Back home in Jamaica, I never really worried about whether my clothes matched. At school, the only thing that used to matter was how clean my uniform was and whether it was ironed. When I went to visit my friends, I would just put on a couple of freshly washed pieces of clothing without even thinking about how they looked.
We were kids—our friendships were not based on appearance. We just liked to run around and have fun. It didn’t matter if our braided hair was pointing in all directions and our blouses and skirts had some buttons missing, or if we were barefoot and covered in red dirt.
I never experienced being judged because of the way I dressed— until I came to the United States. The first time it happened was on my first day of junior high school, which was also my first day in an American school.
I was a little scared that day, mainly because of the new environment. Walking down the hallway, I felt very self-conscious, so I turned around to get a better look at my classmates.
~Two girls were staring at me, whispering and giggling. I stopped and waited for them to pass, but they said to go ahead, so I did. They continued looking at me, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know how to respond.
Even though I couldn’t hear their conversation, I figured out it had something to do with the way I was dressed.
They were wearing expensive blue jeans and blouses, the latest name-brand sneakers, and their outfits matched. Plus, they had their hair permed.
I was wearing a pink and black plaid jumper with two straps in front, a blue, red and white striped long-sleeved blouse, thick black stockings, and brown shoes. And I just had big braids in my hair, because my grandmother didn’t want me to perm it and it is fine with me.
When I got to my first period class, a couple or more of my classmates pointed out my shoes or clothes to their friends and laughed. Some of them even started throwing papers in my direction.
I looked different from everyone else and that was a big problem. When you start junior high, the pressure to fit in and gain respect is intense. The kids who made fun of me were popular— partly because their designer clothes made them seem cool. My clothes made me stand out and gave the others an excuse to pick on me.
I was the perfect target and it wasn’t just because of the way I dressed. I was in a new environment and that made me feel scared and insecure. I was like a fish outside its water bowl. My classmates saw that I was in a position of weakness and wouldn’t stand up for myself. They took advantage of that.
Almost every day, I would be greeted with giggles, pointing, and other demonstrations of their disapproval. For a long time, I didn’t have any friends to back me up and the teacher did nothing to control the students. I felt like everyone was against me, like n one was on my side. Two girls named Luvia and Nefertiti were th main sources of my torment. They would put “kick me” signs o my back, throw papers at me, and make fun of my clothes.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to go to school. Whe I got home each day, I would cry and complain to my grandmoth about what was happening, but she was too busy to do anythi about it.
Sometimes she would say, “Ignore them,” or tell me to tell th mothers. Then she would force me to go back to school. She nev really understood how hurt and depressed I was.
I would go to school each day with my heart pounding. I har paid attention and I never really learned anything. It was hard concentrate on my schoolwork. The other students were very ruptive. Because I was quiet, the teacher always pointed me ou an example to the rest of the class. That made things worse for
because I was now considered the teacher’s pet.
I did not want to go to school any more.
To take my mind off the fact that I
might end up in a fight any minute, I’d bring a thick romance
novel to school and just
sit in class and read all day.
Instead of focusing on learning like I
should have, I focused on surviving by losing myself in books.
I did make one friend that year. Her name was Tina. She was really friendly and we had a couple of things in common.
We were both from Jamaica, but Tina had been here for five years. We both had strict families. Tina wore the latest styles of name-brand clothing, just like Luvia and Nefertiti, but unlike them, she never judged me because of the way I dressed.
Tina would defend me when the others were picking on me.
She would tell them to leave me alone and always tried to help
me out. One time, Luvia tried to spite Tina by saying that Tina and
I were sisters. Later that day, I wrote a poem to Tina, titled “You’re
Like a Sister,” and she liked it.
Having Tina as a friend made the days more bearable because I was not entirely alone. But it didn’t make much of a difference in terms of how I was treated by the other kids. In fact, it didn’t make any difference at all.
Around the middle of the school term, I started to think that maybe if I dressed like the rest of them, they wouldn’t bother me so much. I hadn’t made any effort to fit in sooner because I was stubborn. But I was tired of having people treat me like I was beneath them.
