Armstrong: Go see Loving and take the your kids, too

We've all heard the requests, "Please hold your applause until the end."But someone always goes ahead and claps anyway.

Well, some folks who did that in Mississippi probably wish they hadn't. Instead of controlling their excitement as they had been asked, relatives of one of the 2015 grads, hollered out anyway. Now, three of them face legal problems that could saddle them with $500 fines and six-month jail terms.

That's right. They could go to jail for applauding during graduation.

Closer to home in Washington Township, N.J., school officials have published a graduation day dress code - not so much for the grads but for members of the audience to keep them from showing up casually dressed in cargo shorts and T-shirts. According to the district's website, "guests are expected to dress appropriately. Shirts must have collars – no T-shirts, tank tops, jeans or Bermuda shorts are permitted. Short pants are not allowed for persons over 12 years old."

Well, duh.

You'd think that in 2015 that no one would have to tell anyone how to behave or to dress at a high school graduation. But our regard for pomp and circumstance isn't what it used to be. Dignity at these affairs has become passe to the point it's almost a case of graduations gone wild.

I'm not going to lie.

I'm one of the ones who look sideeyed when grads cut up and do back flips down the aisle after getting a high school degree. (Save it for when you get a medical degree.)

Besides, these ceremonies usually are tedious and hijinks just stretch out even more. Back in the dark ages, when I graduated from high school, the nuns threatened to withhold our diplomas if any of us dared to step out of line.

Look, I realize I'm in the minority, judging from the responses I got last week when I asked folks for their opinions about dress codes for parents at graduations and requests to hold applause until everyone has gotten his diploma.

"It's not a debutante ball. It's a graduation," pointed out West Oak Lane resident Chuck L. Herndon III last week. "I don't want to say that it's not that serious but it's not. It's not a situation where I need to come in a tuxedo to make you comfortable.

"If it's 110 degrees when my son graduates from the eighth grade in two weeks, I'm wearing shorts. I'm not graduating."

"To give an arbitrary thing that we as parents, that we should not be comfortable is silly. I don't go to your school," said Herndon, a network representative for Aetna and the father of two sons. "It's condescding to tell adults how to dress."

When Derek Lee's daughter had her dance recital recently, he sat in the audience brandishing a giant cardboard cut out of his daughter's face that he had specially made for the occasion..

"Whenever she moved (I shouted) Jessica!" Lee said, laughing. "That's how you show support."

"People were trying to be all saddity because it's Tacony (Academy) Charter School," he added. "And whenever my baby girl did something, I was (yelling) 'Jessica!'''

Lee was apalled to learn that the relatives in Mississippi --- all because they let their exuberance out the way he does. Lee's similarly opposed to schools imposing a dress code on graduation attendees.

"If I'm out on a football field, I should be able to wear what I want to wear," he said.

Yeah, well, people have different cultural norms.

Some people prefer order while others look at graduations as a chance to celebrate.

"I believe that there should be some decorum, basic rules about dress and behavior," said Chuck Williams, who as director of graduate --- at Lincoln University has sat through his share of commencement exercises.

"However, folks forget that parents have supported these students for years," he said. "Therefore, when our students-- their sons and daughters finally make it to commencement, many are beside themselves and rules about decorum get thrown out the window.

"This is especially the case for young men of color. They're like - 'he made it through college, not to jail or the local morgue,'" Williams added.

Interestingly, at least one of the relatives of the Mississippi grad suspected there would be repercussions for her behavior during commencement - not that that stopped her.

Ursula Miller told the Associated Press, "I understood as a consequence I was going to be escorted out of the graduation, but no one told me there were going to be criminal charges against me."webhed: ---

The fact ideathat Americans were once were actually imprisonedjailed for having sex with or marrying being withsomeone of another race seems far fetched and like ancient history.

It's really not, though.

