Posted on 04/20/2007 11:58:48 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler
We are Virginia Tech
We are sad today We will be sad for quite a while We are not moving on We are embracing our mourning
We are Virginia Tech
We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly We are brave enough to bend to cry And we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again
We are Virginia Tech
We do not understand this tragedy We know we did nothing to deserve it
But neither does a child in Africa Dying of AIDS
Neither do the Invisible Children Walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army
Neither does the baby elephant watching his community Be devastated for ivory Neither does the Mexican child looking For fresh water
Neither does the Iraqi teenager dodging bombs
Neither does the Appalachian infant killed By a boulder Dislodged Because the land was destabilized
No one deserves a tragedy
We are Virginia Tech The Hokie Nation embraces Our own And reaches out With open heart and mind To those who offer their hearts and hands
We are strong And brave And innocent And unafraid
We are better than we think And not yet quite what we want to be
We are alive to imagination And open to possibility We will continue To invent the future
Through our blood and tears Through all this sadness
We are the Hokies
We will prevail We will prevail We will prevail
We are Virginia Tech
Nikki Giovanni, delivered at the Convocation, April 17, 2007
The was the only speaker that effectively united the audience as a school.
They seemed to respond very positively, and for that at least I am glad she was there.
Looking at this may aid in explaining one thing .... now maybe I’m wrong but I remember hearing that this kid was set to graduate in a few weeks and he had a 4.0 GPA. Now, if that’s true, maybe a 4.0 at Viringia Tech means something than what it did back when I was in college but if his writings were so bad or horrific as his classmates and teachers keep saying .... why were these same teachers giving him all “A’s” in their classes!?!?
Have I heard wrong? Was he a 4.0 student?
That the students would respond positively to this nonsense is troubling.
Agreed.
But of course, not everyone believes in the same God on campus. Thus, we invite speakers to represent Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity lite (without any mention of Jesus) and unite under the banner of Virginia Tech.
I know it’s all they have. But it’s awfully sad.
I dont know. But there was a story in a UK rag that said he was intimidating some of his into giving him high grades!
Of course, his own grandfather is having none of this.
You may have heard wrong. One of the first two victims, the male, had a 4.0 GPA.
It not like they about about to play the cavaliers in football or something.
United in what? In seeing the connection between the liberal fantasy the institution gestates—support for gun-free zones, support for virulant anti-American, anti-Capitalist, anti-Western, anti-Christian indoctrinations—and the the rabid rampage and rhetoric of Cho?
And while we’re on it, what’s your tagline mean? If you want to be a former freeper, who’s stopping you? No time like the present.
"Huh? Is there a babies-crushed-by-boulders-because-of-greedy-miners epidemic I didn't hear about?"Although this thread doesn't appear to be about the contents of Ms. Giovanni's so-called "poem"--but about whether Cho was taught to hate or not--VirginiaConstitutionalist's question seems, nonetheless, to be a valid one. So . . . perhaps an appropriate answer can be found at the following URL(?):
It violates the first rule of good writing which is to write about what you know. Libs are always expending their feelings on imaginary people and abstract concepts. That’s why they never care if their programs achieve the objectives they are set up for. Just zone out and think how a baby elephant feels about ivory poachers, if you can.
She should send a copy of this to the Mexican government so they can do something about the fresh water problem their children have.
Then all of their minds are messed up. At no point in the speech does she even offer sympathy for the dead. It’s about Africa and its problems or social injustice. There’s a time and a place, and the convocation was neither.
Funny how the future always looks just like the past when it gets here.
I disagree.
Her comments would have been wildly inappropriate at a memorial, but that's not what the convocation was.
Then what was it? It seemed almost purposeless. Was it just a venting of feeling? Was it a chance for the administration to show that it was “doing something”? Really, I want to know.
Takes either a lot of ignorance or a lot of hate to promote you political agenda disguised as Convocation speech following the worst school shooting in the history of the U.S.
Pretty much, yeah.
It was an opportunity for the student body to come together as one in the aftermath of a traumatic event. A moment of healing and affirmation.
You know, the kind of touchy-feely stuff that we make fun of.
Oops! I typed the wrong URL for thread titled “Nikki Giovanni’s Speech at VA Tech Convocation”. It should be:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1819016/posts?q=1;page=151
Scroll down to comment #184.
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