When I graduated back in '87 our valedictorian was white. According to the school policy at the time, the salutatorian, therefore had to be black.
In a world where trying to be politically correct or making racist policies such as this to appear not to be racist were replaced by simply doing the right thing, these two honors would be bestowed upon the two people in the graduating class that have the highest averages...period.
This attempt at trying to be inclusive excluded one party in a terribly and completely unfair way - the person with the second highest average. The faculty had to scroll down to about the 5th or 6th graduating senior to find the black graduate with the next highest average.
At 17, and not giving much thought to how or why things are done, we talked about it but didn't create to much of a fuss. Our minds were more focused on the fact that high school was finally over. The policy seemed unfair. But hey, that's just the way it was. We all knew it and in some warped and completely illogical way of thinking, accepted it.
Now that I'm older I wonder why the parents weren't up in arms over such an antiquated and biased way of doing things. Surely I would remember witnessing or hearing about some protest from the family of the person that should have been the salutatorian.
How did that person with the second highest average feel. Their accomplishments blotted out simply because they happened to be the same race as the person with the highest average. How could anyone feel this was right.
I was reminded of this by a post I read the other day over at The Many Shades of Love. Some of these practices still seem to be in place over 20 years later.
I wonder what the outcome would have been had the people with the two highest averages been Asian, Native American, or Hispanic....or even worse what if the top honors were determined by gender. If the person with the highest average was female...then the next highest honor would have to go to a male.
