the home.
They should just be who they are.
Which just happens to be the same message another gentle boy left behind before some anti-gay bullies drove him to suicide.
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