I can’t tolerate stupid people. I am at a point in my life where I expect the individuals around me to have some sense of being, but it seems as if you were a fool from the start, you’re a fool at heart.
Let me break the situation down for you. It’s a Monday morning, first day back from “spring break,” topic of the day: postcolonialism criticism. For some reason where I come from –Montreal, Qc- this would be fruitful grounds for a heated but enlightening debate. However, being that I am the only “ethnic” female in my English class that recognizes the power and use of my voice, I often feel as if it’s me against the class… In other words me myself and I- a one woman army- against the world. So now a bright Ottawa University student decides to partake in the Professors 1 dimensional debate about one of Native creative writer Thomas Kings short story. She questioned why do we have laws set up to protect immigrant Canadians, why can’t they just stay in their country and not come over here and try to change our customs and norms… Suddenly the pro-black-yes-i-am-a-minority-and-proud beast awakened in me but I kept it tamed. I kept my mouth shut, until my Professor called on me for my opinion. Biggest mistake ever lol. So I answered that “I will not waste my breath entertaining ignorance.”
Rude, very. But what I’ve learned during these past 22 years on the face of this earth is that no matter how much your try to explain your emotional discontent of yourself, which somehow always relates to me explaining my identity, my culture, my religion; if the listener chooses not to open their mind and fucking hear your story, they will forever misunderstand and continue to ignore crucial facts. I will never apologize for being myself, but I will apologize for my offensiveness. I mean, this is university; as a child when I didn’t understand something I looked it up or read a damn book. My brain was a blank canvas and the knowledge I acquired was the paint that depicted my acknowledgement of the highly educated man’s perception. In other words, I taught myself certain things that others failed to teach me. Why? Because I wanted to know. For some reason, even if it was intended to be a question, I took her remark more like a solid conception, a statement of what she thought of the minority class. And I for one, will not pity her ignorance.
I am SORRRY. I swallowed the White man’s history for many years, and chose to educate myself about my own and other cultures. So I am pretty damn sure the same information that helped me learn, can help clarify her clouded perception. But, that’s only if she wants to though.
Bottom line is, my Professor didn’t appreciate my comment. I got in trouble for my answer not being politically correct, but I’d like to know what part in time has the political discourse ever been fucking correct.