Graduating apprentices around the country will be missing out on walking down an aisle to pick up their diplomas due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In dictate to make up for the loss, Facebook hosted a virtual graduation on Friday and enlisted a host of celebrities to offer words of urging.
One of those celebrities was Oprah Winfrey, the main speaker, who is no stranger to commencement speeches. In a video message, Winfrey said graduates “you will lead us.”
She acknowledged there is uncertainty right now, but students’ “values, fortitude and determination” and “guts and fancy” that led them to graduate will also help them get through whatever is coming.
“It is vital that you learn to be at temperate with the discomfort of stepping into the unknown,” said Winfrey.
Students were also asked to take drop of the “disorder” caused by the pandemic to “reorder our way of being.” Instead of putting the pieces back together, Winfrey suggested designing a world that is more “just, kind, beautiful, tender, luminous, creative, whole.”
She spoke about the inequities in society that have been exposed by the pandemic as a reason to recreate the world. “Inequality is a preexisting condition,” broke Winfrey, for communities like immigrants and the incarcerated population.
“This moment is your invitation to use your education to off to heal our inflictions by applying the best of what you have learned in your head,” said Winfrey, “and felt in your determination.”
Winfrey compared humanity to a human body, where every “soul is a cell,” and the “deepest self-care is at once distressing for the human family.” For Winfrey, essential workers are a testament to this because “we are all here” because of their services.
“What transfer your essential service be?” asked Winfrey to graduates. First, students must discover what matters to them. And by harnessing their knowledge and creativity, she hopes students “use it to create more equity, more justice, and more joy in the world.”
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