Roy Exum
Orchard Knob Middle School, located on North Highland Park Avenue in Chattanooga, led every other secondary school in the state of Tennessee last year with 6.8 percent of its students expelled. So as people are working feverishly to keep the school from being taken over by the state’s Department of Education, allow me to pose a question.
Last Friday during the last period of school, a full three-fourths of the 438 inner-city kids who attend Orchard Knob Middle got to crowd into the gym and watch with great delight as some students played a hysterical basketball game against their favorite teachers.
Each kid paid $3, which will be used to fund school projects.
The other one-fourth of the kids were herded into the cafeteria where five teachers volunteered to miss the game and tried to make those who could not come up with $3 have as much fun as they could. Am I alone in thinking that if a middle school kid is unable to come up with the money, he or she should be exiled far enough away from the gym to see anything but close enough to hear the joyful shouts and screams?
Somehow I have it in my mind that some sixth, seventh and eighth-graders might be a little miffed about that. Some may even wear their frustration like a chip on their shoulder. A child angry with circumstances he or she cannot avoid may even show it in class, or something. Can we understand why Orchard Knob Middle is festering with hurt feelings?
My guess is that somewhere there is an educator, maybe a former principal or a retired guidance counsellor that is thinking the exact same thing: “I never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.”
* * *
DEAR HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITIES
NOTE: This is fresh off the Internet and it sums up my feelings precisely:
* * *
It's time to wake up now. Get this! The only reason you exist is for my entertainment. Some of you are beautiful. Some of you can deliver a line with such conviction that you bring tears to my eyes. Some of you are so convincing that you scare the crap out of me. And others are so funny you can make me laugh uncontrollably.
But you all have one thing in common. You only exist and have a place in my world to entertain me. That's it. Nothing else!
You make your living pretending to be someone else. You play dress-up like a 5-year-old. Your world is a make believe world. It is not real. It doesn't exist. You live for the camera while the rest of us live in the real world. Your entire existence depends on my patronage. I crank the organ grinder, and you dance.
Therefore, I don't care where you stand on issues. Honestly, your opinion means nothing to me. Just because you had a lead role in a movie about prostitution doesn't mean you know what it's like to be a prostitute. Your view matters far less to me than that of a someone living in Timbuktu.
Believe me or not, the hard truth is that you aren't real. I turn off my TV or shut down my computer, and you cease to exist. Once I am done with you, I go back to the real world until I want you to entertain me again.
I don't care that you think BP executives deserve the death penalty. I don't care what you think about the environment. I don't care if you believe fracking is bad. I don't care if you call for more gun control. I don't care if you believe in catastrophic human-induced global warming. And I could care less that you supported Hillary for President. Get back into your bubble. I'll let you know when I'm in the mood for something pretty or scary or funny.
And one other thing. What was with all this "I'll leave the country if Donald Trump wins"? Don't you know how stupid that made you sound? What did you think my reaction was going to be? I better not vote for Trump or we'll lose Whoopi Goldberg? Al Sharpton? Amy Schumer? Leave. I don't care! And don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Oh by the way, is Clinton returning any of the money you so generously donated to her election?
Make me laugh. Make me cry. Even scare me. But realize this, the only words of yours that matter are scripted — just like your pathetic little lives. I may agree with some of you from time to time, but in the final analysis, it doesn't matter. In my world, you exist solely for my entertainment. So, just be quiet, and dance, monkey, DANCE!
* * *
Some days I just can’t help myself!
royexum@aol.com