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YouTube held it down for the class of 2020 with a live stream of their virtual commencement ceremony, Dear Class of 2020, on Sunday.
The four-hour event featured Barack and Michelle Obama, who delivered respective speeches about the two ongoing pandemics. “In a lot of ways, the pandemic just brought into focus problems that have been growing for a very long time,” Mr. Obama said during his speech. “Whether it’s widening economic inequality, the lack of basic health care for millions of people, the continuing scourge of bigotry and sexism, or the division or dysfunction that plagued our political system.”
Michelle gave her two cents about the ongoing national protests against police brutality and noted that it’s a “direct result of decades of unaddressed prejudice and inequality.”
“Over these past couple of months, our foundation has been shaken,” she said. “Not just by a pandemic that stole too many of our loved ones, upended our daily lives and sent tens of millions into unemployment, but also by the rumbling of the age-old fault lines that our country was built on, the lines of race and power that are now once again so nakedly exposed for all of us to grapple with.”
Although the graduation ceremony wasn’t what hardworking students expected, the power couple encouraged them to keep focusing on their studies. “You are achieving things your parents and grandparents never could imagine for themselves,” Mrs. Obama said. “You are the answer to a generation of prayers.”
Bey came through and shook the room detailing her personal experiences in the music industry and encouraging underdogs to push through adversity. “As a woman, I did not see enough female role models given the opportunity to do what I knew I had to do,” she says in her clip. “To run my label and management company, to direct my tours, that meant ownership—owning my masters, owning my heart, owning my future and owning my own story.”
Megan Thee Stallion, ChloexHalle, Lizzo, and many more artists performed for the after-party and it looked like the best graduation ever.
