What do you think about this Georgia principal's speech? Have you ever been caught off guard by something someone said during a speech?

Her comment is regretful but I can't judge what is in her heart. It's plausible she was stressed by the fact that she inadvertently dismissed the ceremony prior to the valedictorian's speech and some times what's an overwhelming situation will cause uncharacteristic behavior. To the listener, who is not wrapped up in the stress, they tend to see it in a different light. It takes a big person to give a heartfelt apology and a bigger person to accept it. This country needs a little mutual compassion.

Okay, so the crowd was frikkin rude as hell, standing up and leaving the ceremony when the valedictorian was getting ready to give his speech because, assumingly, it wasn't in the program in an error and people were ready to leave, so they just decided to get up and walk out..... and when the principal tried to calm to the crowd down, talk sense into them and tell them to have a little respect, they got even MORE disruptive, and even MORE people continued to leave....

While it was - yes - stupid of her to call them out in the manner that she did....sounds to me like she was making an observation and was too pissed to hold her tongue. That doesn't make it right.... but I think the whole situation would have been prevented had people been a little more respectful of the ceremony and kept their asses in their seats.

I don't consider myself a racist person, but I have to admit, standing in her shoes, I probably would have at at least THOUGHT the same thing. It would have been no different had everybody standing up to leave had blonde hair. "Oh look at all the people leaving - the blondes." Just because they were being called out for being disrespectful, it's suddenly "racist."

I'm so sick and tired of everything being labeled racist if things "offend" you. I'm offended for this poor student who worked his butt off in school to get good grades and have a chance to give a speech and people wouldnt give him his 10 minutes to do his thing. Does that make it racist because I'm offended on his behalf?

It would be interesting to have seen all of the incident?

We are so sensitive as a Nation that we ignore the elephant in the room, OR feel the need to apologize for stating an obvious fact?