Will Phillips: Give the Kid a Ninjie Award

With 2009 winding down it’s time for us to start talking about our yearly awards. For the record, we’ve done this every year since the main site was born (one cold June day) and we’ve never once, I don’t think, given a legitimate award. When I read the now widespread article about Will Phillips in the Arkansas Times, I knew this was going to have to be the first, hopefully of many, ninjie awards for the year.

Let’s recap. Will skipped from the 3rd to the 5th grade, because, as you will soon learn, he’s way smarter than your average Joe.

Being only 10 years of age, he has clearly already surpassed the few teachings that primary school can hope to offer him. His deal, you ask? Well he refuses to say the pledge of allegiance.

Now, in 3rd grade I myself read that book, In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, which was the first instance I remember of perceiving an inherent farce to the pledge. I think it’s because I had never much focused on the words, and when I did I realized that some of the lofty concepts in the pledge are not fully attained in practical application in our society. Still, I had no good, entirely American reason to boycott the pledge.

Will’s deal is that his parent’s are the ill gay rights activists. Will supports his parents’ effort by attending rallies with them. It’s evident that their cause has rubbed off on him. When Will realized that Americans were seeking to block homosexual rights he decided that he was going to stop saying the pledge. Obviously, in middle America this is going to cause, at teh very least, a small kerfuffle. The whole thing ended with this dude telling his teacher to jump off a bridge. For serious. That’s what I call “American.” Read the article, he’s gangster.

I’m posting this mostly because I heard that the kids in his school have taken to calling him names and harassing him in the hallway. Will, if you need some ninjas to come straighten some stuff out for you, we’ll hand-deliver this ninjie. People call us names too, for supporting gay rights, Cuba, and all that. Keep your head up, kid. You just might be the best kid ever.

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