NCC, BLM, wearing sunscreen, and don't I know you…
I could've posted this days ago, but as today is an anniversary, I waited so I could tie everything together into one post.
Back in the '90s, there was a made-up commencement address that started circulating the internet, back when you had to forward everything good to your friends since Facebook wasn't yet a thing. Rumor had it that it was by Kurt Vonnegut, and he gave the speech at MIT, and it was turned into a spoken-word song. Known as "Wear Sunscreen," it was actually written by Mary Schmich of the Tribune back in June 1997. I can remember selling a gift book/CD combo of this back in the day. It was not actually given as a commencement speech…until twenty years ago today, when Mary spoke at NCC's Class of 2000 graduation. It poured, right about the time she got to where she was going to read the famous address. I remember, while hiding with the rest of the band under a set of stairs--what little shelter there was in the year-old stadium--Mary asking the grads if she should continue. They cheered. She went on. It was great. I remember being bummed I had graduated the year before, especially since I could've waited a year. My speaker was Marian Wright Edelman, who at the time was the president of the Children's Defense Fund. I'm sure she was fine, but she wasn't anyone I was familiar with; Mary, a writer for the Trib, a paper I'd gotten since childhood, was a Chicagoan and someone I knew of. I found that to be really cool, especially considering how small my school was and is. I mean, U of I or UIC or DePaul or Northwestern could have had her give the speech, but she did it at North Central. That was really special.
(I pulled out my copy of the program to confirm the date and have paged through it a bit. I knew a good amount of people in the class of '00, but I'm surprised at how many people who were freshmen with me--or who I thought were older--also graduated then. Fun fact: Because the band program in general was so small, and grad band wasn't mandatory, all 20 of the grad band members are listed in the program--including me, the only band member whose class year starts with a 9. This was also when Larry was on pro term, so we had a sub that term--someone who, if not for the pandemic, would be conducting me currently, actually.)
Fast-forward twenty years, and there was no physical graduation this year; it was done online. I got an email about it a few weeks back, and it was in the news in a few places in part because the grads got to have a favorite professor read off their names. I thought that was pretty cool. Meanwhile, since every entity of any size has had to make a comment about the death of George Floyd, NCC sent out an email recently about how they do not discriminate, the community is inclusive, et cetera. This is the sort of thing they've been saying for years, except if you know Naperville, you know that while it's not *entirely* whitey-white, it's close. I mean, it has a large international contingent due to the technology and research corridor along I-88. There are a number of languages spoken in the area from several continents. But…there still aren't a lot of black people there. To wit, I can think of two racist incidents from last year that occurred in Naperville, one at one of the high schools and the infamous one at Buffalo Wild Wings. There were stories from when I was a student where black students would get stopped on campus by the NPD and asked if they were lost. The black student population there was not very big, many of them knew each other, and if you knew one, like I did, you knew this was coming from someone they knew. Considering half of Naperville didn't even know the college existed, we were like our own enclave within the city where the students were cool with each other, but off campus…it was another story. Not that anything bad happened that I'm aware of--well, okay, to students; we won't discuss the Lemak family now--but the surrounding neighborhood wasn't exactly a fan of the college all around.
Some things haven't really changed. A day or two after last week's email came a second, coming directly from the college president, addressing a response to the first email. A recent graduate, who had been on a sports team, had taken to social media with her experience as a black athlete who had taken a knee at her contests. She was not treated well by her teammates and others because of this. It was sort of like, sure, the college *says* it's inclusive and what have you, but in reality, it's lip service. (I don't think it helps that Troy hadn't proofread the title of his email and it read "Black Live Matters." Like…that's not even the saying, dude.) I believe the second email was part apology, part "we need to listen more to our students and professors of color," that sort of thing. Well, yeah. If you want to be a truly inclusive institution, you have to take everyone into account. I had taken a class on African-American literature at the end of freshman year, with one of the few professors of color, Sybil Dunbar. She was great. She was very knowledgeable and I learned a lot, even if I didn't finish all the books. She brought in Julia Wright, daughter of Richard Wright, when we discussed Native Son. Julia signed my book. Professor Dunbar learned, before the end of the term, that she was not kept on faculty, which was upsetting. She took it in stride and I believe continued teaching in the South. In an interesting twist, the first African-American resident of Naperville was also named Sybil Dunbar, and in dedicating a new plaque for her grave in recent years, they were able to include the living Sybil Dunbar in the ceremony, I believe. (The only articles I am seeing for this are through the Trib or the Daily Herald, which have article limits.)
