A2Politico: Ann Arbor Politics Grilled To Perfection

This piece was written by a middle school student who attends a public school in Ann Arbor. A2Politico thanks the student for this contribution. The author welcomes your comments. 

A typical morning at my….middle school. A typical middle school 7th grader. 

I walk in the door, and in the lobby I see little groups of people. Each group represents a different rung on the political ladder of middle school. There are maybe 20 rungs on the Main Political Ladder. So, how do middle schoolers move up and down the rungs of the main political ladder? At my middle school, we move up based on the number of friends we have, who those friends are, how many friends they have, and what rank those kids are on the political ladder. Another way to move up the political ladder is to beat the kids at the top at their own political game. In other words, humiliate or embarrass them in front of all of their friends. When this happens, the kid on the lower political rung rises to assume the position of the kid who got bumped from the top spot.

We move down the political ladder when we make enemies. It’s almost as if the more enemies you have, the lower you are on the political ladder. That’s how middle school politics works. You have political enemies, and you fight against them. You don’t care about their “ideas,” but rather you fight against them personally. This is a basic difference between local politics, and the politics of middle school. Or is it?

In middle school, who’s at the top of the political ladder you might wonder? The popular kids. Lots of friends. Lots of texting. Lots of rule breaking. So why don’t these rule breakers get in trouble? Their political allies back them up. Which kids are at the bottom of the political ladder you might ask? It’s not the really annoying kids, or the mean kids. Those are the kids who at the top of political ladder. Are the kids at the bottom ugly? Do they have mental issues? Injuries? You might think so, but those aren’t the kids at the bottom of the political ladder in middle school, either. It’s the kids that the politicos at the top of the middle school ladder choose to be at the bottom. 

The few kids at the top of the middle school political ladder are the ones who decide which rungs of the political ladder other kids will occupy.

Some kids aren’t on the political ladder. These kids actually have a lot of political power. Nobody on the political ladder “challenges” them for their spot off the ladder. If, however, they end up in a political dispute with a kid on the ladder, and win, the kid who started off the ladder gets bumped onto the ladder by the other kids. 

So how does all of this compare to local Ann Arbor politics? There are many similarities. For example, people don’t run for City Council, because they are afraid that they might lose—that the incumbent might rip them off the political ladder of life and toss them to the bottom. Another similarity between the politics of middle school and local politics is that the incumbent is at the top of the political ladder, like a popular kid in middle school. 

So who are the people on the bottom rungs of the political ladder of life? They are the average citizens, the people who are excluded from the political decision-making. It matters that so many people are excluded from the political cliques because, like in middle school, information (secrets) can easily be hidden from the people at the bottom of the political ladder by the people at the top of the political ladder. You would think voters are at the top of the political ladder, but I don’t think they are. 

Does race enter into the politics of middle school? Absolutely. The are barely any Asian kids at the top of my middle school political ladder. In fact, there are multiple political ladders because of race. For example, there is definitely a separate political ladder for the African-American kids, one for the white kids and one for the Asian kids. The Main political ladder draws members from the other, single-race political ladders. However, on the Main political ladder in my middle school, it’s mostly white girls and black boys at or near the top. 

How do I feel about this middle school political ladder? I don’t exactly love it, and I think without it the structure of middle school would fall apart for the people at the top. So, you might ask, where am I on this middle school political ladder? I have enemies, but I don’t get into that many disputes. I have a medium number of friends. So, I would say I’m one of those kids at or on the middle of the middle school political ladder, or maybe just not on it at all. It would be nice to be at the top, and have all that political power, but I actually like where I am. I don’t get challenged (politically attacked). So, I would have to say that I don’t mind being off the ladder, or when I’m not it, somewhere around the middle. 

Do we need the same kinds of political ladders in our local political system? I don’t think we do, but we we definitely have them, and the ladders impact local politics. If we could eliminate the system of political ladders in middle school, I think it could impact the local political system. I’m not saying the racial political ladders would disappear. I’m saying more people who wanted to could have more of a chance to jump on the political ladder and, maybe, move up. 

Thanks for reading. 

AnA2MiddleSchooler

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