Deviance

William J. Chambliss defines selective perception and labeling within deviance as “finding, processing and punishing some kinds of criminality and not others – means that visible, poor, nonmobile, outspoken, undiplomatic ‘tough’ kids will be noticed, whether their actions are seriously delinquent or not.” I specifically remember an example in 8^th grade when I witnessed this type of labeling. It was the last full day of school, the Thursday before graduation from grade school. Every day at lunch a group of friends and I always sat together at the same table. We knew that this was our last time eating lunch together since we all were splitting up and going to different high schools. We decided to celebrate by feasting on the best “brought” lunch our cafeteria had ever seen. Something to keep in mind though, we were not the most well behaved students in our class. We had always felt that the teachers and administration favored the girls within our class (women represented 100% of the 8^th class faculty as well as the school administration). We were very outspoken regarding the bias we accused our authority figures of having against teenage boys. Because of this we accepted our role as the “accused delinquents” and strolled through our last semester at school with a carefree attitude knowing we were already accepted into our future high schools. With that being said we had each member at our lunch table bring in a different meal item. Each person brought in one of the following: sliced bagels from Panera, soda, chips, a cookie cake, a bottle of sparkling grape juice, and paper plates and cups. We even had someone’s mom drop off Imo’s pizza to the office right before the lunch break began. As we shared every item at lunch we certainly everyone’s attention focused on us, especially the faculty. They accused us of making a mockery of our last day at school, not sharing with everyone else in our class, and most importantly ordering pizza to school. First of all, no one ordered pizza to the school. Someone’s mom dropped it off. If it’s a student’s lunch then what is the different between a mother dropping of a sack lunch or a box of pizza, its serves the same purpose. And who said we have to share with others? Every day at lunch boys and girls exchanged food items with only students at their own table. Just because we weren’t enjoying the typical lunch items doesn’t mean we have to share them with the entire class. Anyways, our teachers gave us an ultimatum: write a letter to the principal that afternoon apologizing for making a mockery of our last day of school or we wouldn’t be able to walk at graduation. We all ended up writing the letter but we were convinced that if a group of girls pulled the same stunt the teachers monitoring lunch would have laughed it off, considered it cute and asked for a slice of cookie cake. Though our actions were not seriously delinquent they were visible in a questionable manner because of our tendencies for being the outspoken group at school. We were seen as a group of trouble makers trying to make a statement to the administration when it reality all we were trying to do was celebrate and enjoy our last school of day together as best friends. Looking back on it though, I’m sure it didn't look quite appropriate having a table of 14 year old kids passing around one of these at lunch. Let’s just say it could have been misleading…