The full Choate experience is perfectly summarized within one place on campus. This place attracts every Choate student for two reasons: the nutritional necessities of daily life, and the fact that the dining hall is the social metropolis of campus. Students go there to talk about work, gossip, stress, world issues, and problems affecting their lives. It is the one place where students are not afraid to voice their opinions, even in disagreement with their peers. The dining hall is the heart of Choate.
Students of all races, genders and sexualities seem to coexist happily in the dining hall and elsewhere because Choate demands tolerance from all students. For some students, this is only a disguise masking their homophobic, racist, sexist or classist tendencies, of which they know their fellow peers would disapprove. But is this a majority of students? Is Choate a tolerant community?
At some of our fellow prep schools, the disguises have been taken off and students’ true feelings have been revealed. Tension has arisen and there have been obvious divides within prep school communities. As The News reported last week, problems have been revealed at prep schools since the beginning of the year. On September 28th at Loomis Chaffee, six African American girls were blacked out in a dorm picture. Many other incidents followed.
Most recently, at our rival school Deerfield, eight students received personally addressed notes targeting their association with the gay-straight alliance club. How did these belligerent perpetrators’ feelings go undected for so long? Were their feelings so repressed that the only way they could express them was on a napkin? If something like this could happen at Deerfield, could it happen at Choate?
I believe and hope that hate crimes of that nature could never happen at Choate. The level of tolerance expected of students by the administration warrants that much. When I interviewed at Choate, I was told that tolerance and integrity were founding principles of the school. I also believe that the admission office looks for applicants who are open-minded. But there are always exceptions.
Even though the administration at Choate is very tolerant, it does not mean that every student at Choate is exceptionlessly tolerant. I fear that there may be students at Choate who are racist, sexist, classist, or homophobic whose views are suppressed because they are not acceptable among the broader Choate community. Often such suppressed feelings turn into anger, which causes people to lash out at other people who have done nothing themselves. These are the students whom any administration has to worry about—the ones whose feelings are not being addressed.
How, though, can the administration find these kids with these suppressed feelings and help them become tolerant? To be honest, I do not know. But the first step can be talking about the incidents at other prep schools at school meeting or reflections. The first step to solving a problem is realizing that it is there.
If one were to walk to the dining hall and look at all the bright, sunny faces what would one see? Would one recognize the face of a racist? Sexist? Classist? Homophobe? Sadly, no. But we can strive to make the Choate community not only a place where tolerant young adults succeed, but also a place where kids feel comfortable admitting that they are not tolerant--and seeking help.
