Do Territorial Claims at South Promote a Culture of Exclusion?

By Molly Walsh

Opinions Contributor

As the year begins to transition- freshmen become sophomores become juniors become seniors- there is a sudden yet brief period of relocation amongst the grades. Sectors of the school that are universally understood to belong to specific grades are passed down, and students acclimate to new areas of the school where they can socialize during the upcoming year.

Spots like the L-bench and the Senior Commons have a long lasting history at South for being home to a particular crowd, and during this time of transition, these two areas are quickly reclaimed by similar friend groups.

It is completely understandable why students flock to these specific spots. The centralized location, accessibility, and just simply the comfort of having an area for students to stop in their tracks during the day, makes these locations, the L-bench specifically, an attractive place to be. With the stress of a high school day it is appropriate, and arguably crucial, for students to have a place like this where they can easily find their friends and an environment where they can unwind.

With such a spotlight shone on these two areas, however, there comes an inevitable entitlement to residing there, and with this, a sense of “territory”.

“If you have a bench that can literally only seat a certain number of people, students are going to want to assert themselves and certain personal claims over it,” junior Anna Neumann said. “I don’t think people consider it a big deal, or are actively aggressive about it, but it does mean that a specific group of people go out of their way to capitalize on it.”

This is not to say that one group of students is better or worse than another, no matter where they spend their time. Some of my best and most genuine friends were regulars at the L-Bench, before recently shifting to the Commons; the type of people who populate these spots is besides the point. It is solely a matter of analyzing the restrictive outcome that happens when a single group of people have total control over a public area, because this impression is so obviously prevalent within South.

It is inescapable to avoid division in a school based upon interests, involvements, and just overall lifestyle choices; this is not specific to South, nor is it realistic to hope for anything otherwise. But by having literal physical structures and rooms to accommodate these divisions, an unnecessarily strict enforcement of status and rank comes into play. And with such an enforcement in place to exemplify for lower grades, a cycle of exclusion is created; one that is hard to break.

This selective environment is not the fault of any one specific friend group, but a result of the perpetual cycle of implemented “territory” in South that moves through grade to grade each year, never allowing room for reconsideration.

With this, the question is raised: what would happen if these spots were given the opportunity to reinvent themselves? Would the same group of people chose to go here, and the same cycle would continue? Is this capitalization inevitable and simply the result of high school tendency?  Or is it possible that with a different viewpoint and more awareness, students from other worlds would filter in and out to set a different, more welcoming standard for underclassmen to then follow?

I do not have an answer to this question, and there really is no way of knowing until something drastic changes, but I think this consideration is simply important to acknowledge. Without doing so, the cycle will forever continue, and South may never grow to be as welcoming and inclusive as it may strive to be.