These lofty ivory/ivy coated walls are deceptive. Holding out the offer of advancement and enlightenment, they locked my shackles as I smiled and drank the punch. However, they are not dedicated to enlightenment, but to a speciously reflective, deceptive brilliance meant to drown out all other lights.
A light that blinds. A light that erases, effaces and ultimately dissolves. Until all that is left is the light without... and the emptiness within - or so they want you to believe. What unbalance that comes from being told that all within is false? If only you would bathe in the light...
* * *
I am an Academic in training. A dedicated worshiper at the alter of Intensive Reinterrogation of Old News. Committed to a life of the mind, creative discussion, innovative theorizing. Unfortunately for me, I am also a woman of color. This means I do not know what I am talking about.
In a recent meeting to plan for next year, two White males and me, I was told repeatedly that the work ivy league professors (whom I studied with during my masters degree) have been doing for 50years does not exist because a young, White, male, Harvard undergrad-trained fellow grad student, does not know of it. I was informed that none of the experts and professors in the field - all or mostly people of color as well - know what they are talking about either! We are all entertaining some grand delusion that we can know anything about this Lesser cultural environment that Whites may not know instinctively already. This cultural world that exists below the surface of White normative culture in their minds, but alongside it in actuality.
How many times after you repeat the same information, and remain ignored, before you crack? I don't know.
Do I attempt to discuss 18th Century French poetry with authority? Do I tell people who have masters degrees in the subject that they are somehow wrong? Or simply ignore their assertions and cautioning as to my thinking about it? Nope.
How many times after you repeat the same information, and remain ignored, before you crack?
There is a belief among many that there is a lesser quality or value of the Lives and the Lived Experiences of people of color in America. This "Less" means that everyone can have access to knowledge about it. This knowledge requires no work, no effort. You pay nothing to have it. You give up nothing in its acquisition. The Knowledge simply IS, and as an IS, you can pick it up anytime anywhere. Like garbage from a street corner.
And it is to be handled equally as casually. As ruthlessly. As carelessly.
Like me.
Sometimes I don't know why I bother.
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As a strong proponent of first amendment rights, I want to hear all of what you have to say. BUT, be it unkind, rude, out of context, ungracious, or downright evil, you will force me to remove your words.