Redford YouTuber Shannon Monet is Speaking Up Against Bullies

As we begin a new school year, a well-discussed issue may plague some students’ social circles: bullying. One Michigan teen, Shannon Monet, is speaking up and transforming her own traumatic experiences of bullying into hope for others. Although Monet is 16 years old, she has helped others heal from bullying, all while working on her own trauma.

Click on Detroit Spotlight

In an interview with Click on Detroit, Shannon Monet can be seen wearing a blue denim dress and a yellow hat. She looks talented, self-assured, and confident; although, she revealed that she hadn’t always felt that way since she was mercilessly tormented by bullies when she was nine years old. “A lot of students used to call me names because I was the only Black kid in my classroom,” Monet said. “They use to say, ‘You are an N-word’ and different things like that. They called me that multiple times and one time, the teacher even heard it, and she didn’t do much about it.”

In the same interview, Regina Mills, Monet’s mother, said that, at first, she did not even know that her daughter was being bullied at school. She revealed that she only discovered that her child was going through the trauma of bullying when Monet put out a spoken-word poetry video she produced titled “Outcast.” She continued on to produce more videos and started to speak out on the effects of bullying in several podcasts where she was invited as a guest.

Her message to her peers who may be struggling with bullying: “We suggest telling your parents or finding a group that can really help you out.” She said that finding someone who you trust and can confide in is important when dealing with emotional trauma. “I also did ‘I am’ affirmations which helped build me up, like, ‘I am strong, I am confident,’ and I spoke against what other people labeled me as. ‘I am powerful, and I am beautiful,’” Monet said.