Trump gets boy in trouble!
"What's in a name?"--That was the title of an article by veteran journalist, Dare Babarinsa, that I read several years ago in one of Nigeria's weekly news publications. As school children we always questioned the perceived silliness of foreign names. Names like (Condoleezza) Rice, Tiger Woods, (George) Bush, (Tom) Cruise, (Tom) Hanks, (Brad) Pitt, and many other names like that. In the saw vein, Chinese names never really appealed to us. They were senseless as far as we were concerned, for we were made to believe that Chinese babies are christened after the sound of a ceramic plate or cup deliberately smashed on the floor. Hence, the reason for their 'meaningless' names. But for us in Africa, as young as we were, we understood that the names we bore are significant. Consequently, we sneered the insignificant names that non-Africans, particularly Europeans, bore.
When it was therefore reported that a boy got into trouble because of his name, I called to mind the article. The rather 'unfortunate', innocent boy has been the talk of the social media because he slept off during President Trump's state of the union address on Wednesday 6th February, 2018.
His name is Joshua Trump, one of the 13 people who received special invitations to be at the state of the nation address by President Donald Trump.
The UK guardian reported the news thus:
An 11-year-old boy called Joshua Trump who was invited by his presidential namesake to his State of the Union speech fell asleep and has been hailed as a hero of the anti-Trump resistance.
Joshua Trump, a middle-school student from Delaware, was invited to the delayed event by Melania Trump. He dropped out of school after being bullied because of his last name.
Joshua's parents told WPVI-TV that his classmates had called him an "idiot" and "stupid" for sharing the president's last name. Although they took him out of school in 2017 to homeschool him, when he returned for middle school the following year the bullying persisted.
His mother, Megan Trump, signed him up for a different school bus to avoid students who were teasing him but on the first trip the driver questioned him about his name.
What is however not clear is, if his parents, or his mom, if she's a single mother, has also been a victim of sneer attacks for being Trump. Did anybody give that a thought!
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