Over the past few years, Taylorite High School has morphed into a place full of clicks, judgment, and elitism.
Walking through our halls, the tension grows with each step.
You feel judgment surrounding you, and as our student population increases, comfort diminishes.
A sudden influx of Latino students has now made the issue more apparent, though the root of the problem has been here for years.
The administration has decided that they need to step in and fix the Latino Caucasian separation.
What about the judgments and non-communal actions amongst the entire high school?
We are now forced to confront the impacts that judgment and elitism spur.
It is not blatant or out in the open, but much more subtle.
People don't even acknowledge the existence of others, let alone give passing nods or smiles to peers.
The administration and students know what's happening, but the opinions differ widely on what we should do to fix it.
This is a look into our predicament and the challenges this school as a community faces.
The end
What is your general take on how intolerance plays into our culture and its interactions in the school?
I think there's still clicks.
Like the jocks, and if you're not a jock or you're not a part of them, you don't get loaded on weekends, that's a problem.
You feel kind of ostracized.
I think the people in this school are very intolerant of differences in each other,
but it's more of a verbal abuse sort of thing than it is physical attacks here.
Important for kids who aren't as pretty or as good looking as the other kids,
or who don't have the money to have the nice clothes or the nice cars and stuff, I think they feel,
or they're on free and reduced lunch, I think they feel a little uncomfortable
and sometimes are worried that they're made fun of.
Most of our population is very active.
They're skiers, they're snowboarders, you know, they're mountain climbers.
It's an active community, as you know.
The kids who transfer in here from other places, not all of them are spelt.
You know, they're not these great shapes.
They're not necessarily athletes, and so we get some kids who are heavier
and all of a sudden their body image really jumps out at them,
where they might have been in a big city school where it's okay to be heavier,
but here they really stand down and I think they feel uncomfortable.
A lot of people just feel judgmental towards other groups of people,
so there's not as many interactions between cliques as there could be,
but there's no actual bullying going on, but there's just a lot of tension.
So we're dealing with extreme judgments from peer to peer,
dismissing one another due to looks and origin,
as well as allowing the differences in one another to split us apart,
encouraging cliques, rather than letting the diversity give us culture and freedom.
Well, I don't think they should be best friends immediately,
but I think that people could do better about greeting people
or just making them feel acknowledged.
But I don't think that people feel strongly a victim of being bullied,
but I think that there are a lot of kids who have felt alienated before.
I think we're a very homogenized community, we're pretty much white.
We got our clips, you go with your crew and they go with theirs,
and that's how it is, and we don't care if they want to chill with you,
and it's cool, but it's not like we go up to them and ask them if they want to chill after school and stuff.
So I like to come down seated.
We Hispanic sit with each other at lunch tables, we Hispanic eat lunch,
we Hispanic hang out, one can do lunch, the other can hang out.
If it was intentional separation because of those differences,
I think it would be a bad thing and it wouldn't be fixed,
but I think the fact that everyone has their different groups of friends
and there's no real bad intentions there,
then it's okay.
Friendships or friendships, they shouldn't be fake.
What do you think that the white community thinks about you Latinos?
That we're Latinos, that we're gangsters,
but some other students might be like,
they kind of think they're a little upper elite.
That we don't want to come to school and all that.
Like we don't put no effort and stuff, you know?
It's like two years, we didn't want to do it.
Sometimes it feels like you're trying to avoid those because they're afraid a little bit.
Do you believe it is the school's job to try to help integrate social and separations also?
Yes, I very definitely do.
That would piss more people off than bring us together.
I think beyond academics there's a lot of other skills that we want our kids to leave the school
and to be able to mediate their differences with all types of people in different walks of life.
They would piss fanic guys.
They already don't like having for like the Spanish class goes to the ESL class and they do a co-mingle.
They already don't like that.
The providing structured circumstances in which both cultures come together doesn't fly with the students.
Where is this integration going to take place?
Kids join together in perhaps non-structured circumstances like chorus or volleyball or soccer or cheer or clubs
or a whole host of other kinds of things where commonality just begins to seem a natural kind of thing.
People start talking.
They realize that gosh you're going through pretty much the same kind of thing I am.
Two years from now we can have an entirely different culture in this school.
Kids being kind to each other irrespective of age group, irrespective of color, irrespective of language.
Just a sense of community.
I would hope that in future years they'll get that Latino voice on student council and be able to really be part of the solution as well.
In the kindergarten through like the sixth grade the achievement of our kids, our minority students, oh, paste the achievement of our regular students.
And then in the high school not only was it plateauing but in many cases going down the achievement of our Latino kids.
There's a lot of kids that like ESL class because it is easier.
A lot of kids too feel like they're treated like they're stupid.
Because when they're in ESL they've got a friend who knows their names but he says he knows English real well.
I know him.
He knows how to read and he's writing this real good.
They still got to read fucking first grade books and shit because he's in ESL.
That's ridiculous.
They get in trouble if you guys don't all get along.
He's Mexican and she gets in trouble because she tries to make white people and so they get her.
I know I didn't read.
Especially to that like we exclude her from the person.
Right.
You exclude her because she has white friends.
No but the thing is, say there was a person who's Latino, we all know who we're talking about, that you personally don't like, right?
If you were at this school would you have anything to do with her normally?
No.
But do you have to because you're of the same culture?
No.
Because I've heard people saying that it's you know some of the kids saying well yeah I have to because it's the last one she can be there.
But you can't say that, well not just to you though.
But you can't say that because if you actually said someone then everyone would gang up on you because you're not going to go because of her.
Yeah.
Or you could get beaten up you know, punched in the face over at the store you know.
Hold me here by the hands.
So yeah.
Seems we've only began to tip the iceberg.
I don't think these problems as they relate to the Tyrone school system are beyond our capacity to resolve them.
We simply must.
Clicks and separations are parts of all cultures.
When interests aren't shared amongst a group of people they don't hang out.
They'll be with whom they're most comfortable so naturally Spanish speakers will be friends with Spanish speakers.
But when some Latinos try and bring this dream of equality to reality they may be ostracized by their own culture for branching out.
Just like any other person would from a clique when they branch out.
This movie isn't supposed to make you think our school is full of racism and segregation other than this is a problem acute to THS.
It's just a factor of human nature.
This issue might just be a part of who we are.
Take a look in the mirror and see if you're judging unfairly.
