NIKKI FREAKING GIOVANNI

[joshcryer]

HELL YES. You go girl.

[Bluebear]

1. She was fabulous

[aquart]

2. Was that the woman who just spoke? Hell, yeah!

[Fran Kubelik]

3. What did she do?

I agree - she rocks in general.

[joshcryer]

8. She said the most moving poem I have heard.

She said it with such passion. And she covered ALL tragedies just like I've been trying to do here on DU (malnrished children, war torn lands; not just Iraq; and animals that are being hurt). It was fucking amazing.

She single handedly removed the tears of sadness from thousands of young adults eyes in that moment and turned them into tears of love.

[Fran Kubelik]

12. Thank you!

I hope they publish a transcript soon. I love her.

[Bluebear]

9. She read a poem "We are Virginia Tech...."

Nobody deserves a tragedy, we are not ready to move on but we will, we are Hokies....

and led a spirit cheer :)

[MonkeyFunk]

4. Yes, she was great, wasn't she?

What a woman!

[Cameron27]

5. HELL YES !!!!!!!!!!

[Marnieworld]

6. I'll give a general Hell Yes

Because she deserves that any day. What in particular did she do to make you post this though?

[joshcryer]

11. She brought me to tears.

Man.

[goclark]

30. She got a Standing Ovation, I do mean Standing

from every one that I could see on the tv.

She was glorious!

I'm sure that she wrote that poem.

Her books are all on my shelf.

[qanda]

7. That was great!

[Penndems]

10. Dr. Giovanni's website:

http://nikki-giovanni.com/

[moez]

13. Sorry Guys...

but, a pep rally at a memorial honoring 33 of your friends that were just slaughtered..... :puke:

Then - she comes out and holds her arms up like she's the friggin' star of the show. That was the most classless display I've seen yet....

[joshcryer]

14. You have no idea how the healing process works.

A small child gets a finger cut, you don't sit there and nurse it and go "aww poor baby." You stick a bandaid on it, say "Hey, let's go play some ball." and the pain goes away. These students shouldn't have to be forced to mourne forever.

[moez]

27. Mourn forever?!!!

It's barely been a damn day!

And sorry - equating the slaughter of 33 innocent people to a cut on a child's finger is the most bizarre and disgusting thing that I've heard in a while.

[joshcryer]

28. Hmm, I wasn't equating anything.

Your interpretation of what people say or how people behave is highly skewed and not reflective of reality.

If you watched the event you will see that it was mournful all the way up until the end. I fully expect right wing news sources to hype up that very last part as some sort of "celebration." When in fact they were indeed mourning, and it was merely a show of strength.

[angstlessk]

15. Have you ever seen a funeral in New Orleans??

you are the sick one here! :puke:

[Bluebear]

16. Sorry you were so concerned and troubled by it

[MonkeyFunk]

17. Nonsense

celebration is just as much a part of mourning as is crying.

[marylanddem]

22. Celebrating the day after a slaughter?

What's wrong with this picture?

[joshcryer]

25. They were celebrating?

10k+ students were crying their guts out. Grown men.

They needed a reminder that it wasn't the end of the world. Nikki gave them that.

[MonkeyFunk]

26. It was a long service

with lots of tears, and ended on a hopeful, joyous note.

Nothing wrong with that.

Christ, I've never seen so much ridiculous judgment as I have here these last two days. Everybody's a moral authority...

[marylanddem]

18. I didn't see her, but

there is something, to me, wrong about the haste of this event -
It's like the bodies are still warm & there is just this enormous rush
to get it done with...

[Bluebear]

20. The students are all going home today, this was their only chance to be together

[Moochy]

23. Thanks for explaining that

Thanks for pointing that out, I was thinking it was a bit early too. From which media outlet did you hear/read/see this?

[Bluebear]

24. CNN

[kwolf68]

21. I sorta agree with this

Too soon for this.

[wicket]

19. "That was the most classless display I've seen yet...."

Nah, your post has got it beat. :eyes:

[grace0418]

32. All memorial events should end with some joy, some celebration of the lives of

the people. The crying and mourning will continue for a long time. Sometimes the one thing that gets lost in all of that is remembering what made those people special to their loved ones. The people there aren't going to need anything reminding them to mourn, to be sad, and to cry. What they *are* going to need are reminders about what makes life worth living, worth celebrating.

My dad died in an awful, completely preventable way. The laughing and dancing and singing we did at his funeral helped us cope almost more than all the crying and hugging.

Please try to understand that grieving needs many layers of emotion and try not to be so judgmental.

[LostinVA]

33. Oh boy

[Horse with no Name]

35. I notice you saying this a lot these days

:evilgrin:

[gauguin57]

34. The students of VA Tech were praised for their sense of community in the face of tragedy.

Gov. Kaine, and many reporters and pundits, commented on what school spirit and supportive sense of community these kids showed as they described the horrible day.

Nikki Giovanni's poem led them into their chants of "Let's Go Hokies!" It showed what those students and faculty and staff are made of. It let them show the world how they'll get through this and come out stronger.

I thought it was fabulous. And I thought Giovanni was raising her arms to get the crowd to glory in itself, to celebrate getting through that awful day. And they DID glory in themselves as they chanted.

[Grandrose]

29. That is why she was last!

Perspective of a poet and professor, was appropriate and brilliant!:thumbsup:

[grace0418]

31. She also had the killer in her class. She saw his writings and probably knew

as well as, or better than, anyone that he was a troubled individual about to snap. Good for her.

[wicket]

36. "We are Virginia Tech"

LINK

“We are Virginia Tech. We are sad today and we will be sad for quite awhile. WE are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech. We are strong enough to know when to cry and sad enough to know we must laugh again. We are Virginia Tech. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did not deserve it but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, but neither do the invisible children walking the night to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory; neither does the Appalachian infant in the killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy. We are Virginia Tech. The Hokier Nation embraces our own with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness. We are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will prevail. We are Virginia Tech. "