Toilet Talk: Leaving Morehouse, the Why and the Vampire Effect

Disclaimer: I am quite adept in the use of hyperbole. Some of it is in this particular post. Enjoy.

Today I went to the office of student services at Morehouse College. I needed to get a form signed to complete my transfer. When the lady saw it she said, "This is for Clark though." I said, "Yes." Then she said, "You leaving here?" Again I said yes. I wanted her to ask, "Why?" but my answer would have come across as rude. What was priceless was her look of total disbelief and shock. Part of it may be attributed to me wearing my Morehouse jacket, but logically I'm going to keep that jacket and wear it often because it cost me 100 bucks.

Case in point, as I was departing the office I had to hold back a laugh. I think the lady was a little sick on the stomach after seeing that note. Clark Atlanta University Dean Certification form; it was a long search for it but when I found it I decided to take care of it as soon as possible. By the time I'm finished with this note I should have it taken care of but as of now it isn't. Whatever.

Like I said earlier, I would have loved to have answered her "Why?" question, but she didn't. If I had the time then my answer would have been like the Rodney King incident, with me being the cops and Morehouse being King. If I only have a few minutes I would have said, "With all due respect, ma'am, I'd rather not say." The fact of the matter is that it really wasn't her business, but if I did explain it then she would have heard that I have a dwindling love for the school itself. In my nicest terms I can put it like this: I placed a crown of expectation above the head of Morehouse that it has yet to even reach for.

This is going to sound rough, and by rough I mean unpolished. Its going to be a little harsh too. I have a number of reasons for leaving Morehouse, and I don't exactly have a format I'm following exactly. I can get this out of the way now: I'm not leaving because of the money. Money is a minor issue for me, whether I have it or not. Morehouse costs about twice as much as Clark Atlanta, and I like the price drop but that's a minor issue. In this recession (depression?) anything over the price of five grand is its own fortune, and do I have the money to really go to any college right now? No. Still, I'll find a way. Just tossing that out there.

The title of this is "Why I'm Leaving Morehouse and its Vampire Effect" because the biggest reason I'm leaving this school is because it is sucking away my passion to learn. That's a drastic thing to say, I know but I wouldn't have said such a thing unless I had reason. Last year I went through the motions of the school: core classes, Hump Wednesday, Crown Forum (never understood the necessity behind it), Olive Branch, the whole nine yards. I tried to make this place great for me. It didn't work out.

My passion lies in writing, be that a story or a poem, a sonnet (pronounced saan-et with two stressed syllables) or an essay. Do you understand, loyal reader, what destroys my passion for writing? Nothing. The deaths in my family haven't stopped me. Severe money issues haven't stopped me. I didn't even use those for inspiration. However, as I was sitting in my room last year, happy that my roommate was away for the weekend and happy that I could walk around naked for a while, I was sitting on the floor typing something (clothed, you for your information) and noticed that this was the first real writing I had done that year. Let me stress that: I WAS IN A TRANCE! I don't go into writing trances like I used to back at home but this trance was so strong that when my roommate got back I didn't realize that he was there for about two hours. THAT is real writing.

What I've come to appreciate and understand recently is that this trance only comes about when I am in full sponge mode. Full sponge mode is when you want to learn and absorb and you do so big time. At one time that and my learning mode were completely in sync, and as such my writing was virtually flawless. When I got to Morehouse that passion slowly started to fall. My passion for learning started to dwindle as soon as I noticed how this school worked. This will be broken down in the following paragraphs, but the structure interrupted my writing spirit and my will to learn was broken when I saw what I still think are Morehouse's true intentions.

I call this the "Vampire Effect" because my passion is slowly sucked away, as is my persona, until I am just like them: vampires. Don't expect me to send my kids to Morehouse... unless they love money. That leads me into the focus of the school and its true intentions. Morehouse is a business first and a school second (third if you count false beacon of hope as the second). Quoting a good friend and family member of mine, "Morehouse claims to promote black pride and a way for many blacks to escape becoming another negative statistic but they are only really promoting debt in the black community." What keeps a college going? Money. What do the students ultimately provide? Money. Why is tuition so high? The economy, which is directly comparable to money. I'm not statistical expert but I'm sure most of the graduates of the school aren't exactly millionaires are big time successes. Hell, even some of the biggest success stories from Morehouse are famous for things not related to Morehouse in the least. Examples:

Martin Luther King, Jr.: civil rights leader. Graduated from Morehouse is a piss poor GPA.

Spike Lee: famed film maker. Graduated from Morehouse but took all his classes over at Clark Atlanta.

Bill Nunn: famous actor. Graduat... huh? What do you mean you don't remember him?!

