Make it Stop
Music is many things. It is a hobby or profession for some and an enjoyable way to pass the time for others. As a medium primarily meant for entertainment, the lyrics of songs have immense power to influence the minds of the masses without them even realising it.
An internet fad doing the rounds on social media of late is the 30 day song challenge. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it has different prompts everyday to share songs that mean something to you. This is a great way to discover more music and find out that one of your friends has a similar in taste in music as you. While it was aimed at quick, low effort consumption, I felt it could have been so much more.
Inspired by the idea of the challenge, I decided I would do something similar. A series of small articles talking about some of my favourite songs with social, political or cultural messages or anything that I feel conveys a lot of meaning. If you know any other songs about the same, please feel free to share.
To kick things off, bullying. We’ve all seen the countless movies and TV shows depicting (sometimes, unfortunately, glorifying) bullying in American high schools. Most of them end with a feel good wherein the stereotypical skinny kid ends up winning the day and the bully learns the error of their ways. The reality however is far more tragic. Many victims of bullying never fully recover mentally from the experience and in the most extreme cases, they attempt to take their own life. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers after homicides and accidents.
Bullying in India is something that’s not often talked about. However, a survey conducted by the Times of India found that one in three Indians has experienced bullying and like so many other serious issues in our country, it is brushed off, simply part and parcel of growing up, they say. “It’s nothing more than harmless teasing”. Forget that bullying in India persists even at a collegiate level where the much more glamorous ragging is prevalent even today. When institutions are more concerned with protecting their public image than safeguarding their students’ physical and mental health despite the laws that have been put in place, there’s not much a victim can do.
We Indians pride ourselves on unity in diversity but are so quick to bully anyone who is even slightly different. People are bullied because of their height, their weight, their colour, their accent, the language they speak, where they come from, the things they like and of course the people they like, their sexual orientation.
With the legalisation of homosexuality in India, many have come out publicly and shared heartbreaking stories of the abuse they had to weather for being different. Bullying someone for their sexual orientation or anything else is not something we should be walking past anymore.
Now that I’ve had time to rant, I’ll get to the song, Make it Stop (September’s Children) by Rise Against. Rise Against is an American rock band whose music primarily focuses on the many issues they see in the world. I suspect I will be bringing up multiple Rise Against songs during this series, so I might as well start with one.
The song Make it Stop, also called September’s children is both an ode to victims of ‘bullycide’ and a call to arms for the rest of us to take notice and do something instead of simply mourning the dead. In September of 2010, there were nine cases of suicide as a result of LGBT bullying in the USA, hence the name September’s children as a tribute.
The song mentions five of their names in remembrance and goes on to ask other victims to stay strong and keep on living.
“They’re gathering some candles, but not their tongues.” is a line that always gets me. We’re happy to stand idly by as someone goes through a living hell and once it’s too late to help we mourn and tell each other nothing could have been done.
Stop glorifying bullying. If you know someone who is being bullied or someone who is a bully, stand up and rise against.
P.S. I’ll leave another notable mention below. I found this song on the top of a list posted during anti-bullying month and loved it instantly.