Back to current times, the student specifically mentioned in the second email has a distinctive name, and I was able to Google her and find a petition online regarding changes she would like to see at the college, as discussed in her video on social media. The petition was started by someone else. There are two people who had commented on the front page of the petition, the student's mother…and a name that I recognized from years ago. Wait a second… The second signer must have gone to high school and college with the student as she has known the student for eight years. I knew the signer about 10 years ago, as a dippy clarinet player at camp. This is my memory of her: Playing one or two notes, then going, "Wait, what?" I checked my camp pictures and I only have one labeled with her in it, so she only went to camp that one time. Talk about a weird blast from the past. At the same time, I had to go, is this really the same person? And she actually went to North Central? Sure enough, she was an athlete there. Wow. This is now the second person I know of from camp who ended up attending NCC. I'm always glad to see how well some of these kids have grown up and matured from when I knew them.
(The petition does have a response to the second email, as well, with each point made in the second email getting its own response, as well as action items the petition writer(s) would like the college to implement.)
And, not to leave out Naperville itself, there have been no fewer than four protests there in the past few weeks, including one just today. There was one Monday, one last Thursday, and one the previous Monday. All or nearly all of them have taken place at Chicago and Washington, within sight of the stadium.
(So far, Batavia just had the one protest, last week Wednesday, and I do not believe that there was anything that happened overnight, in terms of looting or damage or what have you. We'll get the Chronicle tomorrow, so if anything occurred, it would be mentioned there. Things have been a lot quieter this week, though protests are continuing. Last week, you had lots of preventive measures being taken to try and quell anything damaging, like ramps being closed from I-88 in Aurora; the bridges being up in Chicago; Metra and South Shore trains not running for days; even the entrances to Geneva Commons were blocked since, as an outdoor/lifestyle mall, there were a lot of glass storefronts and higher-end retailers that could've been ripe for the taking.)
It's pretty amazing that Mr. Floyd's death and the aftermath of it is what knocked the coronavirus out of the news, at least for the most part. (It's still mentioned in passing, though now it's due to the numbers of people participating in protests, in close proximity to each other, and will a second wave happen in part due to them.) He was buried yesterday in Houston after having had two other services, including one in Minneapolis. His brother testified before the House Judiciary Committee today, asking for reform and accountability for law enforcement. It is tiresome that these things keep happening, that people are dying in custody for no other reason than someone has a power trip, it seems. Do you really need to knee someone in the neck for more than a few moments? When there are three other officers available, can you not find a way to cuff him and leave him be, or wait for more backup if you feel it's necessary? Worse is finding out that others have recently died at the hands of police in similar circumstances, but those deaths are only just coming to light in the wake of Mr. Floyd's passing. Why is this okay? Why has it taken this long to get anyone's attention? It's no wonder this pot has finally boiled over. More than two weeks later, people are still fighting for the right thing to happen. Now if only the people who are directly responsible for instituting this change, those at the top, those with the power, could actually do it, we'd finally get somewhere.
Granted, we are being led by a president who I've often thought couldn't lead his way out of a flaming paper bag. No surprise, that's basically where we are right now. And…oh, look, he's not leading but instead pouring gasoline on the fire. To think he once called other countries an expletive; we're pretty much that right about now thanks to his lack of leadership skills. I tend not to get political here, because I hate politics, but damn. Sometimes it's hard not to.
