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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. It was a dream come true for me. My council was made up of fellow seniors whom I would say were only acquaintances. For example, we may have known each other’s names as it was a smaller school, but most of us had never had a conversation with each other before. I took it as an opportunity to get to know some new people. I had no way of knowing 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, Cristian, 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 significantly 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 the largest responsibilities of being in this school council was to plan a Baccalaureate service for the senior class—a tradition of 100 years at my school. It was a huge task, but we were incredibly driven to make it the best one yet. 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 of the church 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. We all loved this tradition and had no desire to change it. For some reason, our council sponsor had pre-selected and booked a church for the service. This church was a different location from where it had been held for many years before. The church where it 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. It had no choir pit, which presented us with a huge issue. The choirs alternative for a choir pit was risers for the all the performers to stand upon. Unfortunately, those risers would have been 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. The vibe in that room was very tense and uncomfortable. 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. I can specifically remember Quinn saying, “Hey! Give her a chance to talk and you will understand she is doing all she can.” They all spoke 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 persuade Jace to give up on the risers so that they could sing. Even though this was a difficult dilemma to deal with, it taught me that these kids will really have my back even when they do not have to. It helped me to build up the trust I now have for them.
During that year, several of the members were having issues outside of the council. Ritika was taunted relentlessly with racial slurs because she is Indian. Those of us in 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.
Julian had also been dealing with others hatred for a long time. 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. I feel that this helped to change the atmosphere in our high school to one of acceptance.
Our friend Julian is a talented artist. He took it upon himself to create the masterpiece that would become our senior class shirt for the year, as another responsibility of ours was to design and sell it. The shirt fit our school, class, and friend group perfectly. Julian made something so symbolic and representative of our fierce group. 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 really were living the dream! 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.