Somebody needs to tell FAMU’s “Marching 100” that they are not God’s gift to theworld.
Better yet, I’ll tell them.
“MARCHING 100,” YOU ARE NOT GOD’S GIFT TO THE WORLD!!!
Saturday night, as I am arriving to the stadium to cover the football game for the students of FAMU, I get stopped at the entrance gate by a FAMU police officer. I show him my press pass, and he tells me to wait until the band goes through.
Never mind the fact I’m standing in front of the gate, and the band is still in the parking lot. Never mind the fact that he lets people he know enter the gate while he keeps me waiting, all the while laughing and chuckling with them right in front of my face. And when I repeatedly asked him about it, he ignored me.
No, Mr. Serve-and-Protect held me up to let his friends and an entire band through. After waiting about 20 minutes, I finally enter, and head over to the press box.Sudden, two band members grab me and tell me I can’t go by because I’m not supposed to cut their line.
Cut their line? Where the hell are we, elementary school?
I leave my house at 5:45 p.m., thinking I’m going to get to the press box and have enough time to prepare myself for the game.
Instead, because of a toy cop and some stupid band members, by the time I get there, the game has started.
I know it sounds like I’m venting here, which I am. But there is an underlying problem in all of this. And that is the amount of favoritism going on at FAMU. It enables people to get into places before someone who actually needs to be there, and it gets people jobs that they’re not qualified to have.
Favoritism is why thousands of students struggle every year to get what they need from financial aid, because there are unqualified people working in the department, who got their jobs on a hook-up.
It’s why students get the runaround when they need answers to their problems, and why students have to put up with school officials who really can’t help you, and don’t care one way or another if you ever get any help.
Favoritism is responsible for the dozen or so FAMU officials who have been arrested in recent years for fraud, forgery and grand theft.
Yeah, I said it. It needed to be said.
As a school, if FAMU ever hopes to reach its goal of being one of the finest institutions in the nation, the favoritism has to stop.
Oh, and to those two band members: if someone else tries to cut your line, make sure you go tell teacher.