Bad Haircuts, Second Husbands, and White Guilt
So freshman year of college, I was in this residential program that was supposed to be about arts and humanities, but really it was just about white guilt.
A Canadian woman named Sarah Smith taught one of the classes I took in this program freshman year, during the first – and only – semester I was in that program. True Story: during the very first week of classes, we had to go into these orientation meetings for the Residential College of White Guilt (not its real name, but close enough), and part of the meeting was that we would write our future selves a letter that we would receive back at the end of freshman year. When I got mine back in May, I opened it, curious to see what I had thought of the program initially. The note read something like this:
Dear Matt,
I hope that, by the time you get this letter back, you’ve dropped out of this program, because it really sucks donkey dick.
Love,
Matt
Maybe you think that’s an indication of someone who wasn’t willing to give the program a fair chance. I think it’s an indication that the person who wrote that letter is pretty good at sensing impending trainwrecks, which, in my opinion, is a far more useful life skill than “being open to new things” or whatever.
Anyway, back to Sarah Smith. I mean, that’s not actually her name, but I don’t wanna get sued or whatever, so Sarah Smith is her name now. I’ve always been jealous of people with alliterative names, because their monogrammed stuff is way more awesome than other monogrammed stuff. Also, every alliteratively named teacher I’ve had was a total weirdo. By “every,” I really mean “both,” but I think two examples is enough to make a generalization.
My middle school art teacher also had an alliterative name, and she also had kind of a dollar store Parker Posey (again with the alliterative names!) vibe going on, so… good for her. Once during class, she was talking about how her boyfriend was a cop who looked like Legolas. At the time, I thought it was weird because LOL no way was she pulling that kind of tail, but now, many years later it was weird because why was a woman in her thirties discussing her boyfriend with a bunch of seventh graders? Also, obviously this gentleman did not exist, so good luck with your delusions, girl.
Sarah Smith was Canadian, which should tell you all you really need to know about her. In case that doesn’t paint a full enough picture, let me elaborate. Sarah had a total ratface, and her hair was in this weird sort of bob, kind of like she had taken a photo of Catherine Zeta-Jones from Chicago into the salon and her hairdresser must’ve been distracted or something, because s/he really did not knock it out of the park that day. She taught a course that I must’ve taken by accident, because it was all about, like, indigenous female writers, and if you’ve ever met me, you know that I’m borderline illiterate and would never choose a class like that on purpose.
A couple weeks into the semester, I figured out a way to have fun in Sarah’s class. I had finally realized that there was no way I was going to make her like me, because I was a white male (and I still am, if you’re keeping score), and there wasn’t a good way to go about changing that. So, I figured I might as pass some time in the class by messing with her. For one class, we were supposed to read this poem by a native American woman that more or less was about how white people came to North America and raped nature and killed everyone and kinda ruined everything. When Sarah asked for our opinions on the poem, I decided to speak up.
“Here’s what I don’t get about this,” I said, barely containing my glee at how much I was about to piss Sarah off. “This woman writes about how awful whitey is, but, like, if white people hadn’t come to this country, we wouldn’t have all sorts of technological advances, and also, this woman wouldn’t have had a reason to write this poem, and therefore would probably not have gained the notoriety and acclaim she has today.”
Yes, I actually said “whitey.” And yes, I realize what terrible logic I used, but it’s not like I was serious, I was just trying to get a rise out of Sarah. And I did. Her eyes bugged out of her head for a quick second (but in my mind, that moment lasted for a lifetime) and I think I saw a forehead vein start to pulse, and then I know that she went on a little rant about how wrong I was, but it’s not like I was listening to what she said, so whatever. I know that’s disrespectful and all, but here’s why that’s ok. I was a giant asshole in that class, but as long as I wrote essays like I supported Sarah’s beliefs, she would give me good grades. I think it’s important that, if you want my respect, you have a decent bullshit detector, and Sarah didn’t have any kind of bullshit detector, so I just couldn’t get on board with her as a person. Sorry I’m not sorry. Also, she pronounced “wh” sounds like Stewie does on Family Guy, and while that might be funny when a cartoon is doing it, it is unbearably awful when a real person does it.
Speaking of people I can’t respect, right along with Sarah on that list is her husband.
One day, Sarah cancelled class, and so my friends and I did what anyone else would do with those extra hours of free time – we Googled Sarah to figure out what her deal was.
We knew she was Canadian and we knew she was a feminist and we knew she was married, and that’s about it. We found out that one of those facts came with a footnote – she was married, but it was to her second husband, probably. Thanks to Google, we learned that she had been married and that her husband had apparently died years before, which is legitimately sad, and represents the only way in which I view her as sympathetic and/or human. However, she would tell us stories where she talked about her husband as though he was very much alive, which must have meant one of two things. One, that she was legitimately absolutely fucking crazy and thought her dead husband was still alive, or two, that she had remarried. We chose to go with two, because even though it was difficult to believe that she had managed to trick two dudes into marrying her, it was easier to continue mocking her if we thought she wasn’t a lonely old widow, and at the end of the day, that’s what’s really important, right?
