How "Chasing the Light" Came to be...

so anybody that knows me knows that FVSU wasn't my first choice. in all actuality, i was hell bent on not coming to fort valley at all, simply because it was a tradition in my family to come here and get your bachelor's. i'm not really one for tradition or family. but i'm here, and i've been here for a minute, so my disdain is not as bad as it initially was. but i don't really buy into having school spirit. i'm also not one for patriotism or anything like that. i consider that brainwashing at it's absolute worst. that and organized religion. why become a zealot for something that can be disproved or overtaken or destroyed. and i know people say that it's a personal thing, that GOD lives in them or through them or whatever and that the united states wouldn't be what it is if people hadn't loved it and all that shit but my point is, i don't agree.
so anyway, today is the second day of the homecoming festivities, usually the sunday before is when the students are invited to the episcopal church across the street to celebrate because that church served a purpose during the founding of the university. that i have no problem with, whatever's clever. this morning, i went to class to prove a point to myself. i asked my professor if he was going to kickoff at noon and he said that because he didn't like football, he wouldn't be in attendance. i told him that kickoff had little to do with football, it had more to do with the university coming together to officially commence the homecoming festivities. it's a chance for everybody to get together, laugh and have a pretty decent time without the hassle of the outside community. it's like a family meeting before the reunion. he complained that it cancelled classes and that it should be held after classes like most pep rallies are. first of all, it's not a pep rally. not in the traditional sense. and secondly, the football team, band and cheerleaders have practice in the evenings, so why impede on their practice when we could hold classes off so that everyone could attend if they wanted to. then he had a flashback to his high school days and we got a long lecture about how he couldn't really play football and blah, blah, blah. and then he talked about how he hates that graduations have so many prayers in them and that it violates his constitutional rights to have to sit through them (attendance at commencement is mandatory for faculty members) but he'd rather not say anything for whatever reason.

my point was that if he was anywhere else, he'd make a conscious effort to attend the homecoming festivities because he wanted to. i think there's a definite disrepect and lack of understanding going on amongst some of our faculty members that are not of color. and i'm not saying they're racist cause i've already said that. what i'm saying is, that if i were teaching somewhere else, i'd try to understand the culture that i was surrounded by, not dismiss something that's important to them simply because i don't think it's important or i choose to believe differently. but then again, that speaks to the double life that Carter G. Woodson talks about in The Miseducation of the Negro. we're expected to want to attend their festivities and ours and not feel slighted by any of their customs or traditions, but it's their choice. if you don't wanna be here, and participate to try to understand, then well... and if you think i'm so fucking dumb because i'm black... if all you know is that you don't believe in GOD and that literature is all there is in the world... maybe you should leave.

damnit. now i have a headache...