His name was Richard Prince. You asked me why I wanted to do this. Richard Prince, he sat behind me in Ms. Diller’s history class. He talked a lot. He cheated. At the end of the first semester, he had the highest grade in the class because he cheated. I liked school. Richard didn’t like school. Maybe he didn’t need it. I don’t know, I don’t care. I needed it. I looked forward to Mondays. School. The weekends when I was at home…
We had two field trips every year in my middle school. The big one, in seventh grade, was across the state to the U.S. Capitol. I had been looking forward to the Capitol trip since I was five years old. I’d memorized every Speaker of the House since Frederick Muhlenberg. I knew that the prize for designing the Capitol Building was five hundred dollars. I knew that the dome of the Capitol was made of eight million-nine hundred nine thousand-two hundred pounds of cast iron. I knew this and wrote all these things down in a little notebook and I pasted pictures into the notebook so I could bring it with me when we went on our trip and make sure I saw everything I had ever read about. I was more excited about this trip than I’ve ever been about anything in my life.
We were eighteen miles outside of Roanoke when Richard Prince pulled out his phone on the bus. There was one strict rule on this trip; no electronic devices. None. But Richard Prince had brought his phone. Ms. Diller told him to put it away, he refused, his friends started to defend him, it got loud. I sat in the back of the bus with my hands over my ears, looking through my notebook staring at pictures of the dome, the crypt, the old Senate chamber, but it just got louder – more out of control. And then I felt the wheels of the bus turn. I didn’t look up, but I felt it.
We were going home. I was looking forward to that Capitol trip for six years. Six years and I did not get to go. Because Richard Prince decided the rules didn’t apply to him. Forty-nine kids didn’t get to go. Because of one person.
Is this what I wanted to be when I was growing up? Yes. Injustice… isn’t only felt by the loudest person complaining about it.
Kate Littlejohn, For the People 1.03 - 18 Miles Outside of Roanoke
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Reblogged from emeteriorufus
