President Barack Obama came to Arizona and spoke at our rival high school in 2013, when I was a senior. He was accompanied by a motorcade of Secret Service, an onslaught of excited high school seniors and esteemed government officials, and a plethora of bad attitudes.
Nobody really gave a hoot about the housing market or what he actually had to say-at least not any of the students I knew.
What most people did care about was voicing every single negative, insolent, ignorant, childish, and altogether undignified thought that crossed their mind and unfortunately made it out of their mouth or through their fingers.
Twitter was alive with the sound of idiots. Not unusual, I know.
I wasn’t shocked at the amount of backlash and bashing that the President’s visit stirred up, and I certainly never expected everyone to agree wholeheartedly with his political choices. But much to my own chagrin, since I see the world through a pair of decidedly non-rose glasses, I was appalled at the hatred and extreme lack of respect for the President. Every person deserves a basic human respect, and as the leader of our great nation, he deserves just a little bit more.
I for one was completely jazzed that Barack himself was coming, and to speak at a school where I had personally watched someone streak across the football field no less. I thought it was insanely cool that he would grace the same halls that my fellow (okay, mostly rival) classmates walked through every mundane day. And I feel the exact same way about the President coming to KU, only amplified by about 50, and minus the naked kid.
It makes me even prouder of my school, and more excited to be a Jayhawk. I know that Obama talks all over the place to all sorts of people. I lack political knowledge in many ways, but I still think it is extraordinarily special that we are given the chance to hear him speak. Seeing a sitting President speak is a once in a lifetime opportunity, a “drop everything because he is the most important thing you have to be doing right now” event. Lives have been changed by the words the men in this powerful position have spoken, infused with inspiration and commitment.
Our visitor is the leader of the United States of America, and if that doesn’t make you some sort of excited, then I think you should get excited. Whether or not you agree with what he has done, what he stands for, or what he is doing, you cannot deny that he has worked his entire life towards a goal that for many is unfathomable, and for some, completely unattainable. And as the first black President, he has made history in a way that no other has.
KU has not hosted a President since William Taft in 1911. Obama was scheduled to come to the university in 2013, but could not come after the Boston Bombing. We now have the opportunity again, after 104 years, to see a man who will be written about in the history books that our children and grandchildren will read.
If that doesn’t deserve a Rock Chalk, I don’t know what does.
Image credit: @BarackObama
