Mean Boys (Revision)

     Emily White talks about how high school students are divided into tribes or "cliques" in the first essay, "High School's Secret Life" and how each tribe has a leader. White says the cafeteria is "the place where you find out if you have friends or if you don't. The cafeteria is the place where forms of human sacrifice occur, the merciless rituals of cruelty on which the kids thrive" (15). Lucy Grealy in "Masks” says that kids feel powerful in school, that nothing can hurt them and that they’re the rulers in their own little worlds. “Sometimes kids would make fun of me, run past me, knock my hat off, and call me baldy” (67). Just like White, Grealy gives examples in her essay about kids making fun, laughing and teasing other kids that are different from them. They "thrive," as White says, on hurting other kids and do it to act cool among their own friends. Grealy explains that there are different groups that kids are in while at school, such as loners, preps and the "gang of boys" (18) that go around just bullying the other kids. Both essays show that most schools all have the same type of atmospheres. They all have "cliques" or tribes and that each tribe is different.

     In my high school, it was the same deal with the tables full of boys, except I actually sat at it. I sat at table with 17 boys a ”gang of boys” and they were all pigs. Looking back, I don’t know why I even sat there, probably because I wanted approval from them or wanted them to think I was cool. I would sit there and those boys would make fun of me and other girls in the school through the whole lunch. I always shrugged it off because I didn’t believe any of it.

My mom always asked, “Do you think you're fat?”
Me: “No”
My mother: “Then what's the problem?”

     Can’t argue with that logic! But, there was this one time I went to sit down with all the boys and I missed my chair or they (most likely) moved it. I still don’t know, but I fell on the floor and my book flew in the air, as did my lunch, and not one of them helped me up. There was this nice boy who came from across the lunchroom to help me up and I will never forget that. I didn’t really care because I knew all the other guys laughing were stupid, but it sticks in my mind about how mean kids can be.