Bethune-Cookman Class of 2017: This was your moment to shine.
After all of your hard work and perseverance over the past four years, you’ve made it to a point in time where you are supposed to shine like diamond and gold.
Instead, you’ve managed to pull dross down upon you shine.
You should have seized the moment to show that over the last four years, you have gained some knowledge of the world, events, happenstance and people. However, you choose to show to the world that what you have achieved and mastered is a mob-mentality.
As the Betsy Devos protest began, I observed the majority of Graduates booed and turned their backs on the guest commencement speaker.
There were some students with good manners and proper home training who remained seated, during the 22-minutes address, but it appears that one by one most got swept up in the spirit of mob mentality and made a decision to join the rancorous protesters.
This was your moment to shine!
Even after the President of your prestigious college, Edison O. Jackson, requests your cooperation, the majority of you continued to embarrass your school.
Kudos to those of you who understood that whenever your parents invite someone to your home that you may have a disagreement with, you still treat them with a certain amount of decorum and respect.
This was your moment to shine.
Does anyone for one moment believe in their heart of hearts that President Edison O. Jackson does not have the best interest of the College and the student body at heart?
Seriously, NAACP, you’re calling on Mr. Jackson to resign. Now is the time for you to take the opportunity to counsel and guide these young impressionable minds to be champions of just causes — as is the rich history of the NAACP — which is to champion of right and just causes.
This is not the time to train them to be emotional reactionaries.
Whenever someone makes a blunder — as in the case of Education Secretary Betsy Devos, and that person reaches out with a contrite spirit and seeks reconciliation with the aggrieved party — it then becomes incumbent on the injured party to make an effort to reconcile.
This graduation ceremony was an opportunity to forge and possibly developed a better relationship with a HBCU, Devos and the Board of Education.
Think about those Bethune-Cookman students who are coming after you.
This event was your moment to shine. Learn how to seize Opportunities!
Of course, no one is saying that you should become a boot-licking Donald Trump apologist like CNN’s commentator Paris Jackson,
but there is a time, season and place for everything, and your unique moment in history should not be covered with the folly of a reactionist.
Just recently Minister Farrakhan threw his support behind presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Does that mean that he does not have the best interest of his community at heart?
Dear student, it’s okay to resist and challenge status quo, but keep in mind that sometimes your teachers and leaders have more knowledge than you do on a subject mater and you’ll just have to trust their judgment tadpoles and always pick your battles wisely.
I wish each and every one of you success as you enter this new phase in your life.
Staff Writer: Clinton Franklin