Just ask Earni Young, a Wynnefield resident, who experienced something similar to what happened to Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple forced out of Virginia in 1958 after because they had gettinggotten married. They went on to file legal challenges to their exile and won. and The ruling in theirheir landmark Supreme Court case against the state of Virginia struck down the nation's .laws preventing interracial marriage.

In 1967, the retired journalist was once thrown in jail for daring to try and spend the night in jail with her white boyfriend.

Young had She'd all but forgotten ther ugly incident but until she started seeinghype surrounding the new film, Lovingg, thatbased on the couple's lives, brought it all back to her. She shared her story it recently on Facebook last week.

opens in Philadelphia at the Ritz Five on Friday. It's about an interracial couple from Virginia and their landmark Supreme Court case that outlawed the nation's anti-miscengenation laws.

"I was 20 and serving in the U.S. Navy at Norfolk Naval Base. My best friend and I were both dating fellow sailors who happened to be white," recalled Young who is African American. "The guys had just returned from a six -week cruise and we were celebrating with a romantic weekend off base.

"My boyfriend and I had returned to the hotel room after a nice dinner and concert. I had barely removed my shoes when there was a knock at the door. It was two vice cops who immediately arrested us for violating Virginia's miscegenation law," Young wrote on Facebook.. "We were handcuffed and taken to jail. My girlfriend and I were also accused of prostitution --– why else would two white men be with two black women?"

"I had never been in a jail cell before," recalled Young, who had been terrified about how Navy commanders would react to her arrest.

It took a bit but Eventually, the wholeincident eventually blew over and Young, now 70, continued went on with her life. She returned to school and later became a journalist, which included her becoming a journalist and eventually writing for the Daily News and the now defunct Philadelphia Bulletin. .

Young is She's looking forward to seeing Loving after it opens here Friday at the Ritz Five. The movie will be in more local theaters later.

Everyone should go see it. This is one that you should take your kids to and Ttake other people's kids to as well.

Why? Because it's

Itsuch 'san inspiring story. I've seen it twice and would watch it again.

Richard, who was white, and Mildred, who was African American and Native American, were simple, country people who happened to fall in love. .

By staying together against all odds and daring to buck a racist system out to keep the races separate, they Lovings changed the world.

The unlikely story of how these two unassuming heroes pulled that off shouldnevershould never be forgotten.

That's why I invited the Daily News aabout 65 students from Science Leadership Academy to a free screening of Loving, in which actor Joel Edgerton plays Richard and actress Ruth Negga plays Mildred.

It's more fun t which co-stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga.o learn about history by watching a movie than plowing through a textbook. But

aAs the youngsters kidsfiled into the Roxy Theater at 20th and Sansom sStreets, I immediately began fretting about how a generation raised on video games and fast-moving action movies would react to such a bittersweet film.

I shouldn't have worried. The youngsters settled in quickly as the plot actionslowly began unfolding. They gasped in horror when a scene showed how authorities burst into the Lovings' home as they slept and arrested them.

The Lovings wound up having to leave Virginia. They moved in with relatives in Washington, D.C. for a time but eventually snuck back into Virginia where their resolve fightto be together eventually prevailed despite incredible odds against them.

The gravitas of what the Lovings accomplished wasn't lost on the students who gasped and groaned along with the plomovie's ttwists. When the movie ended, they applauded. They not only enjoyed the movie but they got a lot out of it as well.

"Love is love," Naima Debrest, 15, a sophomoresophmore, pointed out explained as she left the theater. "And that's the struggle with what we're going through today with people with gay marriage."

I am very surprised," sophomore Afi Koffi, 15, ,added. "We see this and we think it was a long time ago but it really wasn't. It's pretty recent and there are still issues involving things like this today. "

SophomoreSophmore Sashoya Dugan, 15, agreed., The Lovings "made a path for so many other people," she said.... "bBecause of them, we are where we are today."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

" @JeniceAmstrong

Blog: philly.com/HeyJen