Let's just keep in mind that the most respected, at least a good number of them, graduates of Morehouse either did extraordinary things outside of it or did something that bore no relevance to it whatsoever. This is ultimately not a factor in my dislike for Morehouse but I do consider it interesting. Those that do contribute back to the school are usually brainwashed. Wait, stop, before you berate me and get on my case for my use of words let me explain what I think Morehouse does. I believe Morehouse fill a student's brain with delusions of grandeur and success and then sends them off into the world, the business world usually (I will get to that later) in an effort to BRING MONEY BACK TO THE DAMN SCHOOL!

*TANGENT: How ironic is it that I'm writing this particular note and letter at Morehouse? LMFAO!*

That's how businesses do. College is an "investment", right? The college takes their money, fills their head with ideas they'll forget in the long run (brotherhood and community service are some prominent examples) and the brainwashed students become corporate lackeys doomed to send money back to the school. The school then uses this money to buy new lights for the campus. NEW LIGHTS! What the fuck was wrong with the old ones? No, sorry, I didn't mean to get so vulgar, forgive me. I just think that money could have gone to a better use, like a scholarship for a lucky student. Or some new food. Or just basic repairs that NEED to be repaired, like the air conditioner in my damn building!

I said I would get to it later and now I am. What are 85 to 90 percent of the students here majoring in? Business. What are five to ten percent majoring in? A science. Correct me if I'm wrong, which I probably am not, but don't you major in a liberal art in a liberal art college? Am I knocking those majoring in business or science? No, I think they're necessary. However, the business majors piss me off because I see their motivation. They can lie and say that they care about the school but they really care about that almighty dollar. Before I go off into a tirade about them I want to tip my hat to those that want to go back to their home countries (like Jamaica and Trinidad) and help them out financially. I won't go into a story I heard but three students were doing the best they could so that they could go back home and build up their countries. Americans like us, we don't give a shit about our country like that. I tip my hat to them... when I have a hat on. Now, in my tirade, those that worship the almighty dollar are those that lose their sense of brotherhood first. In school its all, "I GOT MY BROTHER'S BACK!" but as soon as that diploma gets in their hand its, "MOVE NIGGA, I'M TRYING TO GET PAID!"

Compare it to a lyric from Mos Def in the Black Star track "Thieves in the Night". The line was, "Get yours first, them other niggas secondary/That type of illin' that be fillin' up the cemetery". Sound familiar? Are these folk here doing the same thing that the "niggas" considering the others "secondary" are doing on a more corporate level? I don't think you should stress brotherhood so much when the business you're going into is so cut throat. I'm not saying brotherhood isn't important, but when you only spend the opening week of freshman year stressing it then what do you consider it on a scale of one to ten in importance? I say 6. That's not high enough for an all male establishment such as this one.

Besides that, the school wants the money, hence the business majors, and they structure the school's curriculum to such a thing. I am an English major, at least until I get to Clark and change that to Mass Media Arts. EVERY major is geared towards at least some kind of business career, namely in the class I'm taking now every morning on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This class is Professional Communication. Me, aspiring to be a writer, have a vague but oddly strong knowledge of communicating, so I don't consider the class unnecessary but I do see it as out of place for an English major... and a Chemistry major... and a Biology major... and a Music major. Do you see where I'm going with this? Professional Communication is all about communicating with business folk about business shit at a business job, and I have no intention of doing such a thing. Granted, considering my desired profession I might have to speak to some business people, but are we doing business talk in my category? No, we are not, making the class less than necessary but still kind of useful to others. I'm tired of people trying to justify this.

Even the advisers are a little screwy. What do you mean by screwy, DiZ, you erotic caramel cupcake you? This is what I mean. The advisers for any major outside of business or economics are hardly advisers. That's taking nothing away from them, but they're teachers first and then advisers. Business advisers are teachers and advisers in sync with each other; because they ARE business men and they know exactly what the students want: MONEY. Me, I'm an English major. I want to write. No offense to my adviser (a great guy mind you, very cool, one of my teacher right now even) but what does he know about film? That's another one of the reasons I'm hitting up Clark: film studies.

But back to the theme of structure, I noticed a more rigid structure this year that couldn't have been helped. By helped I mean, I couldn't have acclimated myself to it in time. The school requires 120 hours of credit to graduate, meaning a minimum of 30 a year, 15 a semester. I didn't understand how cruel this was until I noticed that the way the classes are set up you have to take classes in a certain order, making any sort of freedom impossible before senior year if and only if you follow the structure. That eliminates some of the freedom of college that is so beautifully talked about. Morehouse doesn't have this, not really.

