What Would Lord Jeff Do?

After writing about Paul Farmer yesterday, I started thinking about the first time I became aware of the work that he was doing. And then I remembered that he was invited to be our graduation speaker at the 'herst (I had a small hand in this, but that's a story for another day). The speech he gave on that warm May morning was sort of wandering, and at moments it almost seemed like he thought he was talking to a group of Harvard students. He briefly references the work he's doing in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, but never really gets to the Message part of his address. He also RIPS on Lord Jeffery Amherst mercilessly. It's actually quite ironic because he's an infectious disease specialist, but the overwhelmingly pro-Amherst crowd responds frostily to his insinuations.

Most of this I remembered from experiencing it live and in person, but it turns out that Amherst has actually archived all of these graduation speeches from 2000 onwards. So, if you're interested you can listen to this mediocre speech by a visionary guy here (just click it)

When I went back to listen to his address again, I noticed that he compliments our classmate Kate's graduation speech two separate times. So, I went back to the archive and read her speech, which is actually quite moving. I hadn't remembered it at all until I started reading the text. I'll post the two final paragraphs on here for you to take a look at, and give the link to hear the audio. Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that Kate has a blog now. It only seems fair that if I'm posting up something she wrote, I should probably drive some web traffic her way. It's called Faux Pas Nation, and it's snarky as anything. Alright: here's Kate in her own, excerpted, words:

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Four years came and went in this place, and so have we. Now, finally, it's our time to make our way in the great world beyond Amherst. It's an exciting world, one filled with opportunity and promise, but it's also a war torn and frightening world, perhaps no less so than our first September here. In the Darfur region of Sudan, genocide continues to cut bloody paths into the landscape. Over 1,000 people are killed there every day, and experts believe that the death-tolls could surge to over one million in a single year, which would still be only half as many Africans as those already dying every year from AIDS. Here in our country, life is thwarted in a different way, as the promises of equal rights and of equal protection under the law remain unfulfilled. In our economy, women and people of color are still denied fair wages, a fact the women and people of color in this class will soon discover first-hand. In our democracy, gay and lesbian couples are still deprived of the rights that straight couples enjoy. They have no rights to adopt children or to visit each other in the hospital, or to solidify their love in the eyes of the state. In our society, colleges like Amherst are still the birthright of the wealthy, while 20% of American children still live in appalling poverty. Their families unable to pay rent, to pay for groceries, to pay heating bills, to pay tuition bills.

With so many problems to face, countless more than I've mentioned here, it might seem easier to throw up our hands to surrender, to move on with our lives. After all, we have problems of our own, but such inaction is not worthy of us. It is not worthy of the commitment we made to each other that September day four years ago, the commitment to help our friends, our fellow human beings, through difficult times beyond our experiences and imaginations. This is an extraordinary moment in our lives, one in which we have a chance to dash madly in any direction we choose, and we must do more than maintain the savage status-quo. We need to rise up, to stand up, and never to give up the fights that lie before us, the fights that we will win, because we have the resolve, the resources, and the responsibility to do so. Of all the gifts that Amherst has given us, perhaps the greatest is the ability to see the world as we see ourselves, not merely for what we are, but for all that we can become. We now have the opportunity to set the world alight with our vision, our strength, our solidarity. This is our moment to seize, and I know that we can, and I pray that we will. We owe this much to Amherst. We owe this much to each other. (complete audio)

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Kate makes the point that Paul Farmer attempts to make far more eloquently. Some of the other speeches that we heard that weekend were funnier, but hers is the one that I'll now remember. I'm out.