A Tale of Two Larries (or how “White Privilege” trumps scholarship at Stanford University)

23 March 2016

This is a story about Pink Larry and Brown Larry. The Larries both went to Spartan Senior Juniorhigh, were in a few of the same classes, and were both to graduate in the same year.  Here their stories diverge.

Pink Larry was a skinny “white” (pink) kid who exelled at math, science, and literature. Brown Larry was a muscular “black” (brown) dude who exelled at football, snapping towels, and pushing skinny “white” (pink) kids around. Fortunately, Pink Larry was a little taller, faster, and more agile than most skinny “white” (pink) kids, so he managed to mainly escape the “sport” of Brown Larry and his “student athlete” companions.  Some of his friends were not so lucky.

Tiring of being molested and maligned in “gym class”, Pink Larry dropped out of Phys Ed. Tiring of correcting his “instructors’” spelling and grammar, Pink Larry dropped out of English class.  Tiring of state-worshipping, Keynsian, revisionist “teachers”, Pink Larry dropped out of history class.

Things aren’t looking so good for Pink Larry here, but despair ye not. When Principal Menelaus saw that Pink Larry could not (by statutory decree) be graduated without the all-important PE, English, and Social(ist) Studies credits, he summoned Pink Larry’s mom for a conference.  Because of Pink Larry’s stubbornness (or his disinclination to endure more locker room beatings) he said, “So be it, I shan’t graduate.”

Well, Mom wouldn’t stand for that.  Since she was unwilling to escort him to PE for the remainder of his senior year, Pink Larry was scheduled to test for his General Education Diploma.  Of course, he aced it.  What else should you expect from a lad who blew away all comers in his school-wide math competition TWO YEARS running?

Unfortunately, not everything is as easy as algebra. It was determined that it would be “unfair” for Pink Larry to get his GED in April, so he was obliged to wait until the rest of “his” class was properly graduated in June.

Spartan Senior Juniorhigh comes to the end of another year, ready to launch another class out into the world. The Larries have big plans. Pink Larry wants to go to Stanford University and study physics and organic chemistry. Brown Larry wants to play football. One of them gets a “scholarship” to do just that.

Forty years later the other one is selling soda pop and chips at the QuickStopp-by-the-Interstate™. So, everybody wins. Arguably, what saves Pink Larry from disappointment and resentment might be the news that Stanford still makes such laudable selections. Rather than succumb to bitterness, he accepts his good fortune and sends Stanford belated thanks, as follows:

I’ve wondered about it for decades, so I am grateful to the current news for illustrating what Stanford’s ethical standards really entail:

Apparently, you’re all perfectly cool with a swimming rapist matriculating into your hallowed halls.  On the other hand, there is no room for a decent math and science prodigy who did not receive his Senior Juniorhigh diploma because he could no longer enjoy the attacks and the abuse from the elite and privileged “athaleets” in Phys Ed, and who tired of correcting the grammar and spelling of his English “teachers”, and who could no longer stomach the collectivist propaganda from his “History” teachers.  Instead, I squandered my High School years studying trigonometry, linear algebra, physics, organic chemistry, and other useless non-sports related activities.

I was disappointed — crushed in fact, metaphorically speaking — by your rejecting me these many decades ago. I had so looked forward to working with and studying under the great Linus Pauling, but no… I couldn’t catch a football like my classmate, so, tough break for scholarship. It is clearly secondary to panem et circensis.

Maybe I actually ducked a bullet.  Who knows? 
I could have been left behind a dumpster myself if I’d suffered the depredations of the Ideal Stanford Man.

Stanford declined to respond.