By Odeisel

Last week, the Internet was set ablaze by a YouTube video. Not the one by the freakishly bad pop aspiring “sensation” Rebecca Black (more infamous than famous) but by the simple act of defiance that deals with one of the hot button issues of the day: bullying. It seems no country is safe from oppression by the “in-crowd.” Australia is no exception and teenager Casey Heynes was the victim of bullying just one too many times. Surrounded by other kids from his school, Heynes attempted to quietly walk away from the main antagonist (12 year old Ritchard Gale), who had already punched him in the face, and was taunting him, dancing on his toes like Muhammad Ali and throwing jabs repeatedly while onlookers goaded him on.

Heynes, fed up with years of general abuse from kids, snapped and body-slammed the much smaller Gale. A few days later, the slam heard round the world was on computer screens everywhere. I can’t lie to you, children or not, I was in tears laughing at a bully who got his comeuppance. But as you know the Internet doesn’t stop there. once their actual names got out, people start making Facebook pages, and YouTube parodies, etc. The event became a signature moment in standing up to bullies, analogous to Rosa Parks in handcuffs after she left the bus. (Don’t underestimate mass media’s speed and ability to co-opt anything as a symbol) and hundred of thousands of people have rallied around Heynes for standing up for himself, something so many others never had the courage to do.

But as he’s gotten support, so has Gale been the target of vitriol and  the collective angst of lunch money surrenderers across the globe. The product of  a single parent household (father), I’m sure his childhood is worn on by the same pressures in his preteens as every other kid. It just so happened that he was on the wrong side of a bad decision. In the below interview, he gives his side of the story, not making excuses or not disavowing his part in the incident but saying there was more to it. His words in the original video,  (“heard you was talking shit”) would seem to support that to a certain extent. In any event, he got what he got, and that body slam may have saved his life and “learned” his ass a valuable lesson; one that could have saved him from a life of criminality or even worse, picking on the wrong person with heat.

We’ve all done stupid things as children. We shoplift, get caught, get spanked and learn. We play with matches or do things out of ignorance of curiosity. What happened was on the playground and it got settled by the laws of the playground. Nothing more, nothing less. This less has always been the same lesson: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” “don’t hit unless you prepared to get hit” etc. If you were giving up your milk money before, Heyne’s victory won’t help you. You have to stickup for yourself.

Let’s not forget that these are children. Children going through things all of us have gone through, without the entire world watching. Let’s not destroy the life of a 12 year old boy when the lesson he needed was already delivered, WWE-style. He got his comeuppance. It shouldn’t keep on coming.

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