By MARSHA MERCER
The late Texas columnist Molly Ivins may have given the
best commencement advice ever.
“They told me to give y’all some advice that will be
useful in your future lives. This is mine: Don’t Plant Bamboo in a Small Backyard,”
she supposedly said.
Alas, the story is likely apocryphal.
But it’s just about perfect commencement advice:
practical, funny and memorable.
Ivins, who died in 2007, was a sharp, witty political
and cultural critic. I wish we had her folksy, liberal voice this commencement season.
Most big names chosen to sprinkle wisdom on the day of
celebration resort to utterly forgettable platitudes.
“Give yourself permission to fail in order to
experience the privilege of success,” actor Boris Kodjoe told Virginia
Commonwealth University’s class of 2018.
“Act boldly,” former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe
advised University of Richmond grads. “Be fearless,” Apple CEO Tim Cook urged at
Duke University,
You can hear grads nudging each other and saying, “Wow,
`act boldly’ – I never thought of that
before!” At least such advice does no harm.
Nobody wants to be the commencement speaker whose
remarks ignite a social media firestorm.
That’s what happened when Nella Gray Barkley, Sweet Briar
College class of 1955, delivered remarks at her alma mater, one of the nation’s
last remaining women’s colleges.
In one fell swoop, she seemed to belittle feminism and
the #MeToo movement and waxed nostalgic about the days when an engagement ring
was more prized than a college degree.
“I’m no raging feminist. I actually love men, and I
married one,” she said.
“I have little patience with the woman who arrives
breathlessly at her boss’s hotel room for a so-called conference,” she said in
her speech. “What did she think was going to happen?”
And, it’s “only natural for men from Mars to follow
the shortest skirt in the room.”
Barkley, a career coach in South Carolina, received
the “distinguished alumna” award in 2002. She's touted on the college website
for taking out a life insurance policy with Sweet Briar as sole beneficiary.
When students and grads took to social media to
complain about her speech, college president Meredith Woo sent an email.
“You don’t have to accept or refuse her perspective –
that is not the point – but I ask you to think about it,” Woo wrote, Inside
Higher Ed reported.
I suppose there are worse ways to launch one’s post-college
life than having to listen to someone say things that infuriate you. If nothing else, it’s good practice for conference calls at
the office. (Remember the mute button.)
But just as commencement isn’t the ideal venue to knock
a social movement embraced by many in the audience, it also isn’t the place for
a speaker to begin settling scores.
Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson used his commencement
address at Virginia Military Institute to encourage cadets to remember the
importance of truth, ethics and integrity.
In normal times, such advice would be typical inspirational
fare, but Tillerson spent 14 months in the Trump administration, where President
Donald Trump is known for his estrangement from facts.
“If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as
people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in
facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our
freedom,” Tillerson warned.
The former chief executive of Exxon Mobil did not call
out Trump by name, but there was no doubt who he meant when he said: “When we
as a people, a free people, go wobbly on the truth, even on what may seem the
most trivial matters, we go wobbly on America.”
He told cadets integrity “is the most valuable asset
you have,” and urged them to seek out employers who set high ethical standards.
“Blessed is the man who doesn’t blame all of his
failures on someone else. Blessed is the man that can say that the boy he was
would be proud of the man he is,” Tillerson said.
Critics complained he waited too long to speak out and
didn’t go far enough.
Maybe in the future Tillerson will follow other
commencement speakers’ advice and “act boldly” and “be fearless.”
Molly Ivins would. And that’s no bamboo.
©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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