Project #1

This Means War: Choir vs. Senior Council

I felt honored my last year of high school to become the Senior Class President - a position I had always wanted and worked for. My council was made up of fellow seniors whom I would say were only acquaintances before. I took it as an opportunity to get to know some new people. I did not realize that these would be the people to support me through all that was to come my senior year. They were strangers that would become my chosen family.

The group was a blend of many unique individuals. There were several of us more basic students. Quinn, Christian, Jazmine, Rachel, and I were the more “average” members. Meaning that no one ever blinked twice when they saw us in the halls. There were some kids that stood out in the group: three IB kids. The first was Matthew, an adorably quirky boy that will be attending Yale. The second was Ritika, the Valedictorian of our class, who will be attending Emory. She was often teased as she was one of the only Indian students at our school. Another member who stood out more than others was the sole transgender student in our entire school, (Julian who once went by Julie). There were some struggles that year, but we chose to go up against those problems as a team instead of individually.

One of our largest responsibilities was to plan a Baccalaureate service for the senior class - a tradition of exactly 100 years at my school. We were in charge of every detail of the event, excluding one thing: the location. Who would have known that a single church would become so problematic? The issue surrounded our passionate school choir. Another long standing tradition with this event was that our choir had performed at it for the past 100 years. For some reason, our council sponsor had pre-selected and booked a church for the event. This church was a different location from where it had been held for many years before. The church where is used to be held had a choir pit and plenty of stage space. In comparison, the newly selected church was more of a modern place and had no choir pit. The alternative for the a choir pit was risers for the choir to stand on. Unfortunately, those risers were too large to fit on stage. As soon as the choir president, Jace, heard his choir would not be able to perform at Baccalaureate he scheduled a joint meeting with his choir council and my senior class council.

A week later, the meeting took place. It felt like a stand off, with his council on one side of the room and my council on the other. Immediately he says, “Why do you hate tradition? This is the 100 year anniversary and you want to take this moment away from us.” He blamed us for them not being able to perform at the service, unwilling to accept that it was not our decision where Baccalaureate was to be held. Accusatory questions were being furled at me directly, his eyes not leaving mine. Though he was specifically targeting me with the questions, my council refused to let me take all the heat. They stood up for me when they did not have to, seeing as it was really only my responsibility to deal with it. They refused to let me be verbally attacked. The situation was finally resolved months later as we were able to convince Jace to give up on the risers so that they could sing.

During that year, several of the members were having issues outside of the council. Ritika was taunted with racial slurs because she is Indian. The senior council refused to put up with that once we found out. I am proud to say that my friends stood up for her every time an ignorant word was uttered towards her. Even Julian had been faced with hatred for a long time, we found out. None of the members knew what he was dealing with before this year. There was incessant ridicule fired at Julian simply because he was brave enough to outwardly proclaim to be the person he feels he is on the inside. We would not allow our friend to be a victim of transphobic people and their hatred. We defended him every time a classmate would crack some stupid joke about Julian’s “real name” being Julie. Our talented Julian also created something symbolic and representative of our fierce group. Another one of our responsibilities was to design and sell the senior class shirt for that year. Julian is a talented artist and took it upon himself to create the masterpiece. It fit our school, class, and friend group perfectly. It was a baby blue color, with Zeus (our mascot) hand drawn on it. On it proclaimed our newfound motto: “Loud N Proud. We’re Living the Dream. Class of 2017”. We were living the dream alright! This group of people that were all once strangers to me transformed into some of the most supportive people in my life and I hope I became the same for them.