Conversations with strangers often fall upon the go-to small-talk topic: school. A simple answer for most, but for East students it comes with a little more hesitation. The reactions that follow the words “I go to Shawnee Mission East” are rarely positive.
An uncomfortable glance to the floor and slight nod of the head follow as if those three words explain everything anyone will ever need to know about your personality and who you are as a person.
Surrounding schools and the general public immediately correlate “Shawnee Mission East” with privilege, preppiness and self-absorbance. It’s unfortunate that all East students are grouped in with the stereotypes of attending our school, often feeling ashamed to admit they come from the arrogant central of Prairie Village.
We all know the everlasting stereotype of East, defined on Urban Dictionary as “The preppiest public school in the midwest” and “THE hotspot for white rich kids to spend their free time being hospitalized for binge drinking.”
That’s not to say that every East student is a self-absorbed, spoiled rich kid. But even students who don’t fit the preppy standard and spend countless hours working towards achievements are often discredited and told they “just rely on their parents’ money to get them through life.”
According to an Instagram poll of 248 votes, 88% of students are aware of East’s reputation. But we tend to simply accept it and laugh along every time someone mentions the excessive amount of Lululemon leggings in the hallways and Jeep Wranglers flying through the parking lot. Whether you have materialistic items or not, it’s important for students to realize that what you have and how you act are two different things — just because you go to East doesn’t mean you have to be East.
Your high school does not determine your personality nor entitle you to treat others a certain way. You don’t have to laugh along and say “Yeah, East is crazy-privileged and full of snobs, that’s just the way it is.” Even though this generalization certainly has an ounce of truth, we’re all ultimately in control of how we define ourselves, and it doesn’t have to stay like that forever. It’s crucial to realize that by sitting and playing along with the long-thought idea of East and its entitlement, it’s remaining unchanged.
You can be the one to begin changing that narrative. You can be the one to go out of your way to show that East does have accepting and kind people. Treat everyone you meet with equal respect and shake off the ego that comes with being from Shawnee Mission East.
When listening to the stories of students from other schools who have been harassed in the East bathrooms at basketball games and the extra precautions students of color take when coming into East “territory,” it’s impossible to try to defend East students’ actions, and it’s clear we need to make changes.
With a 15% minority enrollment as of 2020, East tends to argue that “it’s not our fault” that we have the least diverse school in the district. While it’s out of students’ hands to increase diversity numbers, the East community should be actively making efforts to be more inclusive of all races within the school. So yes, the demographics may be uncontrollable, but the way we act and treat others is completely in our control.
While we are the driving force of making a change to our reputation, this change cannot be one-sided either. Surrounding schools and communities also need to open their minds to see the good that does exist in East, instead of holding on to the age-old stories about what people have done in the past. However, it still takes more than just a few compassionate and kind students. If we change our collective actions as a whole, our student body and surrounding areas will be able to view us that way too.
East may always be filled with highly privileged teenagers met with a culture shock when they eventually leave their Prairie Village bubble, but East doesn’t have to forever be the school that’s met with an eye roll or a sharp inhale holding back criticism.
Students should be able to proudly say that they go to Shawnee Mission East, but that pride can only come once humility is proven, and we show that we are accepting and willing to change the reputation that East is home to “the biggest douchebags in the Kansas City Metro area.”