Blogger Luvvie Ajayi salutes Bethune-Cookman’s graduates for standing up against Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, a woman with zero understanding of their lives or the life of Mary McLeod Bethune.
She writes, “Thank You for Telling Betsy DeVos ‘Nah.'”
She writes:
“Y’all are the real MVPs. Really and truly. I am applauding you with the fervor I’d use during praise and worship right now. You know the kind of clapping that’s heavy-handed, and leaves your palms red and burning? The one your Grandma can keep going for 30 good minutes, and you wonder if she had an Apple Watch, how many steps it’d give her for that? That praise clap. You deserve the props, because today, you showed courage. You showed integrity. And you showed that you are more principled than the administration of people who are the ones supposed to show you what all those things are.
“Before I can truly thank you, I need to apologize to you on behalf of people with sense, and people who saw what you’d have to be in presence with and scratched our heads. You were not supposed to be placed in the position to have to defy your school president and administration. You were not supposed to be asked to watch an idiot who would fail the curriculum you had to take, and applaud her. You were not supposed to have to cheer on the woman who is about to flush our kids’ futures down the river. NO YOU WERE NOT. But your GOOFASS administration decided that it was a good idea to have Betsy DeVos, in all her ignoramus glory, on your stage. The woman who always looks like in quiet moments, slow jazz plays in her head. The lady who probably still says “colored people” when she’s at High Tea with her girls, the other Miss Annes. It defied all logic but it must have been led by stupidity and greed.”
The rest of her post is very funny and very serious.
She goes on to say:
“Because in these acts of defiance, you showed that you are more brave than the rubber-backed people who run your school and placed a stamp of approval on one of Cheeto Satan’s collaborators.”
And quotes Mary McLeod Bethune:
“If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything … that smacks of discrimination or slander.” – Mary McLeod Bethune
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I LOVE this! These students are heroes and the writer is right: they should not have had to endure what they did. What in the world were the school’s leaders thinking?
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Great letter to those brave students.
This part is spot on: “But your GOOFASS administration decided that it was a good idea to have Betsy DeVos, in all her ignoramus glory, on your stage.”
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The Graduates who stood up to DeVos and expressed their distain for her and what she stands for are examples of the proud individuals who can and probably will be some of the leaders that take us out of these troubled times.
Similar actions should be taken at EVERY event that DeVos shows up for and maybe our current leaders will come to understand that the People of the United States are not willing to accept what DeVos, and Trump, stand for when it comes to education of our children.
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Congratulations to the graduating class for their independence and values
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Brilliant analysis from the always incisive Luvvie Ajayi ,
These students TRULY got their own education on independent thinking. They knew a con when they saw it and wouldn’t put up with it.
That took bravery. That took a mature understanding that many of the leaders of Bethune-Cookman so sorely lack.
I trust these graduates!
Thanks Luvvie for your wit along with your defiance, providing a voice that we need to hear more from.
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I express both congratulations & sympathy to the students: congratulations for the hard work that led them to this graduation, & for having the strength & conviction to refuse to accept the unacceptable; sympathy for being cheated out of the positive, inspiring experience a commencement ceremony should be. They succeeded in providing their own inspiration, but shouldn’t have had to.
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Like Elizabeth Warren when confronted with McConnell’s admonishment, the B-C students “persisted”. God speed to each of them and their families who booed and turned their backs on a stupid, wealthy, bigot like DeVos.
They honored the College’s namesake. The quote at the end of Ajayi’s letter proves it.
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So sad that anyone would applaud the shameful, disrespectful behavior of the students. I am far from a Betsy DeVos fan but she is a human being. She was appointed by the president into a position for which she is woefully ill-equipped. Yes, it is a travesty to have a person with zero experience or exposure to education as SOE. But too boo and hiss and scream her off the stage? And this blogger doesn’t only applaud this behavior but name calls?
Absolutely shameful.
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The difference, as John Stewart put it, is between what is insult and what is injury.
