Valedictorian Speeches - Jean Grey (Open to Reactions)
Jean Grey stepped up the podium. She had been preparing for this moment for years. There had been a trajectory that she had followed closely, and this had been the brass ring of her time at Xavier's. She looked out at the crowd gathered and felt a sudden swell of emotion. Her time at Xavier School was almost over, and even though she intended to be a graduate assistant, she was truly going forward on her own two feet.
"I have been thinking about graduation for a long time now. Sometimes, I looked at it with dread. How can I possibly go out into that big, scary world with the weight of responsibility that comes along with being a mutant? Most of the time though, I have looked forward to it with excitement and a purpose.
"When I first came to this school, I thought I would never grow into my power. It didn't even seem like mine. It seemed like something happening to me, rather than a part of me. It took time to change that. It took time and some really amazing mentors for me to see that there was the hugeness inside my body waiting to be ready for the world—and it's a lesson all of us need to know, mutant and otherwise. When you're scared, when you feel you aren't good enough...we are limitless. Each one of us has something great and special inside of us. We may not see it right now. We may not have grown into it now. But someday we will find all the greatness inside of ourselves."
She licked her lips, moving onto the more controversial part of her speech. "When I say that I move forward with a purpose, I don't mean it in any abstract way. My experiences, my faith and the lessons taught to me at Xavier's have put a path in front of my feet. We all have a calling, as students and people with unique minds and unique abilities, to take the legacy given to us by our teachers and our parents and our leaders—take it all in and make the world better somehow.
"Some of you know me personally. Others are seeing me for the first time today...and some of you have seen me in a video posted on the internet. I like to think that the people who know me or get to know me would say that I am a good person who likes helping others, who believes in peace and communication. I've been criticized sometimes for having a naive or optimistic stance on the world, but I believe that in the long run, the good we do outweighs whatever bad that anyone can say about us. I have gotten to know my fellow students at Xavier's and at Stark School, and what I've learned is this: we share common struggles and common hopes. We helped each other once to survive a desperate situation in Manhattan. A handful of us came back from an unspeakably cruel experience on an island in the Pacific. And it didn't matter how we came about our powers, or if we even had any powers besides our wits, we all had the same struggles.
"So what is the road ahead? President Kennedy once said 'If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.' I believe that still holds so true today. The most important good we can do—the very best thing we can do to make the world a better place—is just to always remember that we're all human inside. There may be differences between us, but no difference that makes us less a part of the collective of living, breathing, thinking beings. We should love the stranger next to us the same way we would love a familiar friend. We should remember every party, every prom, every heated exchange of words and every time we learned something from another student. We should look for the greatness in each other and reject the ideologies that say there is anything lesser in another type of person. We should love each other and reject all the faces of hate."
She smiled out at the audience, letting out a little breath she had been holding. "I just wanted you all to know I wouldn't be here today without each and every one of you. Even if we've barely exchanged a word, you've contributed something important to me. And I love you all. Thank you."