Kit's Clique Conversation (ha ha ha)

Cliques play a fairly significant part of socializing. As far as I can tell, they were more defined in middle school, and have tapered off a little now that we're in high school. However, I think the word "clique" is thrown around way too much. To me, cliques are groups of people who exclude others based on material reasons, like fashion preferences, abilities, grades, et cetera. Not every group of friends is a clique -- people are naturally going to prefer some people over others. A clique would be, for example, a group of people who won't befriend people who don't dress like they do; a normal group of friends might choose not to befriend certain people because they simply don't like them. Based on those definitions, I don't think we really have a bad clique situation in this school at all for the most part. As far as I can tell, the population of unkind, ridiculing, clique-forming, discriminatory students in the school is way outnumbered by the people who aren't like that at all. I've heard titles like "jocks," "nerds," and "skaters" thrown around, but for the most part, I don't consider these groups cliques. I think that most "jocks" band together because they have similar interests (sports). In my mind, the "jocks" would turn into a clique at the point that they ridiculed those who were not "jocks."

While I have a definite group of friends that I hang out with most of the time, I don't consider myself part of a clique. For the most part, we are all good students, so some people might label us as "nerds" or whatever the word is, but I don't consider myself a nerd, and I don't hang out with my friends because of their grades. For this reason, I don't consider my group a clique. Also, we don't ridicule those who we aren't friends with, and we're open to making new friends. I try not to judge people by the people they hang out with, although I do to a certain extent. I'd like to try to stop doing that.

I don't think that stereotyping is ever good. Cliques and stereotypes often go hand in hand: all jocks are stupid or mean, all cheerleaders are ditzes, all nerds are smart and boring -- all stereotypes are false. It's ridiculous to assume that a group of people who hang out together and have a certain thing in common are all exactly the same. Not all skaters are druggies. Why would they be? Skating doesn't have anything to do with drugging. Not all cheerleaders are dumb. Why would anyone assume that anyhow? Not all Jews are stingy. What does Judaism have to do with money? Stereotypes are a way of discriminating unfairly against any person or group of people. They are grown from peoples' insecurity, ignorance, and fear of the unknown.

There are different kinds of courage. Courage can be standing up to a stereotypical cliquey jerk who discriminates against you for irrational reasons, or weaning yourself off morphine even though you're going to die anyhow, or wearing your favorite pair of hot pink jeans to school even though you may get a few weird looks from your peers. I really admire people who are courageous in those ways. Regarding the stereotypes and cliques thing, I especially admire people who aren't afraid to stand out. I, personally, love to stick out, and semi-idolize some people I see around school or know who obviously don't give a care what other people think of them, and are comfortable being themselves. If everyone was happy just being themselves, maybe we wouldn't have cliques. Hmmm...

I have a lot of role models. My parents are my role models, because they are really awesomely great for a whole bunch of reasons. My uncle and aunt are my role models because, among many other reasons, they are examples of how you can keep reinventing yourself and keeping your life meaningful no matter where you are in life. (They converted to Buddhism a couple years back, and are two incredibly kind and interesting people.) My great-aunt is a role model because she doesn't let her age get in the way of anything she wants to do, like tennis, swimming, gardening, playing with her wood chipper, et cetera. My cousins are my super-smart musically-inclined fun-loving frisbee-crazy very funny role models. Mahatma Gandhi is another role model. He is proof that you can get big results without violence. Molly Ringwald is a mini-role model, because she is my favorite actress. I have lots of role models. :)