Day 90 - Be a Part of a Social Experiment

Date: April 6th, 2010

"I am an absolute badass.  I walk with swagger, go wherever I want, do whatever I want and I don't let anybody push me around.  Uh-uh.  No way any Joe-Law-Student is going to tell me how it is. "

That, my friends, is a little taste of the tizzy I had myself worked up into before going to class on Tuesday.  See, the night before I got an e-mail from one of my classmates who was part of a presentation group that said the following:

"Please be advised that laptops will not be permitted in class tomorrow.  Also, be prepared for an assigned seat.  We look forward to a productive and enjoyable class tomorrow.
- The "Gates" group"

I can't really explain what happened without giving a little background on their presentation.  The "Gates" group refers to Henry Louis Gates Jr.  He is a professor at Harvard who was arrested on his front porch for disorderly conduct.  He was returning from a trip overseas and found the front door of his house stuck.  He tried to jimmy it a little before going around the back and letting himself in.  A neighbor thought that looked suspicious, so she called the police.
 
There was a lot of discussion about what role race played in the situation at the time.  Professor Gates is an older gentleman who walks with the help of a cane.  Because of that, there were a lot of questions about what made him "look suspicious" to the neighbor.  When the police came to question him, Professor Gates was upset and got angry with the police for making him show ID.  He did show ID that proved he lived in the home, but was still angry.  The police arrested him, after he had proven that he lived in the home, for what they called disorderly conduct.

I was excited for their presentation.  The class is, in part, about an open discussion of race in this country and that incident highlights a lot of issues that Americans face on a daily basis.  Then I saw that e-mail.  I spent the next few hours getting a big head of steam worked up about how I wasn't going to let one of my peers tell me where to sit.  Its insanity, I tell you, insanity!  Then I thought.. what if they're trying to do something with the class to prove a point.

So, I said to myself, I won't get mad if there's some point to the seating chart.  I figured it would be obvious.  Putting all the girls on one side and all the guys on another.  When I walked in, I sat in my normal seat and overheard the group preparing.  "Do you want to do it alphabetical?", one person asked.  "No, I'm just going to be random about it", was the reply.  Yeah... that's when my big ole head of steam came back.

I spent the better part of the class annoyed as heck, assuming my classmates didn't trust us to have a good discussion.  Having done a presentation with my group a couple weeks back, I knew the class participated.  It felt like a power trip and... I so much prefer to be on them than subject to them.  At the end of the class, the group explained that they had put us in new seats and banned laptops to prove a visceral point about how it feels to be subjected to an authority figure you didn't think you should have to submit to.  The feeling was similar to what Professor Gates felt at having to prove he lived in his own home - or at least that's what they were partially pointing out.

They were kind enough to ask people how they felt about being subjected to the authority of someone they considered a peer.  So naturally my hand shot up.  I believe the word I used was "pissed".  On the bright side, that's what they were going for, at least in part.  I did point out that its not entirely their fault I got all the way past annoyed and into pissed... I am very tightly wound.  Its something I'm working on.

I always wondered if people who got prank phone calls from the radio station actually stopped being upset immediately when they were told it was a joke or if they were just laughing to see cool on the radio.  When it comes to me, the anger literally stopped immediately.  I had one of those 'oh that's what you were doing' moments that really did prove their point very well.  In truth, better than just leading a discussion would have.

So that was my Tuesday.  I got played.  Like a fiddle.  And it was awesome.