Slavery

I have a professor that is mad. Mad as in insane, not as in angry. Professor Mullin. Or something. I could look up the spelling, but I'm feeling apathetic. Anyway, let me tell you about Professor Mullin.

The first day of class, we all knew he was odd. For example, the following happened while taking attendance:

Prof: Is Josh Daniels here?

Josh: Here.

Prof: Where you from Josh?

Josh: Upstate New York.

Prof: Where in upstate New York? (P.S. this was the 5th time we had gone through this same exact dialog)

Josh: Binghampton.

Prof: *Takes phone out of his pocket and glances at it*

Prof: I'll be right back, this might be your mom.

FIVE MINUTES LATER

Prof: Josh?

Josh: Yea?

Prof: It's okay, it wasn't your mom. Violet Gary, are you here?

Besides calling every female Susan and every male Jim, he has several other odd quirks. The way he talks to people could be considered offensive and very blunt. He always says "when I was a kid, back in 1890..." which probably only annoys me because he says it at least twelve times during one lecture. Prof Mullin also always comes in 7 minutes late and ends 3 minutes late, despite the stupid little Asian girl that never fails to poke her head in the door so she can be the first one to get a seat in the next class. (The first day, she did it twice.)

Anyway, I think I've painted a sufficient enough picture to come to the point of this blog post.

Today, Professor Mullin starts talking about slavery. Slavery is not the easiest subject to talk about. It's something a lot of people would like to forget about. It's like bringing up the holocaust in a German classroom. But I'm sure there's a pc way to do it. But I'm also sure that Professor Mullin isn't pc.

This is the way he introduced the topic: he points at the only black person in the classroom and goes "back when I was a kid, in the 1800s, how much of a person were you? 3/5s. And I could own you. And you, and you, and you, and you" as he points to everyone who is not Caucasian, including a girl who is probably Native American. That wasn't the end of the topic, but as the awkward set in, I chose instead to avert my eyes from something I considered of poor taste.

And what do I see with those averted eyes? The alumni nameplate on my desk. "Annette & Fred Crotchfelt III '65 '66.

Crotchfelt?!?! Really?!?! THE THIRD?!?! REALLY?!?!?! Does it look like I'm really laughing about slavery right now?!?! REALLY?!

And I thought MY last name was bad!