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Cliques

Color, race, and culture in high school

Listen to this Commentary!

By Youth Radio Winter 2002 Bridge Class

In the popularity game of high school cliques, it's not just a matter of wearing the right clothes or listening to the right music. Youth Radio's Winter 2002 Bridge Class explains how some teenagers manage to find their niche in high school.

Voices:
Racial groups tend to separate themselves.

I think there's a lot of tracking at Berkeley High and a lot of the minority students get grouped together and then a lot of the non-minority students, like the white students, get grouped together and that's who's in your classes so that's who you meet and that's who you hang out with.

I feel that most white people are scared of black people and black people don't really want to hang around with white people. So it's kind of like, you know, it's a big gap there already.

I think that most of my friends are the same race as me but I wish that I had more minority friends.

And you know we should all just kick it together.

Diego: When I was little, I hung out with everybody. Anyone my age who liked the sandbox as much as I did was fair game. It didn't matter that I was Mexican-Argentinean and most of the other kids in my neighborhood were white. But as I got older, things started to change. Suddenly I started to notice things like skin and hair color, and I felt pressure to look a certain way to fit in.

I go to Berkeley High School now, and I guess I'm known as the tall white dude. I have light skin and light hair and eyes, and some of the Latino kids don't think I'm Latino enough. They have such strong ideas of what their race should look like, that anything that doesn't match that — they just turn the other way. I have to prove to them that I'm Latino by speaking Spanish.

Once I do that, they accept me as one of their own; but I like to hang out with all kinds of kids. One of my classmates, Alfonso, has a much harder time trying to figure out where he fits in. He's African American, but he doesn't feel like that's what defines him.

Alfonso: In my group home, before I moved out, they were all like, dude, why don't you ever act black? And I'm like, what is it — my question to that is what is it to act black. I mean — wow — you listen to rap, you dress in baggy pants, you have haircuts and stuff…I mean, they say I act white and I don't get what it is to act white. I don't act white, I act like myself.

Diego: At school, Alfonso is known as a punk. He's kind of an outcast. He's got turquoise dread locks to his shoulders, he wears bell-bottoms, and he listens to punk rock. He hangs out in People's Park with other punks — kids with colored hair, torn clothes and lots of piercings. Almost all of them, except for Alfonso, are white.

Alfonso: I don't hang out with too many black people because they don't want to hang out with me or they don't feel comfortable with me. It's like when people ask me why don't I ever date a black girl? I haven't found a black girl who likes me.

Diego: Across town at Oakland's College Preparatory School, Louiza Ben Mohamed doesn't hang out with people of her race either, but she doesn't have a choice. She's Moroccan-Algerian, and the only Muslim in her school.

Louiza: I'd definitely say that other people perceive me as different because, you know, I have darker hair, darker eyes. So physically, everyone thinks I'm different.

Diego: In class, she sometimes feels like she stands out — especially when the topic of religion comes up.

Louiza: Whenever we're talking about, for instance in history class, when we're talking about the Ottoman Empire and the Turks and… the Crusades, I find that teachers try and kind of soften what they're talking about so not to offend me.

Diego: Her parents instilled in her something that Alfonso's never did. So when she's kickin' it outside of the classroom, or hanging out on the school campus, she feels just like everybody else.

Louiza: My parents really raised me to understand that, you know, a human being, no matter what race, religion, or anything like that, is simply a human being…It's all about the person.

Diego: My parents taught me the same thing: cultural diversity in your life is really important and keeps things interesting. But in high school popularity is not just a game, it's not that easy. Race or religion is a natural dividing line. But I'm pretty lucky. I fit into a lot of different categories, so I don't really have to choose one group over another. I'm kind of a floater and I like it that way.

For Youth Radio I'm Diego Kusnir.

This piece was produced by the Youth Radio All Stars: Sophie Linnett, Julia Linton, Stacey Leung, Clare Chu, Joshua Clemmons, Pam Childers, and Mac Lingo.