Unluckily, there were and are people who display these kinds of behaviours.
I feel as if there were two forces, each one going on opposite directions.
On one side, we can’t deny that today we are more civilised than in the past, we face our disagreements through dialogue, laws, etc.
But, on another side, as we are more aware of how everyone is equal, unique and worthy, the cases in which there are still people who don’t respect these principles and hurt others in different senses create a feeling of hopeless and constitute a shock.

We have still a lot to progress and, in my opinion, the effort to study these cases, their causes, implications, the concurrences with our current societies, etc are very important to put the bases to solve these problems.

I’m very sorry your friend was bullied and of course, you, who also were bullied.
It’s already a terrible fact for a normal person, much more when the bullied person is already socially withdraw or have struggles with it.