Speeches more than just talk
Mother Lode columnist on the poignancy of speeches amid COVID- 19.
According to Wikipedia: “Valedictorian is an academic title of success … for the student who delivers the closing or farewell statement at a graduation ceremony ( called a valediction). The chosen valedictorian is traditionally the student with the highest ranking ( highest grade point average, or GPA) among their graduating class.”
“Wait — what the hell!” I said to my husband. “I didn’t know the valedictorian was supposed to have the highest- grade point average! That was SO not the way MY high school rolled … .”
“That’s because you went to princess school,” Ian said, his favorite nickname for my alma mater, Spence.
To be fair, Spence has a bit of a reputation. I was one among five kids in the entire school who commuted by subway from the outer boroughs because everyone else lived on like 90th and 5th. Even Gwyneth Paltrow went there. Enough said.
But what I do remember about my high school valedictorian is that she seriously rocked it. Her words were like this great tribute to one of the most intense years in my life — and somehow in 15 minutes, she nailed it. It was like the exact punctuation mark needed to note the end of our four- year sentence; something between a question mark, a period and an exclamation mark, all wrapped into one. And she wasn’t even Gwyneth Paltrow!
This is a weird graduation year: How do you graduate in quarantine? A high school in Pennsylvania is projecting seniors onto the silver screen at a drive- in movie theater. Seniors in Indiana will literally race to the finish line at the racetrack used for the Indianapolis 500. A high school in Ohio is actually walking diplomas door to door in a “personal graduation” that will likely continue into the summer, as the principal and staff make their rounds to over 200 homes.
Here in Greenwich, I was lucky to watch the “graduation link,” where Headmaster Ralph Mayo congratulated the Greenwich High School class of 2020 for living through four years with three different principals — which kind of blew my mind.
Mayo is a graduate of GHS; so is First Selectman Fred Camillo. Actually, it turns out everyone you know went to GHS. The valedictorian speeches were given, with a notable lack of COVID- 19 mentions — and even less of George Floyd. Although there were obvious regrets and sadness at what could have been, mostly I heard tales of seniors’ moment of joy as they received their diplomas from scattered stages on the GHS campus.
I had no idea GHS even had “houses.”
“Houses, you know: like Hogwarts,” a friend told me. “Picture a Hogwarts graduation, only socially distanced and with face masks.”
The one ( and perhaps only) upside to the 2020 commencement season is that all of the speeches are online for everyone to hear this year. You didn’t have to go to Harvard to see some hotshot speak; numerous celebrities and thinkers came forth, and offered virtual commencement speeches for EVERY American senior in this very weird, COVID- 19 graduation year, which felt like a very appropriate response to the way this virus has shed light on the vast gap between the haves and the have nots.
All the biggies came out. Oprah talked about the pandemic’s illumination of the inequities implicit in America; Bill and Belinda Gates, with matching, taped “geek” glasses, advised graduates to “try something new," Barrack Obama spoke of the unique moment in history that 2020 graduates would be entering; Malala asked grads to remember the victims; LeBron James reminded everyone that they were “kings and queens” and my own favorite: Steven Spielberg’s advice to follow your dreams “because if we’re in service of our dreams versus our dreams being in service to us, it becomes something greater.”
Endless speeches — a lot of very famous people summoning up the most powerful things they could think of for us all to hear. But as is so often the case, it was the guy to whom nobody had ever paid any particular attention who had the last word.
George Floyd's funeral was held in Houston, and amid the collectively felt need to lionize a man who has sparked a movement, attention was paid to the fact that George was just an “ordinary brother from the housing projects … who nobody thought too much about,” as the Rev. Al Sharpton put it. “The world knows George Floyd,” declared his aunt. “I know him as Perry Jr. ... He was a pesky, little rascal — but we all loved him.”
There has been a lot of criticism that the media has not focused on the darker sides of Floyd’s life. This was a man who spent four years in jail for armed robbery, dealt drugs, and had an extensive theft history — where was all of that, as the world paints his face on every wall?
But isn’t that just the way of things? It’s always from the guy you least expect — Moses, Hamlet,
Frodo, Han Solo. None of them wanted the job, and none of them appeared to be up to the task.
One of Floyd’s oldest friends, Jonathan Veal, remembers him as a 6- foot giant in the cafeteria on the first day of sixth grade. They walked home from school one day, tossing about the idea of what they wanted to do with their lives.
“George turned to me and said, ‘ I want to touch the world,’ ” Veal said.
And touch the world he did. And it’s HIS words that were heard the loudest this commencement season, I suspect — nevermind the GPA or celebrity status of whomever else we may have encountered. It’s the words of a black man, being held to the ground by his neck, that we will never forget. And THAT is one of the best lessons any graduate should take to heart as he or she heads out into the world, if you ask me.
Claire Tisne Haft is a former publishing and film executive, raising her family in Greenwich while working on a freelance basis on books and films. She can be reached through her website at clairetisnehaft. com.