Nigh school cliques, racism and conformity.

Diamonds on the Inside

When you live in a small town, you often find that you life is being dissected, piece by piece, by the community. In high school, I was in what one would call the "cool" or popular crowd. I wore whatever brand name clothes were popular at the time, only hung out with the coolest people, and of course, I only dated guys from inside my little clique. I was named Class favorite all 4 years and was also on Homecoming Court my senior year. My life, in a teenage world, was good. Yet, as we all know, no one can be truly happy when living in a cookie cutter type world.

To other students in our high school, our clique had certain expectations to live up to. We were to have the hottest guys and the prettiest girls in our group and everyone was supposed to drive nice cars.

Martin Luther King leaning on a lectern. Deutsch: ...

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X meet before ...

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the 1964 Civil R...

At dances, we all had to have on the best clothes and get the drunkest. At school, we were to have the best grades. That was their mold for us, and our purpose was to fill the mold.

To most parents and members of our community, we had a simple job. We were to be the smartest and most Christian students. They expected all of us to be on Homecoming Court and the best looking out of our group was always the one expected to be Homecoming Queen. This is how they wanted us to be and we tried really hard to live up to it. It was as if some parents were reliving their high school lives through us. We were like puppets and the community and our fellow students held the strings, whether they were aware of it or not.

At my school, we...