Thursday November 8th will be a special day, a day where  many bloggers will unite against bullying in their own special way. I will be creating a special purple nail art to raise awareness that bullying is always going on but often hidden by both bullies and victims. Showing them that we care will hopefully cause them to think and maybe, just maybe, we can make it a little less bad.

Bullying is not funny. It is not cool. It is not right. And more importantly, it is not okay. 

Most of us are, thankfully, residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason. Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet.

As members of the nail polish blogging community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer. Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color…even to our polish application techniques. To marginalize anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that. I refuse to allow other people’s view of “normal” dictate how I behave, believe, and blog. 

In solidarity with a multitude of bloggers linked below, my purple manicure represents my proud commitment to the No H8 movement. Today, November 8, I dedicate my post to ending bullying of any kind and to encouraging diversity and imperfection among our colorful community.

(Here’s a translation for the fellow Dutch/Belgian dutch speaking bloggers who would like to participate as well:

Pesten is niet grappig. Het is niet cool. En nog belangrijker, het is niet goed.
De meesten van ons zijn, gelukkig maar, inwoners van een land dat staat voor tolerantie en veel van onze families hebben zich in dit land gevestigd om die reden. Generaties later, is het onze verantwoordelijkheid om die boodschap van tolerantie op onze nieuwe sociale platforms, waaronder het internet, te blijven verspreiden.
Als leden van de (nagellak) blogging gemeenschap delen wij allemaal een liefde voor schoonheid, kleur en lak. Daarnaast, zijn we allemaal opmerkelijk verschillend: van onze achtergrond en godsdienst tot onze haarkleur… zelfs tot onze manier van nagels lakken. Iemand opzij willen schuiven of zelfs kleineren vanwege deze verschillen is volstrekt onaanvaardbaar en vandaag neem ik het hier tegen op.
Ik weiger om de ideeën van een ander over wat normaal is mij te laten beïnvloeden over hoe ik mij gedraag, geloof en blog.
In solidariteit met een grote groep andere bloggers die hieronder gelinkt zijn, vertegenwoordigt mijn paarse manicure mijn trotse inzet voor de No H8 beweging. Vandaag, 8 November, draag ik mijn blogpost op aan het beëindigen van pesten in welke aard dan ook en aan de bevordering van diversiteit en onvolmaaktheid onder in kleurrijke gemeenschap.)

 A sweet friend of mine wrote this statement and I hope that you will copy it to your blog, that way the statement will be clear to others and we all form one front against the bullies. It would also be awesome if you linked to the http://eradicateh8.blogspot.nl/ website so people will know where to go for more information and most importantly, I hope you will participate this November 8th, stand up for the victims and show bullies that we’re not taking their crap anymore.

There will also be inlinkz provided (which looks a little something like this: http://www.nailingthis.com/tutorial-tuesday-braided-nails/ - check all the people participating at the bottom of this post.) which you can drop the link to your blogpost in to so people will see how many of us are showing them we are with them and we are rising against this.

This all started in the nailpolish blogging community, but you are more than welcome to give your own twist on it, if you want to do a make up look using purples, go right ahead! I hope to see a lot of you participating and I also hope you spread the word!

See you all on my blog this Thursday where I will show you my personal experience with bullying and of course my purple manicure. Thank you for listening!