School pride at the cost of maturity

Ben Meiselman's opinion piece rallying Blair against Whitman was destructive and immature, and should not have been published in the December 19 Silver Chips.

There's nothing wrong with trying to build school spirit. But we don't have to hurl insults to be proud of ourselves. Of course we should be proud of our diversity, but that doesn't mean we should call other students in a less diverse school "vermin" or "miscreants."

Some people I talked to at Blair admitted that Meiselman did go a bit too far. Still, they said, the anti-Blair prejudice he talked about does exist, and this piece just wanted to equalize the playing field a bit.

I agree; there are undoubtedly students at Whitman who consider themselves superior to the students at Blair. (For examples, see some of the less-mature comments on Meiselman's article.)

But how does it make sense to fight fire with fire? The article tried to oppose bigotry and stereotyping with more bigotry and stereotyping. To really win a battle of prejudice, you have to take the high road. Be mature, be excellent, be proud. Then the other side will have to admit that their opinion of you was ill-founded. Instead, the article put fuel into the fire, leading to narrow-minded opinions on both sides.

The childish name-calling has no place in a reputable journalistic institution, and the "us vs. them" mentality has no place in a supposedly mature society. I hope students from both Blair and Whitman will avoid falling into the trap of bigotry.