Professor Henderson
Academic Writing
April 21st, 2010
Why I Hate Green Day; a Narrative Argument
From birth to seven years old I was raised in Manchester, England. I was brought up next to a ‘Fish n’ Chip’ shop. I went to a Manchester United game every Saturday and would scream the songs in the stands. I sang ‘God Save the Queen’ everyday before class and wore school uniforms with a little clip-on tie. I was babysat by my older cousin while all the adults in my family left to go to Princess Diana’s funeral. I was as british as a boy could be. Then, in the October of 2008, my parents, my two brothers and I moved to America.
Being a British boy in America turned out to be brilliant! Everyone would huddle around to hear you speak and everyone who ask you to say ‘british words’. It made you quite popular in elementary school and middle school, especially once Harry Potter came out and everyone found the accent to sound ‘magical’. Then, in 2005, my father asked me and my family if we would want to move back to England. I thought it would be great! Finally going back to where my family was, being able to watch Manchester United, and just feeling at home again. I thought it be really easy to just fit right back into the world I had left. Little did I know that despite retaining my british accent, there was a slight American accent added to my voice.
Before I moved to England, I didn’t give a passing thought about discrimination or intolerance. Those were history class definition words, not something that exists today, let alone something that a middle-to-upper class white boy would ever have to deal with. My one year in England completely changed my outlook on intolerance and what is truly means to be singled out for something beyond your control.
My new school in England was called the Ryleys School for Boys, a private boys only school that on average had 17 boys graduate every year. My year consisted of only 14 boys. These other 14 boys had all been in the Ryleys since they started school, and were a very tight-nit group. However, I knew this going into the school. I was told and understood that it would be a bit difficult to find a place within this already close group of students, but I was determined and excited to make new friends no matter how hard it would be.
The boys at the school turned out to be intolerant of anyone different, and they heard an american accent in my voice that I wasn’t even aware I had. To them I sounded like a born American, and they hated me for it. By the end of the week I was despised by a half of the boys, and the other half just ignored me. There were 6 boys who were giving me large amounts of grief who were led by a particularly nasty boy called Dagen Meek. Dagen seemed to start the bullying towards me and the other five played along. Like anyone else, I had dealt with bullying before. In America there were plenty of the iconic jerks who would threaten kids for lunch money or occasionally swirly a kid, but compared to the bullying that went on in that god forsaken English boys only school, those bullies were saints.
Dagen and his crew were absolutely brutal. They would compete over who could make the kids they bullied cry first, and if you ever said anything against them or retaliate, they would beat you into submission. The faculty was about as helpful and attentive as a dead dog when it came to bullying. If they saw a fight going on, they would let it continue till there was a winner and then take the winner to the Head Master’s office and the looser would be left on the ground. Being bullied became a daily norm.
The day that I realized what I was being picked on for was the day that the Green Day song “American Idiot” first came onto british radio. The kids in my grade would berate me with the song, constantly insulting me and saying that it was my anthem. I would say things like “Even Americans think they themselves are idiots!”. They would sing it to purposely get on my nerves and it quickly became my least favorite song of all time. It was symbolic of the mindset everyone in that school had about America.
Only looking back a few years later did I truly understand why I was being discriminated against for having an American accent. In 2003, America went to war with Iraq. This conflict started to effect several other powerful nations and ended up dragging in other countries such as the United Kingdom, Poland, and Australia, all which were countries who were reluctant to go to war in the first place. By 2005, the approval rating of America in the UK had declined 27 percent (Kull). In the eyes of many countries, America was making huge mistakes and causing countries such as the UK to send their soldiers to fight and die in a war they never wanted to be apart of. The public was upset and angry with America, and that mindset was rubbing off on their children (Kull).
Of course these 13 to 14 year old kids didn’t understand any of this and wouldn’t have the intellectual capacity to be angry at someone for such a political reason. It was the negative image of America by the british media and the grudges of the parents that trickled down to the children and caused their bigotry towards the US. The faculty didn’t help the situation either. My english teacher would go on rants daily about the stupidity of the American government and would make fat jokes about americans. I do not defend what America did and I would be just as annoyed as anyone else had I understood the situation, but I was just a 13 british boy who had picked up a slight american twang to his voice. This was not my fault as much as it wasn’t any thirteen year old american child’s fault, yet I was taking the abuse.
To most people in the society and culture we live in, discrimination is something we only think about during Black History Month. It is a concept that we learn about, not that we experience. What we must realize is that such bigotry is still alive today. People are being prejudiced everyday for being the slightest bit different. Whether its the new mexican student who can’t speak english, the boy with two dads, the girl who plays with Action Men, the girl who wants to were a burka to school, or the british boy who picked up a slight american accent, discrimination is as real as it can be. Discrimination has many harmful effects on children; it has been proven that mental heath problems are more common in students who are discriminated against.
A study done by the University of California in Los Angeles has shown that over 15% of children they surveyed felt they were being discriminated against, and the vast amount of this discrimination was being done at school (University of California). It is important for faculty of schools and for parents to teach students that it is okay to be different and to make sure not to pass down their own prejudices to their children, before the bullied students reach a breaking point in which they feel they can not stay in the conditions they are in.
My personal breaking point was one day in German class when the teacher left to copy some papers. A big “rubber fight” broke out where the kids in the class would grab their erasers and hurl them at each other. Dagen took my eraser from out of my hand and threw it at one of the kids on the otherside of the room and it landed next to a stand with the Television on top of it. I sighed and went over to pick it up but as I went to do so Dagen ran over, rammed me aside, and knocked me right into the stand. The television fell down and landed on Dagen's head while cracking the television screen. We both panicked and immediately put the television back on the stand. "You say anything when Frau comes back, I'll bloody well kill you!" Dagen threatened as we both ran back to our seats.
The next day I came into the school and was immediately approached by Dagen. He looked angrier than I had ever seen him. He threw a punch which landed me straight in the gut. I tried to punch him back but he kicked me in the knee and I fell on the ground. I looked up and cursed at Dagen. He just leaned down and said "Who the hell do you think you are? You're not a Brit, you're not American. You don’t belong anywhere." That day I lost all sense of where I belonged in the world. The bullying got to such a point that when my father said that he was offered a job in America again, my whole family and I jumped at the opportunity.
In America I have yet to be discriminated against as I did in England. There is the occasional joke about tea and crumpets or a snicker when I say petrol or lift instead of elevator, but nothing to the severity as in England. Having a british accent starts conversations and is something that is seen as interesting. Even though it was such a dreadful year, I wouldn’t take back what happened to me in England. I have developed a keen dislike of bigotry of any kind and am a big advocator of anti-bullying and discrimination groups, and I hope that steps will be taken to prevent it from occurring anymore.
Work Cited
University of California - Los Angeles. "Mental Health Problems More Common In Kids Who Feel Racial Discrimination." ScienceDaily, 29 Apr. 2009. Web. 21 Apr. 2011.
Kull, Steven. "America's Image in the World." World Public Opinion. 4 Mar. 2007. Web. 21 Apr. 2011. <http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/ views_on_countriesregions_bt/326.php?nid=>.
