Obama says he was bullied in school.

AP- President Barack Obama smiled when he said his large ears and funny name once made him a target of school-yard harassment. But he was all seriousness Thursday when he told a White House conference on bullying that torment and intimidation must not be tolerated.

Some 13 million students, about a third of all those attending school, are bullied every year, the White House said. Experts say that puts them at greater risk of falling behind in their studies, abusing drugs or alcohol, or suffering mental or other health problems. Kids who are seen as different because of their race, clothes, disability or sexual orientation are more likely to be bullied.

"If there's one goal of this conference," Obama said, "it's to dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up. It's not." He spoke to more than 100 parents, students, teachers and others gathered to discuss the problem and share ideas for solutions.

"Bullying can have destructive consequences for our young people. And it's not something we have to accept," he said.

The issue has been getting more attention partly because texting, Facebook, Twitter and other technologies are being used to carry it out - it's called cyberbullying - and because of media coverage of teens who have killed themselves after such taunting.

Families of some of those youngsters joined Obama at the White House, including the mother of Carl Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old boy who hanged himself at his Massachusetts home in 2009. The mother said classmates had tormented him.

"No family should have to go through what these families have gone through," Obama said. "No child should feel that alone."

Speaking as a parent and as a victim, Obama urged everyone to help end bullying by working to create an atmosphere at school where children feel safe and feel like they belong. He said that even he felt out of place growing up.

"I have to say, with big ears and the name that I have, I wasn't immune," said Obama, who moved around a lot as a boy, being born in Hawaii and growing up there and in Indonesia. "I didn't emerge unscathed," he said.



So what your saying is that you were bullied at school while you were growing up, then you went on to become the president. I guess that pretty much kills the anti-bully argument. Bullying is as American as apple pie. If there were no more bullies, how would anybody ever overcome adversity? You know who was a bully? The King of England. This country was formed and united by standing up to him. We dealt with it. If the King's mom stepped in and stopped him from bullying us, we'd still be part of England. You know who else was a bully? Johnny from The Karate Kid. If it wasn't for Johnny, Daniel-san would still be a nerdy pussy. He wouldn't have needed to learn to fight, he wouldn't have gotten that bitchin' yellow ride, and he wouldn't have gained a mentor in Mr. Miyagi. He probably still could've dated Ali for a little while, but you know she would drop him as soon as some new dirt bike ridin' tough guy came around.

I guess what I'm saying is if you're going to have a conference about bullying at the White House, you shouldn't be trying to stop bullies, you should be teaching kids how to deal with bullies violently.