One day, I went to school wearing yellow socks and a yellow blouse with a black skirt. Right at the beginning of class, Nefertiti showed Luvia my socks and said, “What are you doing?” with a
won’t look as good as we do.” Not knowing what to say, I turned my back, feeling a little defeated. I went back to wearing my usual outfits.
A month or two later, my uncle’s girlfriend gave me a pair of name-brand sneakers. I wore them to school and I have to admit they gave me a little confidence. I thought I would get acceptance with my new shoes.
When I got to school, one kid actually announced to the class that I had on a name-brand sneaker and everyone looked. But I didn’t feel any more accepted by my peers than I had before.
No matter what I did, they wouldn’t let up. Luvia, in particular, was always throwing things at me or hitting me. I never started anything with her. She was always coming after me. Then the kids she hung around with would tell her how bad she was.
One day in the spring she was in the hallway, surrounded by her friends, when I passed by. When she saw me, she hit me. I didn’t want to fight, so I started to walk by as I usually did. But, for some reason that day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided it had to stop.
So when I saw Luvia in the cafeteria, I went up to her and slapped her face. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor. Luvia was much bigger than I, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when I lost the fight.
Later that day, Luvia and her friends came up to me. She was very upset and kept staring at me, but she didn’t say anything. I went home early.
That night, I told my father how these two girls had been giving me a hard time. He decided to take a day off from work and come to school with me and make a complaint. We went to the counselor’s office. She called in Luvia, sat the two of us down, and asked about what was going on between us. Then she talked to us for a while.
I didn’t really hear what the counselor was saying. I was too busy staring at Luvia and wondering what she thought about all this and what the other kids would think when they heard about it. After my father left, I went back to class. Everyone was looking at me.
After that, Luvia didn’t bother me or throw things at me anymore, but she and her friends still gave me dirty looks.
When I finally finished seventh grade, I had the greatest summer of my life—simply because I had survived. I would stay home most of the time watching television, without anyone tormenting me.
In eighth grade, things got better. Everyone started to settle in and feel more comfortable. They let down some of their guard, which made for a less hostile environment.
My classmates stopped making fun of my clothes. I didn’t really change the way I dressed, but I stopped wearing certain things—like skirts and dresses that made me look like I was going to church.
I got the chance to make new friends because everyone was friendlier. When I really got to know my classmates, I found out they weren’t really bad people. And Luvia and Nefertiti weren’t in any of my classes anymore, which made everything much easier for me. I didn’t dread going to school.
That experience taught me never to judge people by appearance. I never tease anyone because of what they wear or how they look. I’ve also got the best of friends because I didn’t pick them based on how they look, but by getting to know them as individuals.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Fit In
I grew up in a rich, white suburb. Whenever I heard about kids going into their high schools and shooting other kids, I felt I understood the anger of the killers. Their towns reminded me of my town. Their high schools reminded me of my high school.
Fathers in my town are mostly successful businessmen and commute to the city to work. The wives do not have many responsibilities. They don’t have jobs and the housework is done by paid help. They fill their days with volunteering and school-related clubs like the Parent-Teacher Committee. They are the typical “soccer moms” of America.
Adults here are constantly talking about and comparing their children. At an early age, children learn that they are being watched not only by their own parents, but also by their friends’ parents. There’s a lot of pressure on kids to excel both in class and on the playing field.
The smartest, most beautiful, and most athletic kids are considered the best. Literally, the blonder the hair, the leaner the figure, the better. Parents pass their belief in these stereotypes on to their children early, and those stereotypes become part of their children’s minds.
Most kids fit the ideal description, so they hung out together in one big clique (called “the preps”). The kids in the clique excluded the kids they labeled “strange” because of their appearance or manner.
As far back as middle school I was considered one of the strange kids, mostly because I wasn’t athletic and was thought unattractive. My friends didn’t fit in either.
There was one big group of friends who always hung out together at school, and I was out of it even though I tried to fit in. At lunch one day in the cafeteria, I saw a girl who was in some of my classes and who I thought liked me. I said hello to her and sat down next to her.