Back in the '90s, there was a made-up commencement address that started circulating the internet, back when you had to forward everything good to your friends since Facebook wasn't yet a thing. Rumor had it that it was by Kurt Vonnegut, and he gave the speech at MIT, and it was turned into a spoken-word song. Known as "Wear Sunscreen," it was actually written by Mary Schmich of the Tribune back in June 1997. I can remember selling a gift book/CD combo of this back in the day. It was not actually given as a commencement speech…until twenty years ago today, when Mary spoke at NCC's Class of 2000 graduation. It poured, right about the time she got to where she was going to read the famous address. I remember, while hiding with the rest of the band under a set of stairs--what little shelter there was in the year-old stadium--Mary asking the grads if she should continue. They cheered. She went on. It was great. I remember being bummed I had graduated the year before, especially since I could've waited a year. My speaker was Marian Wright Edelman, who at the time was the president of the Children's Defense Fund. I'm sure she was fine, but she wasn't anyone I was familiar with; Mary, a writer for the Trib, a paper I'd gotten since childhood, was a Chicagoan and someone I knew of. I found that to be really cool, especially considering how small my school was and is. I mean, U of I or UIC or DePaul or Northwestern could have had her give the speech, but she did it at North Central. That was really special.
(I pulled out my copy of the program to confirm the date and have paged through it a bit. I knew a good amount of people in the class of '00, but I'm surprised at how many people who were freshmen with me--or who I thought were older--also graduated then. Fun fact: Because the band program in general was so small, and grad band wasn't mandatory, all 20 of the grad band members are listed in the program--including me, the only band member whose class year starts with a 9. This was also when Larry was on pro term, so we had a sub that term--someone who, if not for the pandemic, would be conducting me currently, actually.)
Fast-forward twenty years, and there was no physical graduation this year; it was done online. I got an email about it a few weeks back, and it was in the news in a few places in part because the grads got to have a favorite professor read off their names. I thought that was pretty cool. Meanwhile, since every entity of any size has had to make a comment about the death of George Floyd, NCC sent out an email recently about how they do not discriminate, the community is inclusive, et cetera. This is the sort of thing they've been saying for years, except if you know Naperville, you know that while it's not *entirely* whitey-white, it's close. I mean, it has a large international contingent due to the technology and research corridor along I-88. There are a number of languages spoken in the area from several continents. But…there still aren't a lot of black people there. To wit, I can think of two racist incidents from last year that occurred in Naperville, one at one of the high schools and the infamous one at Buffalo Wild Wings. There were stories from when I was a student where black students would get stopped on campus by the NPD and asked if they were lost. The black student population there was not very big, many of them knew each other, and if you knew one, like I did, you knew this was coming from someone they knew. Considering half of Naperville didn't even know the college existed, we were like our own enclave within the city where the students were cool with each other, but off campus…it was another story. Not that anything bad happened that I'm aware of--well, okay, to students; we won't discuss the Lemak family now--but the surrounding neighborhood wasn't exactly a fan of the college all around.
Some things haven't really changed. A day or two after last week's email came a second, coming directly from the college president, addressing a response to the first email. A recent graduate, who had been on a sports team, had taken to social media with her experience as a black athlete who had taken a knee at her contests. She was not treated well by her teammates and others because of this. It was sort of like, sure, the college *says* it's inclusive and what have you, but in reality, it's lip service. (I don't think it helps that Troy hadn't proofread the title of his email and it read "Black Live Matters." Like…that's not even the saying, dude.) I believe the second email was part apology, part "we need to listen more to our students and professors of color," that sort of thing. Well, yeah. If you want to be a truly inclusive institution, you have to take everyone into account. I had taken a class on African-American literature at the end of freshman year, with one of the few professors of color, Sybil Dunbar. She was great. She was very knowledgeable and I learned a lot, even if I didn't finish all the books. She brought in Julia Wright, daughter of Richard Wright, when we discussed Native Son. Julia signed my book. Professor Dunbar learned, before the end of the term, that she was not kept on faculty, which was upsetting. She took it in stride and I believe continued teaching in the South. In an interesting twist, the first African-American resident of Naperville was also named Sybil Dunbar, and in dedicating a new plaque for her grave in recent years, they were able to include the living Sybil Dunbar in the ceremony, I believe. (The only articles I am seeing for this are through the Trib or the Daily Herald, which have article limits.)
