Freddogg Off The Chain

Devon as adult tries to interview W. "The Mic is hot! The Mic is nice!"

Should a teacher of social issues keep his opinions to himself? Obviously a teacher shouldn’t foist personal positions on a captive classroom of teenagers with lamp shade eyes and tepid commitment to anyone outside the sphere of the self. But isn’t a person devoid of preferences just a robotic boring ass straight down the middle automaton?
I taught a class that was very friendly to divergences of opinion I only asked that students use knowledge and agreed upon facts and god forbid deductive and inductive reasoning to arrive at their positions.
Back in 1988 a College Prep senior classroom discussion on homosexuality learned or genetic was on the floor and I was talking about legal rights and levels of social acceptance and some boys were just very opinionated spewing forth stupid and rude comments when suddenly this little artistically dressed black kid with an effervescent personality jumped up on top of his desk and shouted “I’ll tell you all right now that I am gay and if you don’t like it you can kiss my chocolate ass.”
I looked at the football guys and there were several of all colors and ethnic backgrounds. They all had this stunned half smile on their faces when Polish Frank said,”Sit down Devon. Like who don’t know you’re gay?”
I asked these guys if they would defend Devon if strangers surrounded him threatening a bit of hate crime violence. They all said,”Dam right!”
I told them, “Exactly, because he is your friend who happens to be gay so in your own way you defend his gayness.”
Then Polish Frank had the light bulb go on in his vacant storage shed and he looked at me and asked “Hey Fredman? If your son Dave came home and told you he was gay what would you do?”
Frank nodded to the class like “see; let’s hear him get out of this?”
“I’d tell him to go decorate the living room,”I said, employing my grand mom’s advice of “joke first-nobody cares what you really think.”




FReddogg