Curious, Not Judgemental
Taking inspiration from a middle-aged rapper, Prefect Pia encouraged her peers to celebrate their authentic selves and let others do the same.
Each week, our student leaders share their insights with their peers in Assembly.
“May I have your attention, please?
May I have your attention, please?
Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?”
I repeat
“Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?
We’re gonna have a problem here.”
Y’all act like you’ve never heard of Slim Shady before,
Jaws all on the floor, at this girl who just burst in the door,
And started rapping Eminem just like before,
Does she know Slim Shady doesn’t go to Wenona?
It's the return of the … “Ah wait, no way, you’re kidding,
She’s really not gonna keep going, is she?”
And then I said, maybe we should re-start,
Time to rap this up and start the speech part.
Hi, I’m Pia and I am part of your Prefect team. I will be honest and say it was my brother who gave me the idea to rap for my first Prefect speech. It was intended to be a joke, but I guess I took it seriously.
That was my version of the start of Eminem’s The Real Slim Shady, and if you did not know, Slim Shady is Eminem, who is also actually Marshall Mathers.
And I know you’re probably still wondering, where is this speech going?
Well, Eminem’s original lyrics say, “There’s a Slim Shady in all of us”. In saying this, I don’t mean that a now 51-year-old rapper’s violent and dark side or alter ego lives inside each of us. But rather, metaphorically, like Eminem’s multiple personas, we all are made up of multiple parts and put on different versions of ourselves in different situations. There is a real Slim Shady inside of each of us, a hidden unique personality that deserves the chance to stand up, to be recognised, and to be celebrated.
But this rarely happens, and I think it’s because we judge too much.
I don’t know what rock you have been living under if you haven’t watched Ted Lasso, or heard of it at least, but there’s a part where Ted says, “Be curious, not judgemental”.
We are all guilty of judging. We take one look and decide whether someone is pretty, ugly, nice, weird, mean, fake, a loser, a nerd, a show-off, should wash their hair, or should see an orthodontist. Ted talks about how people who judge you think they have everything all figured out and in turn, they underestimate you. Who you are has nothing to do with it. If someone were curious, they would have asked questions. They would have found that “real Slim Shady”, that true personality or version of themselves.
We need to try and put our judgement aside and be curious (but not extremely curious because that can turn creepy and then you may end up seriously judged – in court).
With respect to this year’s Prefect initiative, “Celebrate to Elevate”, we need to celebrate the Slim Shady in each of us. Everyone has something unique about them that the rest of us will never know about unless we ask. Everyone is more than their looks. We each have the power to either judge or be curious. When we celebrate something or someone, we all rise up. We stand up. We stand up and own it. We celebrate the fact that we are all imperfect, but are nevertheless still valued, accepted, and loved.
You can get so much joy from being celebrated by others. But I think when we all learn to stand up and celebrate ourselves for who we truly are, we will be happiest.
I want you to know that you can stand up too – and you will. If I can nervously, awkwardly, and embarrassingly rap twice in front of the whole School, then you can do anything you set your mind to.
Because when you stand up, you own it. You celebrate yourself, and you say:
“I’m Slim Shady, yes, I’m the real Shady
All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating.
So won’t the real Slim Shady please stand up
Please stand up, please stand up?”