Discrimination: …making a distinction in favour of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit.

Highschool in this day and age is more of an obstacle in one’s life that must be overcome than anything else. We all go through the awkward stage where we have no idea who we are and we have to push past all of the meaninglessness until we discover them. Most of us eventually find that person, but there are a large number of people that have no clue as to their true identity. They just walk around aimlessly with no drive or ambition; they feel as though their life has no meaning and their goals are limited by the inadequacy that they feel. It’s sad to see so much wasted talent and the endless possibilities there for them. And then as I thought more about it I started pondering the causes for such improvidence and came to realize that the answer to this problem is staring us all in the face!

The thought that discrimination is almost inevitable in society these days is a prejudiced concept but a widely held one. I cannot think of one person over the age of fifty who doesn’t believe that this generation has a great number of flaws. Of course, we’re not perfect nor will any generation ever be perfect but we weren’t even given a chance to prove who we really are. That type of discrimination happens so often that we have become immune to it and we just pass it off as ‘things our grandparents say’.
But bigotry does not only happen on a large scale, it also happens within our own schools. We classify people into groups and categories based on stereotypes. Ones that if we really thought about them, we probably don’t even believe in. For example; we all know at least one person who is overly confident, loud and sometimes obnoxious. They’re usually the class clown and the one that everybody loves because they always get the teacher off topic. But have any of us considered why they are so confident? Perhaps it is a lack of confidence that has forced them to act as though they are, or there may be people in their life who constantly dominate and this is their way of indirectly fighting back. Now I’m not saying all confident people’s lives are like this, but the possibility is out there and it happens everyday.

Conclusively, discrimination in our society and specifically in our schools is NOT inevitable and it is an ugly truth that we all face. Whether we’re artistic, athletic, solitary, lost or just average, we are all still teenagers. It does not matter what the grumpy old people say, we can still be whoever we want and whatever we want despite our flaws.