Teen Defends Her Controversial Name With Heartbreaking Plea
Say your name loud and proud, urges a teen named Isis to other kids who, like her, share the name of the terrorist group and are being tormented for it.
“If you guys know the real meaning of ‘Isis,’ it’s after a goddess: the goddess of love,” Isis Brown declares, choking up, as she describes the bullying she suffered for her name. She created the heartbreaking video “to send a message of hope to others dealing with the same problem,” writes the journalist who posted the footage Jan. 8 on Facebook, where it’s been viewed more than 112,000 times.
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The Tulsa, Okla., 14-year-old admits in the video that she often hid and cried after students at her former school taunted her, starting three years ago. “I’ve had people come up to me: ‘Why are you killing us Americans?’ I’m an American too!” said the seventh grader, who has since transferred to a new school. “A girl came up to me and said, ‘I saw you on the news last night … you were killing people.’”
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Isis revealed that people have logged into Facebook anonymously and plastered her page with “terrorist” taunts. Reading the messages, she recalled, “I curled up in bed and I cried. It really broke me.”
Her father, John Brown, told KJRH that he and his wife, Doris, only had the best intentions giving their little girl the goddess-inspired name — long before the extremist group began waging their war of terror. (And according to the most recent U.S. Social Security Administration data, parents are still naming their girls Isis: 396 babies were given the moniker in 2014 — that’s .02 percent of all females born that year.) “People always wondered where she got it from. They always loved her name,” he said. “[They] thought it was the most beautiful, unique name.”
Photo: Isis Brown/Facebook
That’s the takeaway Isis wants to resonate with people when they hear her name today. The aspiring disc jockey, who spins as “DJ Isis,” says she’s grown a thick skin after all the flak she’s received and hopes to inspire others to triumph over haters just as she has. “If you have a name that’s hard and you get picked on because of it, keep your head up,” Isis told KJRH. “Know that you’re special for your own self and know that there’s something about you that’s unique.”
Top photo and above photo: Isis Brown/Facebook
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