Lessons in headline engineering
Another possible headline was "At Morehouse, Biden says dissent should be heard because democracy is 'still the way'" or another "Biden tells Morehouse graduates that scenes in Gaza from the Israel-Hamas war break his heart, too"
Outside of the ceremony, a small number of protestors gathered while the commencement itself did not see any major disruptions.
Last week, Morehouse College President David Thomas said he would rather halt proceedings than have students escorted away for protesting.
"If my choice is 20 people being arrested on national TV on the Morehouse campus, taken away in zip ties during our commencement, before we would reach that point, I would conclude the ceremony," he said on NPR's Weekend Edition.
But, none of that happened -- either halting the ceremony or tackling or pepper spraying any of the people who were draped in Palestinian flags or turning their chairs around.
DeAngelo Fletcher, Morehouse College's valedictorian, closed his address to his classmates by addressing global conflict, particularly the Israel-Hamas war.
"For the first time in our lives, we've heard the global community sing one harmonious song that transcends language and culture," he said. "It is my sense as a Morehouse Man, nay – as a human being – to call for an immediate and a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip."
IDK how much more pro Palestinian than that he got, and it sorta sounds like "both sides." But whatever. Anyway apparently Biden stood up and shook his hand after. Here's the whole video; Biden's part starts at around 1:43:30. Comparing the tenor of the thing if you take a look at it firsthand, against the tenor that's created from reading this particular headline, is a good little window on what they were trying to do by writing the headline that way (i.e. not to inform about what happened), and what ozma was trying to do by posting it here.
I don't actually think it matters all that much what anybody says about Gaza. Biden stopping the weapons shipments, pushing for an immediate cease fire and humanitarian aid, and supporting an ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu would be a good start. I think mostly this commencement speech is notable in that, hey look, (1) there was protest and it was ok (2) you can make things sound way different depending on which aspects you present in the media coverage.
