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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's true, though.  If you see a car driven by the Catholic Mafia, it's all about the Gonzaga or Prep bumper sticker.  You never see a college bumper sticker.[/quote]

Ridiculous, but it IS true that you are a bigot.[/quote]

I'm not this poster, but I can't see how this observation is "bigoted" in any way.

The poster may be poking a little fun at these people, because he/she and their ilk think these people with these bumper stickers and their fierce allegiances to these high schools are ridiculous. He/she want these people to be aligned with their value system. He/she appears to think these people are silly and not necessarily bad people.

Of course, the Prep and GZA alums with the close life-long ties to these schools don't care at all about what this person thinks. They have their way, they believe in it, and its worked petty well for them for a very long time.[/quote]

It's beyond poking fun -- this string of posts is mocking, prejudiced, and dismissive.  It seeks to paint a large swath of Catholics with the same biased brush.  You are similarly feeding into this all too prevalent bigotry, when you only mention Prep and Gonzaga and dismissively describe how "THEY" think . . .[/quote]

I am one of those DC Catholics. I'm a Gonzaga graduate.

I think the observation is pretty much correct.

I agree that very frequently we do consider our high school association a more important than our college one. My closest friends are the guys I went to Gonzaga with and a few Prep and St John's guys I have developed relationships with. I am not threatened or insulted by this in any way.
[/quote]

First of all, let me state upfront that I am Catholic and have children in the local Catholic schools.

The problem is that there are several posters on DCUM who seek to perpetuate stereotypes or generalizations about the families who send their kids to the local Catholic high schools. Some of these inaccurate generalizations are: 1) that Catholic families at the school are not welcoming to non-Catholics and feel like non-Catholics are "using" the schools (I think this one usually comes from a Catholic poster who wants to keep non-Catholics from applying), 2) that the students only come from select parts of Montgomery County and not the larger DC metropolitan area (I think maybe this one comes from Catholics who prefer thinking about these schools as their personal social clubs and can't accept that the schools have moved beyond the population they served 20-30 years ago), and 3) that the students who attend catholic HS have little aspiration beyond HS (I think this one either comes from non-Catholics who are trying to characterize the students at Catholic high schools as anti-intellectuals, or possibly from a small number of Catholics who actually are anti-intellectuals but who don't get that this is not something to be proud of).

Responding to the poster from Gonzaga: Just because there is one person who identifies with a stereotype (in this case: "the students at the local Catholic high schools only really care about where they went to HS and not college") doesn't mean that the stereotype is correct. The stereotype/generalization is offensive because it rejects all the people who do not fit that model. Reasonable people do not say "women don't like to play sports" just because they know a few women who don't like to play sports or because they remember that 40 years ago their mother didn't play sports. And even if a woman says, "I think that person is right, I'm a woman and have never really been into playing sports, so I'm not offended by that statement," it doesn't make it any less insulting to the rest of the women who don't want to be characterized by that narrow description of an entire group of people and who worry why someone might continually repeat such an inaccurate stereotype.

I agree with the poster who says that having lasting connections with high school friends is a wonderful thing and I believe there's something special about the Catholic high school communities which foster those life-long relationships. However, the anti-Catholic HS posters often try to make it sound like this is all the Catholic high school kids have going for them and they have no interest in ever moving out of the area, attending top colleges, focusing on academic interests/careers, or meeting and working with people of different faiths. This just isn't true of most kids attending the local Catholic high schools.[/quote]

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