Pride is a foundation from which our whole school stands on. Our educators even use it as an attempt to motivate and encourage students to act as one peaceful community. Class color day has adopted quite the opposite reputation; by the end of the day you can expect to find numerous suspensions and disputes among peers. This segregation that happens year-round and explodes at the end of spirit week counteracts everything South has tried to stand for: acceptance and unity.

When pondering the benefits of class color day, all I can gather is that it’s a fun way to represent your own individual class. Although it’s great to act with such pride, it creates a massive division throughout the student body. Many students here, including myself, chose to attend South primarily due to the fact it with held such an open environment. Class color day only seems to diminish the relationships between the upper and lower classes.

One of the largest problems concerning class color day is hazing. The worst hazing I’ve witnessed is marking other students with pen and the ‘walk of shame’ where seniors push the other students down the hallways. It creates an atmosphere of unrest. While I know that none of us truly want to act out in violence towards other classes, even I would fear the consequences of not wearing my designated color. Just the fact that this day is completely controlled by apprehension itself is worrying. Class colors should represent pride, not anxiety and superiority.

Class color day is only a small portion of spirit week, yet it almost always seems to set the final outcome for the weeks activities. As a Freshman last year I was really looking forward to attending the pep-fest before the homecoming game, which was abruptly taken away due to the misbehavior of the student body. While many argue that it is only a small group of people who are causing the real problems, the rest of us just stand by and watch the chaos unfold. If we want to keep respect of the administrators and fellow students, we must all take on the responsibility of keeping our school open and welcoming.

My greatest hope for South would be for our school to remain united as a whole. If juniors and seniors are able to look past the idea of superiority and still find room to include the lower classmen in the South High community we would be able to create a supportive environment throughout the school.

We should not give up on class color day, since it is one of many traditions we hold here at South, but its crucial to change its direction. Our school’s admirable pride and community is not worth being compromised.