Foto Blag
Photos, links and thoughts, with a focus on odd vehicles since I have a slight obsession with them.
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Why tenure shouldn’t exist
Jan. 12 was the first day of class. This is my last semester. It’s a pretty exciting moment - beginning of the end and all.
My second class of the day was Religion in Preliterate Societies. “What an awesome topic,” I thought. After going through the usual Syllabus Day activities, the professor started talking about a presentation project we were going to have later in the year. He has certain speech requirements, which he detailed for the class.
The main one: No speaking in dialects, or with heavy accents. Specifically, no Ebonics. O_O
He began this by talking about how important good public speaking is to your career, and went on to explain that points would be taken off if he couldn’t understand you. This seemed harmless enough - obviously, you do need to be understood when giving a speech. But then phrases like “dialect” kept popping up.
There were a few black students in the class, and you could feel everybody getting kind of uncomfortable as the professor went on. After a particularly cringe-inducing comment about “African-American accents,” a black guy raised his hand to ask pointedly “What exactly is an ‘African-American’ accent?” This led to the part about Ebonics, and its subsequent ban from our list of acceptable presentation languages.
As I walked to another building later, I was talking to my friend Slingblade, who was also in the class. He’d taken one of the guy’s classes before, and knew the rant was coming. He has a Southern accent, and was joking that he might get up there for his speech and start off with “Howdy, y’all!” in his best “hick” accent.
Awkwardest. Class. Ever. And it only lasted 25 minutes.
