Fuck Yeah, Gender Studies!

This is a brilliant essay by black writer Kiese Laymon (who currently co-directs Africana Studies at Vassar College, where he is also an Associate Professor of English and pretty much the smartest guy in the English Dept). It’s an excerpt from his forthcoming book, On Parole: An Autobiographical Antidote to Post-Blackness. Laymon is also the author of the forthcoming novel, Long Division, which will be released in early 2013.

(Which reminds me… click hear to read of some serious fuckery from the Vassar tenure committee…)

“…A few month later, Mama and I sit in President George Harmon’s office. The table is an oblong mix of mahogany and ice water. All the men at the table are smiling, flipping through papers and twirling pens in their hands except for me. I am still 19, two years older than Trayvon Martin will be when he swings back.

President Harmon and his lawyers don’t look me in the eye. They zero in on the eyes of Mama, as Harmon tells her that I am being suspended from Millsaps for at least a year for taking and returningRed Badge of Couragefrom the library without formally checking it out.

He ain’t lying.

I took the book out of the library for Shonda’s brother without checking it out and returned the book the next day. I looked right at the camera when I did it, too. I did all of this knowing I was on parole, but not believing any college in America, even one in Mississippi, would kick a student out for a year, for taking and returning a library book without properly checking it out.

I should have believed.

George Harmon tells me, while looking at my mother, that I will be allowed to come back to Millsaps College in a year only after having attended therapy sessions for racial insensitivity. We are told he has given my writing to a local psychologist and the shrink believes I need help. Even if I am admitted back as a student, I will remain formally on parole for the rest of my undergrad career, which means that I will be expelled from Millsaps College unless I’m perfect.

19-year-old black boys can not be perfect in America. Neither can 61-year-old white boys named George.

…”

READ THE WHOLE THING HERE.