Okay, that's enough of my more macro rants. I need to concentrate my personal internal beefs a little and I can bring them into two: feeling like a statistic and proximity to Spelman, not physical but feelingly. In terms of statistics, I hate this school because I feel too much like a statistic. I don't expect to feel like a total individual, halfway due to the "brotherhood" stressed during NSO, but I expect to have a level of personal closeness to the school's faculty or whatever you call them. Closeness is a synonym to extended family ties in this case. I spoke to the president last year once, the freshman dean once last year, the UNCF person on several occasions and sometimes the teachers. I only felt like the people cared when I spoke to the president, the dean and one of my teachers. Everyone else heard me but they didn't listen. I do thank some of my teachers though because I do plan on keeping them close as I grow, namely my English teachers, but that's just a tangent. Speaking of which...

*TANGENT #2: About ten minutes ago, about 2:08 pm, I got the paper signed. Clark, here I probably come!*

Topic at hand: statistics. My greatest fear in going to such a "prestigious school" was that I would leave and that would be that. To quote another rapper, Fatlip, "You know the routine/When you winning they grinning/All up in your face like they was with you from the beginning/But on the flip side/When you washed up like a riptide/Fools clown 'bout how you slipped and let shit slide". Graduates, 98 percent of them, must fit this role. I don't expect a school to know everybody that leaves the institution by name but I do expect a level of sentience and appreciation. If you aren't a famous graduate or the son of one then you aren't anyone special. If you contribute a fat check to the college after you leave then sure, then they care. Say you don't though. You're nobody. So if you're winning, Morehouse is grinning. When you're washed up like a riptide, Morehouse talks about how you slipped and let shit slide.

I can talk about that all day but I'd eventually go into a circle. Last thing I'm going to talk about at length is Spelman. DiZ, are you gay? No, I am not. I love women and as such I have something of a lust (love nothing, it's a dick thing) for a majority of Spelman's student population (a love for some, I won't lie, some of them are cool as hell, truly wife material) but Morehouse and Spelman are a little too close. What do I mean by close? Proximity is one thing because they're right next door but I have nothing against that (it was one of my motivations for coming here at first) but the relationship between the schools is a bit... for lack of a better term, fucked up. My love for Spelman is about as great as my love for Morehouse (the AUC in general, but I think Clark is the best of the three major schools) but that Morehouse brother/Spelman sister thing, Olive Branch, it's a bit much. There's no natural bonding between the men of Morehouse and the women of Spelman. My Spelman sister, haven't spoken to her in at least a month. Olive Branch, it was pointless. Besides that, the gate surrounding the school is almost like a magnet. I'm not getting into that because that's another note in itself (The Dastardly DiZ presents: The Bourgeois Bitches of Spelman College (Bitches Ain't Shit Gaiden)) but if you want to know why so many women over there have funded abortions, pregnancies and sexual assaults then look towards the gates and rubber bullets and realize that men love obstacles. It makes the hunt that much more fun.

I want to go back to that quote from my cousin. "Morehouse claims to promote black pride and a way for many blacks to escape becoming another negative statistic but they are only really promoting debt in the black community." He transferred last semester to a school closer to the state we call home, Virginia, and he's doing fantastic. He made a brilliant point too. Do I agree entirely? No, but I agree to a high degree. I want to meet the guy that said going to Morehouse was a clear path to success. Oh, I WILL be successful, but not with the help of this college. In fact, several people from this school WILL be successful.

I need to make something clear: I'm not calling Morehouse a bad school. Business majors with dollar signs where their hearts and souls should be fit in well. Me, my goals are drastically different. I just want to write and get people to reach their best. I can sum it up in a quote from a commercial that I slightly edited. Here it is:

"Christopher Eugene Lamb is one of the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the trouble-makers, the round pegs in the square holes. I'm one of those who sees things differently, who isn't fond of the rules and has no respect for the status-quo. You can quote me or disagree with me, glorify me or vilify me, but you can't ignore me. That's because I change things; I propel the human race forward. Not crazy; a genius changing the world..."

That's from an Apple commercial with slight edits. Thank you Steve Jobs. I don't respect the status quo because the status quo of this school is making money. I don't like the rules because they restrain and keep creativity down. That's the kind of place Morehouse is, at least from my point of view. I'm not trying to be overly mean, but shit man, look what I have to work with! I think Clark and Morehouse should have each others' auras right now, but as such Clark is just so much more appealing to me at this juncture and I don't think I'll be disappointed. If I am then I'll just jump ship again. I won't have my college experience ruined by college itself.

That's about all I have to say. Thank you for taking the time to read my stuff, loyal reader. DiZ the Debonair Daredevil signing out. Peace...