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By Katrina Margolis
Hometown Weekly Reporter
On June 20, five brave Wellesley Middle School eighth graders stood in front of nearly 2,000 people to deliver graduation speeches. While all five were well crafted, well written accounts of their time at Wellesley Middle School, one in particular stood out.
After Yusuf Isaacs spoke, he received a standing ovation from the crowd, the only student to receive one.
Yusuf’s speech addressed a topic that many others in the Wellesley community may have never even thought about: being Muslim in a mostly white, homogenous area. “It was so silent you could hear a pin drop, people were so tuned into what he was saying,” Yusuf’s mother, Fareda, said. However, the lead up to Yusuf’s incredibly powerful speech began much earlier than graduation.
Two authors visited the middle school to talk about their book, “All-American Boys,” a young adult novel about racial tension and misunderstanding. When Yusuf was called on during their question-and-answer portion, he asked, “What is your opinion on religious hate?”
After the two authors, Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, were finished with their presentation, Yusuf spoke with them for quite a while. After hearing some of Yusuf’s experiences, Reynolds decided to write a poem about him. “I told my English teacher I had been thinking about writing something for graduation and she said it would be a good idea because she knows who I am and a lot of what I’ve been through,” Yusuf explained. “She knew that Jason Reynolds had written the poem about me, so she thought it would be nice to write about my experiences.”
When asked what his speech is about, Yusuf said, “It’s about me being a Muslim kid from South Africa and how life is so much different here to there.” He continued, “It also talks about stuff that goes on behind the scenes, stuff that only kids know about, stuff that parents wouldn’t necessarily know about, but stuff that kids know, that I know.” While Reynolds focused on some of the more extreme incidents Yusuf’s family has experienced, Yusuf himself focused on some of the smaller things. “I learned from experiences that I didn’t want to have,” he wrote. “My religion’s important to me. I don’t understand why some people dislike it; maybe it’s because some people who are ‘a part’ of it choose to commit acts of hate in the name of it.”
There are a great number of messages in Yusuf’s speech, but the one he most wanted people to take away was, “Think about what you say before you say it. That’s probably like the main message.”
Despite all that Yusuf has been through, he is grateful for his community and school. “The school has its ups and downs, it has its good sides and its bad sides, its racism, its discrimination, but at the same time, it also has open arms willing to help you with anything,” he wrote.
“Within the school community Yusuf felt comfortable enough to talk about it,” Ferada pointed out. “Because sometimes if you feel a certain way and you’re afraid of what someone might think, you might not say it.”
“I’m very open about saying what I think,” Yusuf added. In spite of the negative things Yusuf may have experienced, his speech ended on a wholly positive note. “I want to end this speech telling everyone to enjoy their lives, and while doing that, help make others’ lives more enjoyable.”
With four more years to go in the Wellesley school system, there is no doubt that Yusuf will add immeasurable value to the community.