Back to current times, the student specifically mentioned in the second email has a distinctive name, and I was able to Google her and find a petition online regarding changes she would like to see at the college, as discussed in her video on social media. The petition was started by someone else. There are two people who had commented on the front page of the petition, the student's mother…and a name that I recognized from years ago. Wait a second… The second signer must have gone to high school and college with the student as she has known the student for eight years. I knew the signer about 10 years ago, as a dippy clarinet player at camp. This is my memory of her: Playing one or two notes, then going, "Wait, what?" I checked my camp pictures and I only have one labeled with her in it, so she only went to camp that one time. Talk about a weird blast from the past. At the same time, I had to go, is this really the same person? And she actually went to North Central? Sure enough, she was an athlete there. Wow. This is now the second person I know of from camp who ended up attending NCC. I'm always glad to see how well some of these kids have grown up and matured from when I knew them.
(The petition does have a response to the second email, as well, with each point made in the second email getting its own response, as well as action items the petition writer(s) would like the college to implement.)
And, not to leave out Naperville itself, there have been no fewer than four protests there in the past few weeks, including one just today. There was one Monday, one last Thursday, and one the previous Monday. All or nearly all of them have taken place at Chicago and Washington, within sight of the stadium.
(So far, Batavia just had the one protest, last week Wednesday, and I do not believe that there was anything that happened overnight, in terms of looting or damage or what have you. We'll get the Chronicle tomorrow, so if anything occurred, it would be mentioned there. Things have been a lot quieter this week, though protests are continuing. Last week, you had lots of preventive measures being taken to try and quell anything damaging, like ramps being closed from I-88 in Aurora; the bridges being up in Chicago; Metra and South Shore trains not running for days; even the entrances to Geneva Commons were blocked since, as an outdoor/lifestyle mall, there were a lot of glass storefronts and higher-end retailers that could've been ripe for the taking.)
It's pretty amazing that Mr. Floyd's death and the aftermath of it is what knocked the coronavirus out of the news, at least for the most part. (It's still mentioned in passing, though now it's due to the numbers of people participating in protests, in close proximity to each other, and will a second wave happen in part due to them.) He was buried yesterday in Houston after having had two other services, including one in Minneapolis. His brother testified before the House Judiciary Committee today, asking for reform and accountability for law enforcement. It is tiresome that these things keep happening, that people are dying in custody for no other reason than someone has a power trip, it seems. Do you really need to knee someone in the neck for more than a few moments? When there are three other officers available, can you not find a way to cuff him and leave him be, or wait for more backup if you feel it's necessary? Worse is finding out that others have recently died at the hands of police in similar circumstances, but those deaths are only just coming to light in the wake of Mr. Floyd's passing. Why is this okay? Why has it taken this long to get anyone's attention? It's no wonder this pot has finally boiled over. More than two weeks later, people are still fighting for the right thing to happen. Now if only the people who are directly responsible for instituting this change, those at the top, those with the power, could actually do it, we'd finally get somewhere.
Granted, we are being led by a president who I've often thought couldn't lead his way out of a flaming paper bag. No surprise, that's basically where we are right now. And…oh, look, he's not leading but instead pouring gasoline on the fire. To think he once called other countries an expletive; we're pretty much that right about now thanks to his lack of leadership skills. I tend not to get political here, because I hate politics, but damn. Sometimes it's hard not to.