In the Chinese movie CJ7, one of the characters told the protagonist not to worry that they’d tell on him for standing up for himself, because they “don’t discuss their business with adults”. Although it was just a movie, there is some truth to this statement. In my experience it has been an unspoken rule among middle and high schoolers to refrain from discussing one’s business with adults… and this has not always been a good thing.

While I would never encourage telling on someone for something minor, like chewing gum in class or wearing headphones in the lunch line, I can’t help but take issue with the idea that no matter what someone does or says to you, you can’t say anything to a faculty member or you’re a “snitch”. (I will refer to this idea as “snitch culture”.) The reason why I take issue with it, is because it breeds an environment where people can bully you, harass you, or otherwise make you uncomfortable, and you can’t do anything about it.

Okay, so that’s not entirely true. If you’re a seasoned sass-master, you could try to stand up for them yourself… but there are issues with this. One of them is that it’s not always effective — in fact, in my experience, it has never been. There have been countless instances in which I have told someone to leave me alone, in polite ways and rude ways alike, and there wasn’t one time I was not met with further aggression that I didn’t know how to respond to, oooooohing, or “Haha, he’s mad”. Furthermore, standing up for yourself is scary. You can memorize an entire database of quality comebacks and practice them in the mirror until you’re blue in the face, but that does not necessarily mean you’ll remember them when someone actually does mess with you. I know I didn’t.

It’s very easy to contribute to snitch culture, especially as someone who was once actually a tattletale. In the sixth grade, I proudly got people in trouble for the most trivial things, and upon realizing that I was a tattletale I never told adults anything again. I made it a rule for myself to “not discuss my business with adults”, like the kids in CJ7. Unfortunately, what I could never have predicted through any amount of thoroughly-thought-through hypothetical situations was that every time someone bullied me or made me uncomfortable I’d be left with the same feeling: as rightfully hurt as I was, I would not receive justice.In other words, whoever was making me uncomfortable would never be held accountable for their actions. They would continue prancing through the hallways whistling a merry tune without anyone ever telling them, “You made fun of an autistic kid. That’s messed up.”

I let this slide many, many times, but there came a point where I decided I was done with letting people hurt me and get away with it.

One day in the girls’ locker room (I could not use the boys’ locker room for fear of harassment), I was practicing a song I would be singing for Ethnic Fest, and in the middle of my practice session I heard a voice behind me say “Whatcha doin’?” She had a smug expression on her face and a phone in her hand, the camera facing me. I demanded to know if she was filming me, and she said she wasn’t. Nonetheless, the next day when I was in the lunch line, my other friend showed me her Snapchat story — and I was all over it. There was clip after clip of me singing, with the caption “LMFAO” accompanied by laughing emojis. Not only had she made fun of me; now all her friends were making fun of me too.

The next day I confronted her about it. I asked her why she thought putting footage of me on Snapchat that I neither knew about nor consented to, was somehow okay. She justified it by saying that “It’s Snapchat. It’s gone now.” The more I protested, the more she ignored me, and after a while she said, “If you don’t shut up I’ll film you again.”

I shut up… until I came to the realization that if she was not punished, she might do it to someone else. And I was not going to let that happen.

So I emailed my biology teacher about what happened, and he forwarded my message to administration after I identified her. He informed me that administration would deal with her sometime after the new school year started. There are no words for how relieved I was that I had finally indirectly stood up for myself, and hopefully someone else.

What I believe is important to note about this situation, is how lucky I was. After the summer during which I had reported her, I would not be returning to Rufus King International School. Thus, I would not have to worry about her harassing me more once she put two and two together and came to the conclusion that I turned her in. (This is part of the reason why I got up the courage to do it.) Other kids might not have any such luck; they will still have to go to class, see, and possibly even still interact with the same kids who bullied them. Their bully might find out by process of elimination that they reported them, even if it was an anonymous tip, and then tell other people so that the person getting bullied gets the reputation of “snitch”.

This is why we need to end the stigma around “snitching”. It results in malicious people going unpunished. It results in schools where bullies can do anything they want to people, and their victims not speaking up because they’ve been conditioned into thinking that doing so would make them just as bad as someone who ratted them out for chewing gum in class. It results in schools where people cannot do things others consider “weird” without ending up on Snapchat.

In order to end snitch culture, any young people reading this need to realize that feeling uncomfortable at school is not normal and not something that should happen to you, regardless of how weird you are. If you have to be at school from 6, 7, or 8 AM to 2, 3, or 4 PM, then you deserve to feel comfortable there — it’s the least the faculty can do for you if they’re going to make you stay there for nine-ish hours. That said, most schools do have an anti-bullying policy, but they can’t enforce it unless they know who’s being bullied. If you are not being bullied but hear an account of someone who “snitched”, do not condemn them — if you are in middle or high school, it is highly unlikely that anyone rats anyone out for texting in class or bringing headphones to school. Therefore, whoever told you that they were “snitched on” for something like that is probably lying. Before you accept it as truth, ask the “snitch” if that was really what they reported to the teacher, because there might be more to the story than them seeing a bag of Doritos under their bully’s desk.

Always remember is that it is never the victim’s fault that they were being bullied, regardless of their actions or perceived eccentricity. They do not need to be less weird; their bullies need to be less shitty.