Another side of a different coin

I was really pretty shocked to have read that Henry Louis Gates Jr., professor extraordinaire of long standing at the venerable institution Hahr-Vahrd, was arrested two days ago.

But I wasn’t shocked to have read the context and circumstances of his arrest. Sure, there’s the easy explanation of racism in America (you really will never convince me a white professor would have been treated the same way), but then there’s the even easier explanation that no one seems to be talking about and it is this: the arresting “officer” in the affair is yet another example of a douchebag cop with a Napoleon Complex.

Sure, I have no doubt the cop behaved in a racist manner, but that is an action coupled with a personality trait and that trait being that the he is yet another douchebag cop with a Napoleon Complex.

A professor here at school is a retired cop and relayed to me the different types of people who become police officers:

1. The Fitness Nut: the guy or gal who somehow relives their high school athletic glory days by being a cop. They are all about how they look in the uniform. Being a good or bad cop is strictly a matter of happenstance.

2. The Gun Nut: I think this speaks for itself. The Gun Nut, who is almost always male, is also closely related to the Penis Insecurity Nut.

3. The Righteous Nut: this person has an overwhelming sense of self-importance and truly thinks that the worse they behave towards the general public, the better cop they are.

4. The Drunk Cop: who is actually a pretty okay person who took the job as a way of redemption but at the same time, does not know how to handle the stress better.

Now according to Professor Cop, a police officer can actually be a combination of these varying traits but one is always more dominant than the other. Like the thing about Elvis and the Beatles: you can like both, but you always like one more than the other.

With regards to incident involving Professor Gates, my money is on Cop #3. Then again, I’m not at all familiar with the inner workings of cop-hood and the public perception I have garnered of them over the years is really just boils down to the simplicity of the douchebag cop with the Napoleon Complex scenario.

Get On Your High Horse

I’m coming up on final exams, going out of my mind trying to keep up with the workload and all the while saying to myself: Just two more weeks. Just two more weeks.

And as crazy as it sounds, even though being around a bunch 20 years olds all day is not my idea of a good time, I am going to be applying to PhD programs in the fall.

The logic for this is simple: I enjoy my field of study, there’s few of us out here who do it at a collegiate level, and probably most important: at my age, if I don’t do it now, while I’m in “school mode” I won’t do it. Ever.

This is a pretty recent decision on my part, and recently, I have begun sharing my decision with others.  My father responded with the question “What do you not like about real work that you have to hide in school?”

A close friend responded: “Dude, when are you going to get back out in the real world?”

Another friend: “Who needs that much education in their head? You’re obnoxious enough as it is.”

I’m a little thrown by the reactions I have been receiving. Since when did becoming highly-educated become the mental equivalent of being a slacker? How does trying to become an expert in a field automatically equate to one being a boor? Okay, I’ll grant the obnoxious part, but only out of my friend’s jealously of not being able to beat me at Trivial Pursuit.

More importantly: What the hell is it that Americans have against education anyway? We elected a President 8 years ago on the qualification of his beer-buddiness and looked how that turned out. Said same president appointed a director of FEMA whose greatest qualification was being president of an Arabian Horse association, and on that note, may I remind you of a little event called Hurricane Katrina?

And what about college does not reflect the real world? I have conflicting personalities I have to navigate at all times. I work my ass off 60 hours a week reading, writing, and producing projects that are used outside academia. And I still have to prove I’m as capable as a man, if not more. I’m not some 24 year old who decided they didn’t like getting up and going to work at 8 am. I put in 15 years of professional experience and decided I better make change in my life before I died of an ulcer because I hated my job that much. I don’t study in some Ivory Tower. I work in a grubby, dirty, sticky lab with bad flourescent lighting and inconsiderate labmates. I rarely see my husband, I see less of my dog, and I have no life. Sounds like effin work to me.

And to father I respond: Are you freakin kidding me? I do believe you have a 30 year old sibbling of mine living in your basement, who has been down there since his teens by the way, and who is one step away from joining a Star Trek convention.

And to my friend I respond: read a newspaper once in a while, or better yet, a book. That, or stop challenging me at trivia. Some people know cars, other people know geography, I know tons of random and ridiculous facts of useless information. Sue me. My winning the game does not make me obnoxious. Obnoxious would be me calling you a drooling idiot because you didn’t know who wrote The Carpetbaggers. Which was Harold Robbins, but that’s not the point.

So enough bitching. I have to get back to work here. I have a paper due.