The students responded with a (I believe appropriate) “rude” insult to the devastatingly injurious policies of Betsy DeVos.
Betsy DeVos’s feelings may be hurt, but the actual LIVES of so many of our nation’s students are affected by her decisions. Betsy DeVos has a couple of billion dollars to buy some Kleenex. Her policies inflict great distress and damage on entire communities.
Charlie Chaplin may have “hurt” Adolf Hitler’s feelings with his sarcastic performance of him in “The Great Dictator”, but, well, I ain’t crying.
Save your tears of Betsy DeVos and understand what an insane difference in the balance of power she has compared to the students she hurts by what she is ACTUALLY doing to them.
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Brilliantly stated!
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DeVos never left the stage. She is no innocent. Her actions harm these students and their families. She is eliminating regulations that protect them from predatory debt collectors. Her allies are stripping them and their families of health care. If I had been in the audience, I would have booed. She is the smiling face of an evil administration that lied its way into power and now uses that power for self-enrichment at the expense of the neediest.
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Brilliantly stated!
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After a few days to think about this, it’s occurred to me that if I was rich, I’d offer to host a 2nd commencement ceremony for these students, to provide the positive, encouraging atmosphere they were denied in this ill-conceived travesty, featuring an appropriate speaker, perhaps one selected by a consensus of students, but in any case someone who could offer the meaningful, positive vision out of which they were cheated the first time.
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Congratulations ladies & gentlemen of the 2017 class at Bethune-Cookman!! Not only have you earned your diplomas, you have shown yourselves to be courageous citizens who will not put up with nonsense. You have given me hope for the future. Thank you!
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Fox News reports that Florida NAACP has asked Bethune president to resign.
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In support of the B-C’s President- he brought high visibility to the unpopularity of Cabinet billionaires appointed in D.C., to the noxious nature of their ignorance and subtle and overt bigotry and, the shaky circumstances of their safety when they plot to destroy American democracy.
It’s sad that the speaker robbed the students and their families of a shining moment. However, they were there when history was made. They honored the college’s namesake, in a profound way, thanks to the President’s invite.
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In years when our inner-city poorest high school was being bombarded with “test-score” fixers and chaotic change, I attended graduations where 1) students giving speeches focused on how they felt the invasive changes to be problematic and disruptive and 2) the administrators and guest bigwigs gave speeches about how necessary and wonderful the test-score changes and invasions had been.
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Lenny,
I to would like to express congrats as well as sympathy, but not necessarily in the same vein as you.
Congrats for the hard work at meeting a goal and sympathy for cheating those who would have liked to have heard the speech.
In reading the text of the speech one can find inspirational outlooks
“Spend just a few minutes watching your favorite cable news channel and you’ll experience the startling polarization happening across the United States. On social media, groups and individuals pit themselves one against the other, not to discuss and debate the merits of deeply held beliefs, but to see who can yell the loudest, score the quickest political points or best silence the other’s voice.
The natural instinct is to join in the chorus of conflict, to make your voice louder, your point bigger and your position stronger. But we will not solve the significant and real problems our country faces if we cannot bring ourselves to embrace a mindset of grace. We must first listen, then speak – with humility – to genuinely hear the perspectives of those with whom we don’t immediately or instinctively agree.
These verses from Colossians have been a guide for me: “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation always be full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
Yes, those students yelled the loudest and scored the political points and did their best to shout down another’s voice. Yppikaiyay! They joined the conflict chorus, but when has a “booing” session ever solved a problem? As they move into the “real world” how will this solve the world problems they are being called to work on?
The speech surrounded 3 items – “You leave this place today with many obligations, but I hope you’ll consider the three challenges I’ve presented:
A call to service.
A call to courage.
And a call to grace.”
And in closing remarks she proffered this statement which formed around some of the Bethune story of her action “And when some pursue dissension, you can engage in debate with grace and poise, just as Dr. Bethune did.
I don’t think they learned Bethune’s meaning of grace –
And you can read the text of speech and find the inspiration they refused to ignore so “courageously”
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