riot
monday, april 30, 2001
we had a walk out at school today. see, the state decided they want to cut $125 million out of the school system budgets. that means almost $3 million for my tinsy winsy school! unacceptable!
if it happens, teachers will have to leave and departments will have to merge -- for instance, the music and art department will merge into just an art department, which would mean we would lose all those talented musicians that study here.. and we have some really amazing musicians who study here (though you'd never think it because we are, you guessed it, such a tinsy winsy school).
frankly, it would suck. so. we had a walkout.
at 11.30 am on the dot my teacher stopped class and most of us walked over to the grassy dale by our library (a library which has decided i owe them $235 in fines, btw) where about 1-200 ppl gathered.. some were so chicken, they wouldn't come down to where we stood, but stayed up on the hill watching us - chicken. the news were there filming a little.
united we marched with our posters and banners to the communications building. here's how you can tell i go to a historically black college - when we got to our spot, somebody had hooked up a huge soundsystem and blasted public enemy's "fight the power" - hee! funky! even our chants were funky ("save our school - whuuut? save our school! whuuut?"). we're a funky school.
some students made great speeches (i felt very swedish and white when they all started making civil rights/rosa parks/martin luther king references and had ppl chant along - not because i don't support or know about the history, but because, well, i felt silly and malplaced. but it was fun. and we chanted a lot.) and then they blasted "fight the power" again - the deaf translator lady started translating the lyrics into sign language and did some funny simulations to get the hip hop rythm into her signing.. funny.
and then we disbanded, went back to our classes. did i mention it was the last day of classes today? say whut? yeah! fight the power.
