Looking at another person from a teenager’s point of view is like being a judge sentencing someone to 50 years in jail. Unfortunately, the sentence isn’t on the behavior, but on what clothes the accused wears. It’s a reflex.

After checking out our peers’ clothes, we teens decide what they “are” and categorize them into the cliques that most schools have, including preps, goths, scene kids, punks, band geeks, nerds, wannabes, rednecks, etc.

It is like we have to have the groups to make the world go round; everyone just can’t be friends. I know that some people just don’t talk to others because they don’t have anything in common interest-wise, but I know that many teens don’t speak to others because they look “weird” or “different.” In reality those “weird” people have feelings just like the ones doing the judging.

Middle school is as bad as high school. Most of my classmates wore the main brand name clothes like Hollister or Abercrombie, meaning they were “cool.” The few who stood out by not wearing those brands were often shunned.

In sixth grade I went through a “goth/punk phase” I guess it would be called. Most people were pretty nice to me, so I thought. They didn’t call me a freak to my face, but I could tell others thought I was creepy for wearing black all the time, dying my hair insane colors or wearing chains on my pants.

I changed to fit in more, but I didn’t act any way drastic from how I normally am. Yeah, I wear Hollister and such now, but my personality is still the same.

I have to admit that I used to, and still kind of do, categorize others into cliques. If I see people who aren’t like me, I get so uncomfortable that I don’t want to talk to them. But I don’t like admitting this weakness.

So what I’m trying to say is it’s not right to stereotype people because of what they look like. We should give people chances.

Would you want someone who looks different from you to come up and call you a freak? I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t, so why is it okay for you to do the same thing to someone else?

Not too long ago, an event happened at Lincoln called “Mix-it-up Day.” It’s like this certain day when students can sit with total strangers at lunch and not feel weird for doing so. Having a “Mix- it-up Day” didn’t seem to do much for the students. Pretty much none of the students at first lunch participated. I didn’t either, but I really wished I had.

I know the world isn’t going to change because I feel it should, and it’s not just high school that will divide the world into groups. The separation will go on through college and business, at home and every place we go in life.

I think we should remember the saying: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Unfortunately, that’s what I see a lot of us do: JUDGE.