Politics: Unbelievable
This came up before the weekend: It's the story of a settled lawsuit and a student with a disability. She was preparing to graduate first in her class, when the school proposed that she share her Valedictorian honors at her high school with the other top kids in the class. It appears that some parents complained because this student, whose immune disease represents a disability which precludes her from taking, say, physical education courses, or muddling up her schedule with extra-curriculars that could detract from her school work. Without gym, the student was able to pile on more regular academic classes, and therefore, these parents argued, drive up her GPA.
I had to read this thing about a half-dozen times because I kept gagging from the unbelievable self-centeredness of these motherf*ckers. Honest to God, you’re going to claim that because this student has to live FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE with this disability that she is somehow getting away with something and doesn’t deserve to be Valedictorian? Apparently, that’s exactly what they did, convincing the principle and school board or whomever to let this student know that she wouldn’t be the sole Valedictorian even though her GPA clearly indicated that she was first in the class. No, they would have a couple other students stand as Valedictorians as well.
Apparently, these school administrators hadn’t yet learned the little lessons about how people who are different us aren’t any less valuable as people. Maybe they missed those crucial episodes of friggin’ Sesame Street, for chrissakes. Anyhow, these boneheads — who shouldn’t be running a goddamn 7-11 let alone a school district — got their asses rightfully sued. Maybe the parents were just so insistent, but I have a feeling it was more than that. It was a case of ‘you’re either with us or against us, and that kid isn’t, like, a real person, she’s a freak, right?’ And then it was, ‘you can’t have that freakshow up on the stage giving the speech, can you? My kid won a baseball trophy and only date-raped two underclassmen, and everbody knows that the Miller’s daughter is going to Harvard and is guaranteed a cheerleading trophy this summer at nationals. You can’t tell me just because this kid can’t go out for gym and is taking 6 classes that she’s gonna be valedictorian in front of my kid?
And then it went. But the kid sued. And this month, she’s going to be the valedictorian of her graduating class.
Of course, any worthwhile experience she may have taken from high school is gone. She may have struggled for twelve years with her disability and the kids calling her names and the teachers acting like she was mentally and not physically incapacitated, but she had, before this, managed to cordon off a few useful memories that she was planning to take to college where everything else would be forgotten.
Now she will stand on that stage and deliver a speech that, if she’s smart, will reflect on this whole disaster. She won’t name names, but everybody knows who they are. And she will tell them that there are no hard feelings, and she will talk about the future, and how much she has learned from her four years in high school, and how though we’re all going our own separate ways, we will always have the time we spent become adults at Walker high or wherever.
And then she should leave that auditorium, stadium or arena, and never look back at those sons of bitches. They should soak in their own marinade of guilt and bigotry. And their kids should be ashamed.
This came up before the weekend: It's the story of a settled lawsuit and a student with a disability. She was preparing to graduate first in her class, when the school proposed that she share her Valedictorian honors at her high school with the other top kids in the class. It appears that some parents complained because this student, whose immune disease represents a disability which precludes her from taking, say, physical education courses, or muddling up her schedule with extra-curriculars that could detract from her school work. Without gym, the student was able to pile on more regular academic classes, and therefore, these parents argued, drive up her GPA.
I had to read this thing about a half-dozen times because I kept gagging from the unbelievable self-centeredness of these motherf*ckers. Honest to God, you’re going to claim that because this student has to live FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE with this disability that she is somehow getting away with something and doesn’t deserve to be Valedictorian? Apparently, that’s exactly what they did, convincing the principle and school board or whomever to let this student know that she wouldn’t be the sole Valedictorian even though her GPA clearly indicated that she was first in the class. No, they would have a couple other students stand as Valedictorians as well.
Apparently, these school administrators hadn’t yet learned the little lessons about how people who are different us aren’t any less valuable as people. Maybe they missed those crucial episodes of friggin’ Sesame Street, for chrissakes. Anyhow, these boneheads — who shouldn’t be running a goddamn 7-11 let alone a school district — got their asses rightfully sued. Maybe the parents were just so insistent, but I have a feeling it was more than that. It was a case of ‘you’re either with us or against us, and that kid isn’t, like, a real person, she’s a freak, right?’ And then it was, ‘you can’t have that freakshow up on the stage giving the speech, can you? My kid won a baseball trophy and only date-raped two underclassmen, and everbody knows that the Miller’s daughter is going to Harvard and is guaranteed a cheerleading trophy this summer at nationals. You can’t tell me just because this kid can’t go out for gym and is taking 6 classes that she’s gonna be valedictorian in front of my kid?
And then it went. But the kid sued. And this month, she’s going to be the valedictorian of her graduating class.
Of course, any worthwhile experience she may have taken from high school is gone. She may have struggled for twelve years with her disability and the kids calling her names and the teachers acting like she was mentally and not physically incapacitated, but she had, before this, managed to cordon off a few useful memories that she was planning to take to college where everything else would be forgotten.
Now she will stand on that stage and deliver a speech that, if she’s smart, will reflect on this whole disaster. She won’t name names, but everybody knows who they are. And she will tell them that there are no hard feelings, and she will talk about the future, and how much she has learned from her four years in high school, and how though we’re all going our own separate ways, we will always have the time we spent become adults at Walker high or wherever.
And then she should leave that auditorium, stadium or arena, and never look back at those sons of bitches. They should soak in their own marinade of guilt and bigotry. And their kids should be ashamed.
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