Without saying a word, but with a smile on her face, she picked up her lunch bag and moved one seat away from me. I was humiliated, but I didn’t move to another table.
When I read about school shootings, I understood why some kids started their rampages in the cafeteria. That is where kids who don’t fit in are treated the worst. It’s a place without adult supervision, where kids can pick whom they hang out with and whom they ignore.
In my high school, the large cafeteria (called the Lounge) was split in half. The South Lounge was always packed and almost everyone sat there. The North Lounge was almost empty. It was where the “dorks” and “losers” ate.
It frustrated me that during lunch, my friends would sit in the “Loser Lounge.” They seemed to accept that they were not cool enough.
My freshman year, I still felt desperate to be liked. I had friends, but what I really wanted was to be part of “the group.” I didn’t think I was that different from anybody else. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t chosen to be part of the big clique.
One day, I convinced two friends to come sit with me in the South Lounge with everyone else. We managed to find three empty seats in the crowded, noisy cafeteria and sat down. My friends and I tried to relax, but I could read in their eyes that they felt foolish and uncomfortable. No one spoke to us.
At one point I saw one girl nearby mouth to the girl next to me, “Why are they here?” The girl next to me shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes, and the first girl started laughing.
This really upset me because both of these girls had been good friends of mine when we were young. I had never done anything to make them stop liking me.
After that, I gave up trying to join the group.
Eventually, I was able to ignore the preppies, and my friends and I made our own space separate from them. I guess I realized that if they didn’t need me, I didn’t need them. I didn’t even like a lot of them that much. I had my own friends.
I WAS
By sophomore year, my group had expanded to include about 30 people from all grades, known as the “pitters.” A pitter was someone who hung out in “the pit,” an area by the parking lot behind the school, next to some trees.
It was called the pit because it was the lowest point on the school grounds. But it was also a reference to our status in the school.
The pit was a place to get away from all the preps and others who thought we were no good. It was the only place where we felt in control. The preps took over the lounge, the parking lots, and the school in general. But no preppies came out to the pit.
The fact that the pit kids began smoking a lot earlier than the preppies gave us an image as the “bad kids.” This label wasn’t true, but it stuck to us all through high school.
Though we resented being labeled, we also liked our image. We liked the power of knowing someone was scared of us. We felt that the preps had
been stepping on us for so long; it was time for them to feel small by being scared of us for a change.
I hung out with the “bad kids” in the pit, but I didn’t smoke. I was an honors student and I was respected by my teachers. I was proud to be a pitter, though, and I think my presence there helped to reverse some of the stereotypes that pitters are the kind of people who don’t get anywhere in life.
And the preps weren’t so perfect, either. Many cheated on tests and started smoking. Junior year, rumors began to fly about their wild parties. They would drink heavily and get high on the weekends, and their parties were hook-up fests.
The strange thing was, they seemed proud of that, because they’d talk loudly in class about their sexual exploits. I heard banter kids say things like, “Hey Doug, do you remember when we slept together sophomore year to get experience?” Or the head cheerleader saying to her friend in the middle of class, “Yeah, it was Alex’s first time, so the sex was kind of lame, you know?” I guess having sex was a status symbol to them.
But they were still seen by everyone in town and in school as the good kids, the golden children, the kids who could do no wrong, even though they did.
The parents of kids who’ve done school shootings get a lot of criticism because they didn’t know their kids were so troubled. But in my town, too, all the parents turned a blind eye to their kids’ behavior.
So did the teachers and the police, who would smile proudly at the good kids while the pitters were considered lowlifes.
I’m not trying to say that all the preppies were bad people. But the preps’ behavior was offensive to me because they were always seen as perfect students, athletes, and kids—when they were not. And we were seen as the bad kids, the outcasts.
In truth, we formed our own clique only because we were rejected by everyone else. The preppies pushed us aside. This hypocrisy still makes me angry.
