NAACP Asks Black Athletes to Stay Away from Florida & Aaron Rodgers Accused of Claiming Sandy Hook was a Hoax
Judge Says FL "Stop-Woke" Law Unconstitutional, FL Lawmakers Push Back Against DeSantis, Right Claims Sydney Sweeney's Chest Anti-Woke, Fans at NFL Game Get Frostbite and Amputations, Glenn Frey Sings
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: Are Americans caught in a John Hughes high school time loop?
Aaron Rodgers responds after report claims that he shared conspiracy theories about Sandy Hook: Is this the next vice president of the United States?
NAACP Urges Black Student-Athletes to Avoid Florida Schools Amid Attack on DEI: I encourage White and Black athletes to boycott Florida schools until they bring back DEI. Otherwise, we’re enabling their racism.
Appeals court slams Florida’s ‘Stop-Woke’ law for committing ‘greatest First Amendment sin’: Finally, Florida’s anti-free speech policies are confirmed.
DeSantis faces pushback in Florida as voters tire of war on woke: There’s a glimmer of hope for the state as they reject some of DeSantis’ push toward a thinly disguised theocracy.
The Far Right Thinks Sydney Sweeney Killed Wokeness. Cause of death? Her boobs.: Goofy, I know. But it reveals a deeper drive to dismiss women as merely sexual objects to ogle. This is part of the campaign to dehumanize women.
Frostbitten Kansas City Fans Needed Amputations After Frigid Game: We need to install strict protocols to protect fans against extreme heat and cold. Things are only getting worse due to climate change.
Kareem’s Video Break: Animals that snuggle together don’t struggle together.
Glenn Frey Sings “The One You Love”: This is the perfect song for that break-up playlist we all secretly keep.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
In America, there is no life after high school.
Anonymous
I first read this quote when I was a teenager, though I don’t remember where. Someone once told me it was from F. Scott Fitzgerald, though I haven’t been able to find it again. The quote has stuck with me all these years because it is either a dire prophecy of doom or a friendly warning to change our lives. Like something Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come might say.
The quote is not about scarce career opportunities after high school, but rather about the need for high schoolers to evolve past the biases, peer pressure, and dependency on authority that makes high school such an emotional prison. Although high school claims to expand the student’s horizons by laying out a Yellow Brick Road future for them, in fact, it often stunts their growth. In its exuberance to turn out obedient and productive taxpayers, it can stifle creativity and independent thought.
In the brilliant high school TV series My So-Called Life (1994), Angela tells us, “High school is a battlefield… for your heart.” Despite her penchant for melodrama—she is fifteen—Angela is right that most kids go through many of their major developmental traumas in high school, from sexual awakening to betrayal by friends to disillusionment about authority figures, and much more. Instead of maturing past those incidents, we spend a lot of our adult lives subconsciously recreating the traumas, trying to make them have a different outcome. They usually don’t. This is how we become stuck in a time loop of immature high school reactions and relationships—despite our ages.
No one is invulnerable. No one has evolved to perfect maturity. We all occasionally revert to our silly, sensitive high school selves. The issue is: How often does it happen and what do we do about it when it does? What’s most important is to not deny it when it’s happening. That’s why so many Real Housewives are stuck acting out their high school lives with petty rivalries about who’s more popular, who slighted whom, who needs to apologize to be welcomed back into the group, and so on. They dress to impress, just like in high school, and they seek external validation, just like in high school.
When you find yourself caught in the great white jaws of high school behavior, accept that you’re human and it’s natural to regress sometimes. Before you start making the same mistakes and suffer from the same emotional anxiety, stop and think about whether or not anything needs to be done or said. Forget composing that hurtful text or email, or telling all your friends about how awful someone is, or glorifying your mistakes as “taking the high road” or “being the bigger person” (classic phrases of delusion). Instead, think about ignoring the situation and looking ahead to a time when this kerfuffle won’t matter. Because it won’t—unless you drag the baggage along with you everywhere you go. Shove it in your locker and move on.