Hey everyone! Shockingly the Commentariat has not angrily demanded my resignation as Majordomo of the Art Cop themed Avocado Banana Republic. So here’s Art Cop Vandelay in your eye!
I’m continuing my quest to bring you only the freshest happy political stories. And like a common content-aggregator, I’ve skimmed these very pages to deliver two stories. One is “small” and one is “big”.
The first story is ostensibly the “smaller” of the two, but honestly it had my heart swelling near to burst. It’s the story of a graduation ceremony at Holmes County Consolidated school district in the Mississippi delta. Located in the poorest county in Mississippi, itself the second poorest state in the nation, the district is 99% Black and two years ago had only a 67% graduation rate. In addition, the county has the 11th lowest life expectancy in this great nation of the United States of America. Thankfully, a new superintendent has seemingly created real change within the district and now in 2020, 96% of students graduated high school there, with 26% going on to a four-year college and 68% heading to a two-year college.
What called to me about this story though is the pure resilience and strength of our young people. I think of my daughter and how she keeps asking if “Coronavirus is over”, but never lets it get her down or scared. But because she’s so young to a certain extent she doesn’t even know everything she’s missing. These kids are old enough to know, like one who lamented they cancelled prom and she could never go through the ritual of picking out a dress.
The stories are by turns inspiring, shocking, and heartwarming. These kids of ours have gone through hell and high water but they refused to give up. I encourage you to click through to the article. Beautiful photos, and stories of triumph. Honestly I can’t do it justice. You need to hear from these young folks directly.
The next story is one of the biggest stories in the last few days: the death of John Lewis and eulogy by Frm. president Barack Obama. I don’t need to explain to this crowd anything about who John Lewis was.
For brevity’s sake, let’s just say he was known as the Conscience of Congress for a reason.
But what I wanted to talk about was how Obama used the occasion to talk about Mr. Lewis’ politics. It was a reminder that by our very act of existence we are committing a political act. As we live, and breath, and dream, and act we create political realities. There is nothing human that is apolitical. So what was remarkable to me wasn’t the content of Mr. Obama’s speech, but the very audacity to recognize this reality of life lived in political activism.
Now don’t get me wrong. It was a great speech. It was nice to hear an intelligent person with two thoughts to bang together and the patience and reading comprehension to make it coherent. It has been rightfully celebrated and if you haven’t heard it yet I encourage you to take a few to listen.
But what stuck with me was simply the reality that the lives we live have inherent political value. We may not all be as known as John Lewis. We may not all be as powerful as Barack Obama. But in our own ways we create the ripples that become the wave that makes history. Inequality is not overcome by one great figurehead. It happens because of regular people like you and I. By fighting day after day after day in pursuit of a more perfect union. And in that way we will overcome. Someday.
Oh hell, here’s the man crowd surfing. That’s an Art Cop way to go out.
Don’t step on the flowers. Smoke em if you got em.
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