Our Politics, Our Selves

First class in the quest for a paralegal certificate happened tonight. I knew I was in trouble when the professor walked in ten minutes late, and started telling her story. A story about a woman who constantly experienced discrimination in her own personal quest for her law degree. Discrimination here, discrimination there. Woman versus man. Etc.

She seems nice enough. No final exam in the class, which is great. The first chapter in the textbook covered the setup of the government (federal and state) so she covered that. Except. Well, she took great time and spared no detail when outlining her own personal political agenda. Discussion about the executive branch of the government became "Bash Bush" time. John Ashcroft, Jim Talent, and Christians (although they were "unnamed religious zealots" who oppose women's rights, etc) all became targets.

She would lose track of what she was "teaching" because she'd be all ranty-pants. At one point I thought my head my explode, but I just kept making, "unh!" noises in my throat and didn't throw things at her.

Until.

Apparently she's a prosecutor in a county court for juveniles. She also apparently extremely dislikes the police. (Hate is such an extreme word.) According to her, they "always" profile, "always" participate in illegal searches, "never" correctly Mirandize, and "always" target the young and the black. I don't think I heard a word she said between this particular rant and our next break. But believe me, she heard about it at the break.

I let her know that I could deal with the fact that our particular votes would always negate each other, but her comments about the police were irritating, broadly generalized, and just wrong. Being an attorney, she then rambled on for ten minutes about how I must have misunderstood her, and that "some police are good and some police are bad," just like anyone else. I tried to agree with her on that point, but she wouldn't take a breath.

She managed to yap at me all the way through the break, but thanked me for bringing the comment she'd made to her attention. I called Stephen on my cell and told him if she continued to be such a mind-blowing bleeding heart liberal all over my class time I'd lose it.

Beyond that, I learned that law is truly cool. Between its history and its present, there's so much to learn and love about it. I was disappointed not to have any homework or assignments. She's not the most challenging teacher in the world. Perhaps I should be going to law school...?

Still gaping,
mich

Posted by Michelle at October 19, 2006 10:36 PM