do your job

Remember being a pain-in-the-ass teen-ager? Remember thinking something was unfair at your high school, and making a fuss about it? Remember the minor thrill of rebelling for what you thought was a good cause, and pissing off your parents and teachers in the name of progress?

Feeling good about being confrontational like that is one of the great rewards of being a teen-ager. These kids in Georgia, with their segregated prom that they all go to, won't have it. Especially the white kids. It's their job. They could decide, en masse, at the provocation of one popular but socially conscious kid, that they won't go to the white prom. The hell with the prom dress, or the limo, or whatever else it is your parents pay for that makes prom night so special. This is the chance to poke a stick in the eye of your whole town, and do it for a really good reason, and maybe even get some national media attention. I got no respect for the white kids who just go along with the segregated prom. It'd only take one year to get rid of it forever, and it'd be a little nerve-wracking, but it'd be really fun, and you'd be the kids who got rid of the segregated prom.

That's your job, teen-agers. Get out there and do it.

(with acknowledgments to the Gardener, who brought up this point, and who went to her high school prom with a girl before she was gay.)