Dispatches from Nowhere 11.17.05

I’ve done a lot of reading lately on “Racial Science”. I know – weird right? One of the fun things about being an academic is sometimes – rather serendipitously – you end up studying areas that dovetail. All the work you did in one class is now making you look either:

A: really smart in your other class

Or

B: a total asshat in your other class.

I vote B. (However, that may just be my self-image talking.) I am that guy and I don’t care! I get to rant in class and pick apart arguments by people that are just like me! My professors love me. (Well, that is what I tell myself. I’ll bet they really think I am choice B.)

Ha!

The joke is on them. I’d bet that back when they were me, they were choice B. I know it. We can smell our own. Deep unto deep and all that jazz. They argue with me, making me defend my off the wall comments and generally having to defend what ever I said. After class I always apologize for being a jerk in class. They tell me that it is ok, they appreciate it, but could I try not to say “Fuck” so much.

(Seriously. I forget that I am in an academic setting and that really, saying “fuck” - while it gets everyone’s attention – is sort of rude.)

We laugh and the day moves on. I try to remember to not say “fuck” in class anymore. Some days I win, some days I lose.

The joy of this is getting to talk smack and put a point of view out there that the zombies… sorry, “my classmates”, are missing. I see it as shaking them out of their stupor. I get to wake them up as it were.

I mean - so what if I make my arguments using words like “Penis”, “Pills”, or “Dysfunction”?

At least I get them talking. That is the point isn’t it? That we keep talking?