I typically let Zemzem do the Facebook posts but I couldn’t pass on sharing this with you guys. My letter to my oh so motivational counselor:

Dear Mr. Courtney,
I want to thank you. If it were not for you I would not be at the place I am today, I would be a hundred times better………

Thank you for the lack of motivation you always gave me after every conversation. Thank you for having me leave your office on the verge of tears on multiple occasions. But most of all, thank you for trying to doing everything in your possible right (and everything not in your right) to make sure that I would not get the chance to walk across this stage tonight and celebrate the last four years of my life.

I will never forget the many times you’ve belittled and shut me down. From blatantly asking why I am applying to any schools, forget competitive ones, and being surprised when I got accepted into EIGHT out of the ten schools I applied to (one of which I was rejected because YOU decided not to send in your counselor report), all the way to the telling me on multiple occasions that I will not be walking or graduating and saying you were helping me or “doing me a FAVOR” but really just barely doing your job.

According to the American School Counselor Association, your job is to, “help all students in the areas of academic achievement, personal/social development and career development, ensuring today’s students become the productive, well-adjusted adults of tomorrow.” As a COUNSELOR, your job is to counsel, motivate, and push your students to do and be the best they can possibly be. Unfortunately you did not fulfill your roll and judging by your actions and words toward all of the students of color from my class that were unfortunate enough to have you as a counselor, you are not the right person to be counseling students at a school as diverse at Garfield. Being an all honors and AP student, I understand just how much institutionalized racism is alive and thriving at Garfield considering how many students of color there are but yet I’ve been the ONLY black girl in multiple classes over the years regardless of the fact that most of the SOC are even more intelligent than I.

I truly believe that the first step in solving the issue of institutionalized racism at Garfield is by starting with the faculty who just so happens to be you.  As I move forward to my next phase in life I will continue to rep the true bulldog that I’ve grown to become and will do everything I can possibly do to make sure you never get the opportunity to make any other student feel the way you’ve made the students of color of my class and previous classes feel.

Again, thank you for being such a negative force in my life, its going to make walking across that stage all the more sweet.
Rabiya Robele

Source: Hon ShyRose Bhanji Facebook