Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Justified Refusal of Speech
I think that Wright is correct in his stance to not saying the speech. His principal told him to write a graduating speech to say at graduation. Wright did this, but only to find that the principal already had a speech made up for him to say. He did not like this idea. His principal thought the he had to write the paper himself because “white” people were going to be there, not just black. He stuck up for what he believed in and was not “bought” into dealing with something that was “unclean”. He risked graduating high school to prove his point that it is not right for the principal to write students’ speeches for graduation just because white people are attending. Wright thought the speech should be his own. He knew that the speech the principal wrote was better than his, but he believed the speech did not say anything. His was cloudier, but it said exactly what it wanted to. It had meaning.
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Katie I totally agree with you here, Wright was definitely justified in not saying the speech that we pre-written for him. I think it's terrible that as valedictorian, he was getting told what the school wanted him to say and they threatened he wouldn't graduate if he said his own version.
You made the point in your post that Wright risked not graduating to prove his point that it's not right for the principal to write students' speeches just because whites are attending. I think Wright was also taking a reason for the reason that writing is Wright's only rock. For him to be told he couldn't say his speech, he felt the world was taking away what meant the most to him. It was as though his thoughts on high school didn't matter and that was insulting to him.
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