The Rant

    Recently, I was invited to address the anniversary celebrations at my alma mater (Gingerland Secondary School). In hindsight, I suppose it was endorsement of my speaking and motivational capabilities, or some indication of the organising committee’s ideas that I could speak to an audience of teenaged students, half of them uninterested, disengaged and bored, and the other half probably there on the promise of solidifying their independence someday. Regardless of their reason– they were probably just forced to be there and I had to stand before them– I felt I had a duty to inspire them and give them hope that the world cares about them as much as they care about the world. Yet, recent events, global and local, would easily shatter that hope. Amanda Gorman, in her 2021 Inaugural Poem, said that the United States wasn’t broken, but simply unfinished. As I revisited her poem recently, I wondered if she would still accept those words, or would propose an entirely different pers...