Cliques And Outsiders Essay Research Paper Cliques

Cliques And Outsiders Essay, Research Paper

Cliques and Outsiders

Cliques and Outsiders The Emotional Trauma That is Fitting In Be afraid. Be very afraid. Wipe that

goofy smile off your face. Whether you know it or not, that clawing, itching, quaking sensation

seething beneath your skin is the feeling churning inside you every time someone of a superior clique

comes rumbling down the halls, a contemptuous sneer playing on his lips. But whatever you do,

keep that fear under wraps. You do not need to be shoved into your locker or called derisive

names again. Cliques in high schools are a microcosm of a society dominated by hierarchies. Look

around. It is hard to find one fully united school, devoid of the intricate social castes. In the wake of

the now-infamous Columbine High School shooting, society was mercilessly slapped with the harsh

effects of cliques, and temporarily forced to reexamine the complicated social hierarchy that

confronts students during their most formative years. As much of a tragedy as it was, few fail to see

and perhaps, understand it from the point of view of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two

suspects. Yes, they do have names. They were not entirely the vile, violent, inhuman maniacs that

society has carelessly made them out to be. They were real people. Real people repeatedly called

outcasts in their school, a community of cliques. There are few schools that deviate from the social

moldings of Columbine High School. Columbine is Anyschool in Anytown. This is what Cliques

think of Geeks, Nerds, and Dorks. Just take a look at the clique-infested waters of my school.

Except no one seems to want to admit the existence of these sharp-toothed tribes. Like every other

school, the jocks and cool people are at the top of the food chain – the same stuck-ups who believe

that they are better than everyone else and ironically, the same people that some of us put on a

pedestal and believe that they are worthy of our admiration and emulation. Excuse me while I throw

up. Everybody else is tossed into a stuffy, degrading barrel, miles below this prestigious league.

There are the geeks, nerds and dorks. Pretty much self-explanatory – the teachers’ pets, typically

bespectacled kids who somehow traded in their fashion sense for a bucket of intelligence. There are

the visible minorities who cling fearfully to one another and toss around words you believe to be

insults directed to you in foreign languages. The Pain and Suffering of Not Having Popular Friends is

another object cliques focus on. The lines start blurring for a small percentage of the high school

population. Those swimming in this minority are classified as “whatever”. Seemingly faceless,

personality-less, displaced people teetering at the fringes of various classifications…. I happen to fall

under the latter category. And oh look, my three good friends all sit under the same heading too.

What a coincidence. Yet, I honestly think that the four of us have very little in common. I am the

calm, Caucasian, guy obsessed with trying to make friends; one of my friends is the mature, spiritual,

rational, philosophical and analytical one; yet another thrives on being physical and tomboyish

without knowing it; and another is…. well, we have yet to figure him out but he never fails to surprise

us sometimes. In any case, we do not belong. We are the outcasts of the school, bonded by the

only fact that we are all regarded as different from the segregated clans of so-called normality. The

omnipresent high school cliques are spawned in the labyrinths of a twisted school system. One in

which frivolous values of school spirit and appearances are grossly exalted while the traditional

values of free, nonconformist thinking and curiosity are severely ridiculed. In a sense, the lower

circles of segregation may have formed in response to athletes enforcing the social code in most high

schools. Yet the only thing that all cliques have in common is the way they define high school and

provide a framework for friendship (true or otherwise), prom dates and a consistently-packed

weekend social calendar. Cliques were born with the invention of high school over sixty years ago.

Perhaps as a result, we have grown up with and become so accustomed to the social apartheid that

we have even embraced its power to deny people of an ideal childhood. Some cliques think

popularity is genetic. As in any other school, fitting in or being popular is really a gift. You have to

be blessed with strikingly good looks that will cause massive salivation in the opposite sex or have

the muscle mass to indulge yourself in team sports in order to start wearing the “jock” label. These

traits supposedly shower a sense of elitism upon those who possess them, instantly making them

people with the most clout and giving them the authority to revile those who are different as geeks,

freaks, punks or other unmentionable expletives. The lucky ones slip through the cracks and go

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