Last year, yesterday, and forever girls will gossip. Hateful and rude words are customary in the language of girls, but sometimes words become writing, and writing becomes graffiti, and then graffiti becomes the reason why a bathroom turns into a crime scene.

To whoever wrote the hateful and racist words, congratulations. The second floor bathroom next to the main stairwell has been shut down for over a week. The level of maturity among female students has come into question. And, of course, the administration is looking for the culprit.

For many years there has been little diversity among the student population. However, due to the popularity of the magnet program North Harford has been attracting students from near and far, and students of different races and cultures.

Students who cannot handle the changes need to find a way to express their feelings other than resorting to elementary, disgusting tactics. No student want to walk into the bathroom and see anything, even something as trifling and common as a sharpied curse word on the wall. They especially don’t want to see words so hateful and unbelievable that other students feel sorry the staff had to look at it, let alone have to clean it up.

Whether or not the writing is terrible enough to shut down a bathroom or simple enough to make a teacher roll their eyes, it’s all unnecessary. Many students tend to think that North Harford, or school in general, is a rotten place to be simply because of the people there and how they act. It’d be pretty difficult to change the entire female student population, but perhaps we can start with the writing on the bathroom walls.

Girls have been the queens of gossip way before Mean Girls was a movie and Glen Coco got four candy cane grams. Written, spoken, or even whispered behind backs- words can hurt. Unjustified criticisms and false opinions can destroy a girl’s reputation faster than she can realize it’s been tarnished.

Once the damage has been done there are no take-backs, re-dos, or start-overs. People can paint over all of the angrily scribbled words in the stalls, but under the paint they’re still there. The people who wrote them are still walking the halls. The people who were hurt by them can try to move on, but they still won’t forget.
Whoever wrote, or has written something hateful on the bathroom walls; please know that while you may dislike North Harford, or the some of the people here- it’d be a much nicer place without disgraceful scribbles marring girls’ view of themselves and their peers.