I think school shootings could happen at any high school. But I don’t believe the trouble is with groups like mine I don't know who are to blame. We should be thinking about the attitudes of the mainstream kids—the “jocks” or the “preps” or whomever—the popular groups in school who make other students feel rejected, angry, and depressed about themselves. My group wasn’t dangerous at all. We were just kids pushed aside who stopped trying to fit in.
The potentially dangerous kids are ones who withdraw from everyone, who seem hostile toward everyone. My high school had a group like this. A few boys didn’t fit in anywhere. They wore dark clothes (really—it’s not a stereotype) and sat in the back of their classes.
They weren’t interested in school and didn’t talk much to other people, but when they did they were rude to pretty much everybody. They loved computers, guns, and video games.
I can easily see how someone from that group could commit hate crimes. I can also see how it would be just like a video game for them.
Those boys didn’t handle their feelings of alienation in a healthy way. The scary thing is that it’s hard to tell the innocent, quiet, withdrawn kids from the hateful, planning, withdrawn kids.
The kids who do school shootings are not the only people to blame. I am not trying to justify violence in any way and school shootings are a horrible thing. But a lot of the kids who do shootings had been treated terribly. Even so, they will always be seen as the bad guys, the monsters. But isn’t there another side to the story?
People need to understand how cruel the popular cliques can be to outsiders. The popular kids (and their parents) believe they’re so perfect that they can’t see their own faults.
Instead of pulling schools and communities together, cliques drive people apart. The popular kids become scared of the people they cast out, we all become more separated, and the alienation grows.
Fathers in my town are mostly successful businessmen and commute to the city to work. The wives do not have many responsibilities. They don’t have jobs and the housework is done by paid help. They fill their days with volunteering and school-related clubs like the Parent-Teacher Committee. They are the typical “soccer moms” of America.
Adults here are constantly talking about and comparing their children. At an early age, children learn that they are being watched not only by their own parents, but also by their friends’ parents. There’s a lot of pressure on kids to excel both in class and on the playing field.
The smartest, most beautiful, and most athletic kids are considered the best. Literally, the blonder the hair, the leaner the figure, the better. Parents pass their belief in these stereotypes on to their children early, and those stereotypes become part of their children’s minds.
Most kids fit the ideal description, so they hung out together in one big clique (called “the preps”). The kids in the clique excluded the kids they labeled “strange” because of their appearance or manner.
As far back as middle school I was considered one of the strange kids, mostly because I wasn’t athletic and was thought unattractive. My friends didn’t fit in either.
There was one big group of friends who always hung out together at school, and I was out of it even though I tried to fit in. At lunch one day in the cafeteria, I saw a girl who was in some of my classes and who I thought liked me. I said hello to her and sat down next to her.
Without saying a word, but with a smile on her face, she picked up her lunch bag and moved one seat away from me. I was humiliated, but I didn’t move to another table.
When I read about school shootings, I understood why some kids started their rampages in the cafeteria. That is where kids who don’t fit in are treated the worst. It’s a place without adult supervision, where kids can pick whom they hang out with and whom they ignore.
In my high school, the large cafeteria (called the Lounge) was split in half. The South Lounge was always packed and almost everyone sat there. The North Lounge was almost empty. It was where the “dorks” and “losers” ate.
It frustrated me that during lunch, my friends would sit in the “Loser Lounge.” They seemed to accept that they were not cool enough.
My freshman year, I still felt desperate to be liked. I had friends, but what I really wanted was to be part of “the group.” I didn’t think I was that different from anybody else. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t chosen to be part of the big clique.
One day, I convinced two friends to come sit with me in the South Lounge with everyone else. We managed to find three empty seats in the crowded, noisy cafeteria and sat down. My friends and I tried to relax, but I could read in their eyes that they felt foolish and uncomfortable. No one spoke to us.
At one point I saw one girl nearby mouth to the girl next to me, “Why are they here?” The girl next to me shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes, and the first girl started laughing.
This really upset me because both of these girls had been good friends of mine when we were young. I had never done anything to make them stop liking me.
After that, I gave up trying to join the group.
