Spent the morning and afternoon shopping with Mom and attending the Graduation rehearsal. Went to graduation… prepped with Mom’s help, ran into math professor. Greeted Katherine (she came to see me! very sweet). Waited in the long hot hallway with the rest of the graduates for about a half hour. We left to march down the aisles and into our seats… waited through speeches.
Our primary speaker was tedious – he recycled a standard diversity speech that he read from seven pages… threw in a bit of mechanical profanity in order to win over the kids. The entire speech was “Ethnic groups! Be proud, you can be successful! Whites! Let the ethnic groups be successful!” In other words, I was completely overlooked as a white graduate. Speeches of this nature are only increasing mutual discrimination and segregation, and are thoroughly offensive. I walked across stage calmly and gracefully, until that last moment when I realized “oh! tassel switch!” and mussed it up a little. Walked down, had photos taken, went back to my seat.
My boss waved at me as she walked out during the recessional, and then my history professor paused the march to step between the front row seats to point at me and give me a word of congratulations before walking on. I cried. ladeda. The graduates walked out, I tracked down the family and Katherine, had pictures with all. Went home, stayed up until three in the morning to complete favors for the Luncheon on Saturday and letters for all of the guests.