Posted 4:31 PM by Bonnie

Morris College Graduation Day!


Morris College, where Keith teaches, held graduation ceremonies today. Since my first experience, with this college and the graduation ceremonies I have been totally appalled by the behavior exhibited. No, not by the students but by the parents. The rudeness and inconsideration of others is disgusting. In the bulletin it states please hold all applause and acknowledgements until all students have been called and received their diplomas. Before they start handing out diplomas they again remind the parents and families that the next person wants to hear their child’s, spouses, or relatives name called so to please not applaud or yell until the end. They even have security guards to remove any who are disruptive.

Inevitably, there are those who don’t care about the next person, but only about themselves and will start to hoot and holler and jump around waving their arms. This stops the ceremony and takes away from the next person, because they have to be removed from the audience. It’s a shame we can’t all act like civilized human beings and show respect for others and also show respect for the students and the occasion.

Others brought in large gifts, which they put on seats that would be needed for other family members to sit in to enjoy the ceremony. A few had to be asked to remove the presents to make the seats available, others had large balloon bouquets that were blocking the view and had to be told to lower them so those behind them could see. There was an elderly woman needing a seat and a group would not move over to let her have an end seat, so the usher had to go get a security guard to have them move over. Cell phones were going off, and instead of turning them off, the people answered them! The woman behind me was giving directions, very loudly, and passing the phone along to others to talk with whoever was on the other end. And this was during the ceremony.

Then we get to the speaker. Now I have to admit I did enjoy him. Some of what he said made no sense at all, but he was certainly an exciting speaker. Here is some of what he said…

When the white man owned slaves God came down and taught the black man to read and educated the black man, who then could turn to the with slave owner and tell them that the bible said more than obey your master. Now, if history serves me right, God never did come down and teach the slaves to read…it was the good slave owners who thought the blacks should be educated as well… And gosh, I really don’t remember God coming down and saying let my people go and the slave owners caved in under God’s pressure. I think it had something to do with whites in the north feeling slavery was wrong… something called the emancipation proclamation… But hey! I could be wrong.

Then he goes on about how Africa is the most financially affluent country in the world and that North America and Europe couldn’t survive without all the money and technology coming out of Africa. Hmmm…. News to me, but hey, I could be wrong! If that’s true why are they shown so much on all these ads begging for money to help build the underdeveloped nation and feed their starving children?

And all the while the mostly black audience was hooting and hollering and praising jesus and halleleliah we showed the white man… but this is where it gets interesting.

He stopped…looked out at the crowd and asked…. And what have you done with what God gave you and did for you? You continue to blame others for your problems and refuse to take responsibility. There was a time when blacks owned 40% of the land and businesses, but now it is less than 10% because you are happy to spend your money on alcohol, and drugs, and fancy cars, and expensive clothes and jewelry and the most expensive makeup. You have phony eyes, phony fingernails, and phony lives. Instead of putting a percentage of your money into building the black community and black businesses you destroy it by spending your money on drugs.

Suddenly the crowd isn’t so vocal. There are those who are agreeing. Don’t get me wrong, not everyone was shocked by what he said, but some got up and walked out. They wanted to hear how the white man was still holding them down, but he was telling them no one was keeping them down but themselves. He challenged the graduating seniors to pull their money and start a co-op where they would fund black businesses and rebuild the black community, instead of buying fancy cars and expensive clothes and then complaining they had no land or property. He challenged them to be smarter than the past generation. Some walked out at this point – they thought he was going to talk about reparation and how the white man owed them, but instead he’s telling them that time has past and they need to open their eyes and see they have met the enemy and the enemy is them.

At the end of the speech he went back to how the Church has given the black community everything it has, etc etc etc. But all in all, he was very motivational and interesting to hear. The ceremony was short and sweet and we even got out of the parking lot without the usual traffic jam problem.

In the picture of Keith you will notice he is wearing a blue Penn State tassel instead of the gold PhD tassel. They made a mistake and gave him the wrong one. It should have been blue and gold. Blue for Penn State, where he graduated, and gold for his PhD status.

To see all the pics I took today click here.