(One sad teenager's story)...

In high school, there are two distinctive social groups: the popular and the unpopular. The popular, known as preps and jocks, are the ones who have everything handed to them on a silver platter. They are materialistic, shallow, snobs who build themselves up by knocking other people like me, the unpopular, down. Does this sound like anyone you know?

Sound a little bitter? Tough, it is the truth. If you live in Texas, like me, then you should know that the whole state revolves around one thing and that is football. Our sorry state has even banned Dodge Ball (of all things!) from schools because of the violence involved in the game, yet we are a state that cares more about the team then we do about education. Lets admit it; education is not the strong point of Texas(George Bush is living proof of that).

So where do jocks and preps come in on all of this? We have the jocks who are our football heroes. We put them on a pedestal so that we may feel honored to have these wonderful athletes in our lives. Then we have the preps who are the cheerleaders cheering the team on.

In America, we have kids committing suicide and bringing guns to school, but do you know what the real sad thing is? The parents think that it is the video games and the movies that are making American children more violent, but what they do not know and can never understand is that it is their own kids. Yes, that is right. It is your little Tony or Sarah who are the cause. Kids do not shoot up a school to replicate what they saw on The Matrix. They do it because they have been picked on one too many times. We do it because we have been pushed past that breaking point. We are sick of the harassment and torment we have go through just to attend school.

Most of all, we are sick of you, the country, who stands by and blindly watches it happen.

(from a poster on misc.creativity)

August 2001