Eventually, I was able to ignore the preppies, and my friends and I made our own space separate from them. I guess I realized that if they didn’t need me, I didn’t need them. I didn’t even like a lot of them that much. I had my own friends.
I WAS
By sophomore year, my group had expanded to include about 30 people from all grades, known as the “pitters.” A pitter was someone who hung out in “the pit,” an area by the parking lot behind the school, next to some trees.
It was called the pit because it was the lowest point on the school grounds. But it was also a reference to our status in the school.
The pit was a place to get away from all the preps and others who thought we were no good. It was the only place where we felt in control. The preps took over the lounge, the parking lots, and the school in general. But no preppies came out to the pit.
The fact that the pit kids began smoking a lot earlier than the preppies gave us an image as the “bad kids.” This label wasn’t true, but it stuck to us all through high school.
Though we resented being labeled, we also liked our image. We liked the power of knowing someone was scared of us. We felt that the preps had
been stepping on us for so long; it was time for them to feel small by being scared of us for a change.
I hung out with the “bad kids” in the pit, but I didn’t smoke. I was an honors student and I was respected by my teachers. I was proud to be a pitter, though, and I think my presence there helped to reverse some of the stereotypes that pitters are the kind of people who don’t get anywhere in life.
And the preps weren’t so perfect, either. Many cheated on tests and started smoking. Junior year, rumors began to fly about their wild parties. They would drink heavily and get high on the weekends, and their parties were hook-up fests.
The strange thing was, they seemed proud of that, because they’d talk loudly in class about their sexual exploits. I heard banter kids say things like, “Hey Doug, do you remember when we slept together sophomore year to get experience?” Or the head cheerleader saying to her friend in the middle of class, “Yeah, it was Alex’s first time, so the sex was kind of lame, you know?” I guess having sex was a status symbol to them.
But they were still seen by everyone in town and in school as the good kids, the golden children, the kids who could do no wrong, even though they did.
The parents of kids who’ve done school shootings get a lot of criticism because they didn’t know their kids were so troubled. But in my town, too, all the parents turned a blind eye to their kids’ behavior.
So did the teachers and the police, who would smile proudly at the good kids while the pitters were considered lowlifes.
I’m not trying to say that all the preppies were bad people. But the preps’ behavior was offensive to me because they were always seen as perfect students, athletes, and kids—when they were not. And we were seen as the bad kids, the outcasts.
In truth, we formed our own clique only because we were rejected by everyone else. The preppies pushed us aside. This hypocrisy still makes me angry.
I think school shootings could happen at any high school. But I don’t believe the trouble is with groups like mine I don't know who are to blame. We should be thinking about the attitudes of the mainstream kids—the “jocks” or the “preps” or whomever—the popular groups in school who make other students feel rejected, angry, and depressed about themselves. My group wasn’t dangerous at all. We were just kids pushed aside who stopped trying to fit in.
The potentially dangerous kids are ones who withdraw from everyone, who seem hostile toward everyone. My high school had a group like this. A few boys didn’t fit in anywhere. They wore dark clothes (really—it’s not a stereotype) and sat in the back of their classes.
They weren’t interested in school and didn’t talk much to other people, but when they did they were rude to pretty much everybody. They loved computers, guns, and video games.
I can easily see how someone from that group could commit hate crimes. I can also see how it would be just like a video game for them.
Those boys didn’t handle their feelings of alienation in a healthy way. The scary thing is that it’s hard to tell the innocent, quiet, withdrawn kids from the hateful, planning, withdrawn kids.
The kids who do school shootings are not the only people to blame. I am not trying to justify violence in any way and school shootings are a horrible thing. But a lot of the kids who do shootings had been treated terribly. Even so, they will always be seen as the bad guys, the monsters. But isn’t there another side to the story?
People need to understand how cruel the popular cliques can be to outsiders. The popular kids (and their parents) believe they’re so perfect that they can’t see their own faults.
Instead of pulling schools and communities together, cliques drive people apart. The popular kids become scared of the people they cast out, we all become more separated, and the alienation grows.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
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