Graduation Night
Saturday, May 27th, 2006TOP STORY>> At last night’s West Brook High School graduation ceremony, two women in the audience stopped the show with an all-out fistfight. As Principal Rodney Cavness began addressing the 2006 graduates, just over his right shoulder behind the podium a white woman and a black woman began punching each other, really punching each other. They were both on the floor and fists were flying. Everything stopped and everyone watched in disbelief as these two grown women continued to pummel each other. Eventually, two men in the audience reluctantly approached them, then security guards began to appear, and finally uniformed police officers showed up and dragged the two women kicking and screaming out of the stadium.
The ceremoney resumed.
But it was shaky, wobbly, off kilter somehow. The fight had created an energy that was inappropriate for such a civilized event. Natural adrenal responses had triggered undulating waves in the previously calm sea of graduates below us.
I’ve seen fisticuffs like that in the classroom before, but I have never seen grown women fighting. Did these women ruin the graduation? Not if you like fights. Not if you want a graduation to remember. Not if you want the children to know that grown women from different races in an already racially charged city can go at each other with full force in front of thousands of people.
There were no fights at my son’s graduation in North Houston the previous night.
