A lot of people like to think that this country has come a long way over the decades, and in some ways, we have. We no longer have segregation. Men are no longer dying of AIDS in quarantined blocks of hospitals all alone, with no family to even tell them goodbye. Women are now able to vote and own property. But the fact of the matter is, especially compared to the rest of the civilized world, the United States of America is far… FAR behind.
We’re still so systematically racist that other countries are downright ashamed of us, they stand with us when we’re forced to protest and riot because yet another black man has been murdered in cold blood in the streets. Women are still fighting for equal rights while rich, white men in Congress fight just as hard to take our rights to our own bodies away from us. And even though we’re no longer being stoned to death or forced to die alone in an AIDS unit, members of the LGBTQ+ community still have their very human rights up for debate in a court of law every time you turn around.
This country has not come as far as people like to claim. And this is absolute proof of such.
According to a new report from The Philadelphia Inquirer, the valedictorian at a South Jersey high school got his microphone cut off during his speech and his notes crumpled up on stage by his principal when he began to speak on his experiences as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
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Bryce Dershem had begun to touch on the subject of self-discovery during his valedictorian speech at Eastern Regional High School in Voorhees on June 17 and began to mention his experience with coming out to his friends, family, and classmates as a Freshman.
“After I came out as queer freshman year, I felt so alone. I didn’t know who to turn to for support,” Dersham was able to get out to the crowd before his microphone was cut off.
The graduate, who plans to attend Tufts University in the fall, told the local publication that his principal took his speech and “crumpled it up into a ball in front of me,” which you can see in the video footage of the event. Dershem said Tull pointed to a preapproved speech “they had essentially written for me and said, ‘You read this, or nothing else.'”
“At this point I’m about to cry,” Dershem revealed.
Eastern Camden County Regional School District superintendent Robert Cloutier released a statement claiming that the school district had not asked any of their students to remove “their identity” from their speeches.
The local report takes a deeper dive into the school’s response to what happened. However, this serves as cold, hard proof that this country just simply is not where we should be yet. It’s time to do better.
You can watch the clip here:
Featured image via screen capture
