This is an old story. I finally wrote it down several years ago… but the armed idiots in Michigan with confederate flags protesting “public health” reminded me of how easily I could be mistaken for them.
It is surprisingly easy to be an asshole.
It was in one of my first classes at ASU. American History 101. The professor was probably 25 years old. She wore business suits every day. If she was more than 5-feet tall, I’m a dinosaur.
She was smart and she knew her shit, and I liked her. But I don’t think she liked me. I sat in the back, and mumbled very deep thoughts like: “that’s fucking bullshit.”
I did that in every class — very popular with the teachers. At ASU, this meant no one would sit near me and often there was a ring of open seats around me.
The ring could have been due to poverty. I couldn’t afford a car. I biked 4 miles to school. I also couldn’t afford deodorant. I prefer to think it was the oratory and not the odor.
So I was 19 — freed from Catholic school and finally able to express my pent-up atheism. I realized religion was bullshit the first day of 7th grade. No loving God would have permitted Mrs. Smith to teach children.
First paper at ASU: I write 10 almost-researched pages on biblical quotes confederates used to rationalize slavery. There’s a long list. Jesus even talked about the proper way to beat a slave.
In case you thought my research was bullshit — check out these pages…
No mentions in the bible that slavery was sinful or that slave owners were going to hell. Can’t wear linen and wool in the same coat, or eat lobster, but go ahead and beat your slaves and heaven can be yours. Jesus fucking christ on a cross who can follow that bullshit…
But in the paper, I didn’t mention that thought.
I dutifully reported the quotes and footnoted the speakers like they were fucking American heroes — you know Jefferson Davis, John C. Calhoun, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington. All mixed together with Jesus and Paul in one happy slave-holding family.
I hand in the paper with a big dumb smile on my face. The title was something like: “The Confederates had God on their Side.”
The professor looks down at the paper, scans the title and looks up at my pink, sweaty face. She is clearly very uncomfortable. I’m still smiling like an idiot.
When I got the paper back — a big fat “D” was scrawled at the top. Every paragraph was covered in angry red ink pointing out all errors in fact and thought. In a couple of places her pen went through the paper.
Did I mention that she was African-American and had a southern accent?
She lectured on the importance of strong religious belief in the “moral fabric” of America. It dawned on me that most of my “bullshit mutterings” for the whole semester had to do with her thoughts on religion.
Fuck. I looked around the room and saw a bunch of pasty upper-middle class kids. They probably all have had skin cancer by now. She was the only one in the room with enough pigment to actually live in Arizona.
I decided to ignore this situation. For the next 3 months, I didn’t say a word to her about the paper or the class.
Of course I was still in the back muttering, and no one near me. Social Distancing 40 years ahead of my time.
Looking back, she must have been thinking I was some fat racist trying to be edumacated at the big state university. I’m sure she worried about keeping her job or keeping the class from spiraling into a bunch of racist bullshit.
ASU in the 80’s was full of pickup trucks and confederate flags. I can just picture her walking across campus and sweating like crazy in her business suit and wondering what she did wrong to end up in a 110-degree desert full of red necks and republicans.
I could have easily come to her after class or office hours and explained. But I didn’t. I just let it linger — like a real asshole. Told you it was easy.
Share this:
Categories: Anti Theism
I taught AP US History in a swanky private school. One year I had a very white very blond guy who wore a confederate flag belt buckle every day, sat by himself, left after junior year because he never made any friends. Ironically, mine was his favorite class and I was his favorite teacher. The next year he emailed me to write him a college recommendation. To guess where ….. ASU. He got in.
Nice. ASU entry requirements after 2005 — A pulse and an ability to pay. Sad.
Interesting. I hd never thought of Arizona in the same group as Mississippi, Georgia, and so on. In any case, I have often thought that perhaps the Civil War was a mistake. Most Federal money goes to those states (at least more than they contribute). However, it won’t change, so why bother?
I often think that too… then I picture a “confederate country on our border” with 21st
century slavery and nuclear weapons. Az was sort of a confederate state during the war. After a lot of confederate veterans moved west. Founders of Phoenix were confederates.
That complicates things (which is fine). I know during our invasion of Mexico or Battalion of Irish soldierss thought, “Hey, we are doing what the English did to us” and joined the other side. Also, AZ seemss to have grown up from when it was Barry Goldwater style to now when Noam Chomsky is welcomed and several Palestinians I knew were down there and well-treated. Oh well . . .
Yeah, it’s an interesting blend and becoming more and more purple everyday. But Trump has huge rallies, and we had “Sheriff Joe” in Phoenix. It had a southern/Texas kind of flavor at the start, and then all kinds of people moved in after World War II. Hispanic population is large but tends to be conservative. Tucson and native tribes create the blue dots across the state. Not quite Mississippi and not quite Colorado at the same time.