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On the plus side our music department is terrific and it showed in the ceremony. There was a duet with an African American and a white male which was stupendous. Then one of the valedictorians gave a speech about diversity. It is pretty clear he is gay and he didn't shy from including sexuality in his speech. Frankly, it was a refreshing speech from a gifted young man who is comfortable in his skin.
On the minus side we had roles for the top four students in the senior class. Due to the tie for valedictorian, we actually had five students on the stage. Of the five we had four Caucasians and one African American (he actually finished fifth). Sadly it isn't some fluke. As classes get progressively harder the ratio of African American students to whites gets lower. Lower classes are similar in ratio to the school as a whole while higher classes often are majority Caucasian. Schools here have been desegregated for going on 35 years, yet we still have two seperate schools with two seperate tracks. I don't pretend to have the answers here. Heck, I am not even totally sure of what the problem is. I just hope that if I stay here until retirement age I don't see a similar ratio on that stage.
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