100 8th Graders REFUSED To Take Picture With Speaker Paul Ryan And Republican Snowflakes SJW's MELT

100 8th Graders REFUSED To Take Picture With Speaker Paul Ryan And Republican Snowflakes SJW's MELT

‘I don’t want to be associated with him’: 100 eighth graders refuse to pose with Paul Ryan during DC trip. Abbout 100 eighth grade students refused to pose with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on Friday, snubbing the top Republican to protest his policies. Though Ryan’s official Instagram features a photo of him waving to a group students from South Orange Middle School in South Orange, New Jersey, it does not show their peers sitting in a park lot across the street, in an apparent rebuff of the GOP leader. “It’s not just a picture,” student Matthew Malespina told ABC News. “It’s being associated with a person who puts his party before his country.” When he learned of his school’s impending photo op with Ryan, Malespina texted his mother he’s “just not going to do it.”

“The point was, ‘I don’t want to be associated with him, and his policies and what he stands for,’” Matthew’s mother Elissa Malespina said. “I thought it would be very cool just seeing the man who is the third most powerful man in our country. It would be cool, even if you disagree with him,” student Miles Handelman said.

Parents were just as split about the message the students sent with their dissidence. One parents took to Facebook to complain these kids should “respect the office of the Speaker of the House, even if they disagree.” For students across the country, the traditional eighth-grade trip to Washington is a chance to join the throngs on the Mall and perhaps spot some of the world’s most powerful people on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol.

But a group from South Orange Middle School in New Jersey may remember their trip to the nation’s capital last week for another reason: It was the occasion for a pointed snub of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).

Dozens of the 218 students on the trip refused to have their photo taken with Ryan when he briefly joined them outside the capitol Thursday, students on the trip said. Those present were unable to provide a precise tally of how many opted out. Matthew Malespina, one of the students who stayed away, said in an interview Sunday that he chose not to be photographed with Ryan because he disagreed with the policies the speaker and his party are pushing on health care, among other things. He called Ryan “a man who puts his party before his country.”

He said he and the others stood across the street while Ryan posed with their peers. Their act of civil disobedience was picked up by a local news website, the Village Green, and drew attention from larger media outlets.

“I don’t like to take a picture with somebody that I can’t associate with,” Matthew, 13, told The Washington Post. “Let’s say somebody is not nice to me at school, for example. I wouldn’t take a picture with them, probably.” Asked about the incident Sunday, a spokesman for Ryan said the speaker “always appreciates the opportunity to welcome students to the Capitol.” Ryan posted a picture of himself on Instagram on Friday giving a fist-bump to one of the students in the group who agreed to pose

Matthew’s mother, Elissa Malespina, a public-school librarian who was not on the trip, said she was surprised but pleased to hear of the students’ protest action. She posted about it on her Facebook page. “I’m proud of him, and I’m proud of the other students that chose to exercise their constitutional rights and did so in a respectful manner,” Malespina said Sunday. Although little blowback has come their way in the liberal suburb of South Orange, N.J., Malespina said some of the online comments on news stories about the students’ actions have been vitriolic, often focusing on the parents. She said that while politics are a frequent topic of discussion in their household, criticism that she or other parents “indoctrinated” the kids involved is unfounded. “Teenagers, honestly, do they listen to their parents anyway?”

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