Honesty
One of the things I dislike about law school: people are way too politically correct publicly about many things, and especially with regards to race. The whole thing could be seen through the whole law review scandal, where people would talk among each other but no one would dare address the issue publicly.
The class that stands out the most is Crim, where anyone who doesn't think that black and brown people in Crenshaw are treated differently by the criminal justice system than white people in Westwood is basically smoking the thing that Pepper was smoking. But race was the one thing that was consistently not mentioned in class (perhaps the professor thought that he/she should attempt to teach us "the law" in theory and not in practice). But looking around the room, I saw that people who were itching to talk about race didn't want to raise their hands and talk about it publicly. The people who wanted to say that people get treated differently by the police based on their skin color is afraid to be branded as the angry liberal or the angry minority guy while the people who I have heard say some pretty derogatory things about black and brown people outside of class didn't want to speak up due to fear of being branded as a racist. Race is just one example of what happens in lots of class discussions, where people don't say what they truly believe and tow the politically correct line, which makes the law school classroom not as invigorating and interesting as it could be otherwise.
But I know that lots of people need to be careful about what they say in public, since everything they say now might come back to haunt them in 30 years when they are launching their Senate campaigns or during confirmations when they're up for a spot on the COA bench. Actually, I'm sure that most people believe lots of things that they would never admit to publicly. Except me. See examples of my brutal honesty (the critical ones call it a lack of tact and "didn't your momma ever teach you not to say these kinds of things in public?") here, here, and here, inter alia. And that's how my honesty sometimes gets me called an ass. (And no, I guess that's one lesson my momma skipped.)
As any loyal reader of my blog has known by now, there are few things I hate more than pretense and dishonesty. But then again, I'm not in law school to be a law firm partner or a U.S. Senator. I'm in law school so that I can eventually end up a beach bum.
The class that stands out the most is Crim, where anyone who doesn't think that black and brown people in Crenshaw are treated differently by the criminal justice system than white people in Westwood is basically smoking the thing that Pepper was smoking. But race was the one thing that was consistently not mentioned in class (perhaps the professor thought that he/she should attempt to teach us "the law" in theory and not in practice). But looking around the room, I saw that people who were itching to talk about race didn't want to raise their hands and talk about it publicly. The people who wanted to say that people get treated differently by the police based on their skin color is afraid to be branded as the angry liberal or the angry minority guy while the people who I have heard say some pretty derogatory things about black and brown people outside of class didn't want to speak up due to fear of being branded as a racist. Race is just one example of what happens in lots of class discussions, where people don't say what they truly believe and tow the politically correct line, which makes the law school classroom not as invigorating and interesting as it could be otherwise.
But I know that lots of people need to be careful about what they say in public, since everything they say now might come back to haunt them in 30 years when they are launching their Senate campaigns or during confirmations when they're up for a spot on the COA bench. Actually, I'm sure that most people believe lots of things that they would never admit to publicly. Except me. See examples of my brutal honesty (the critical ones call it a lack of tact and "didn't your momma ever teach you not to say these kinds of things in public?") here, here, and here, inter alia. And that's how my honesty sometimes gets me called an ass. (And no, I guess that's one lesson my momma skipped.)
As any loyal reader of my blog has known by now, there are few things I hate more than pretense and dishonesty. But then again, I'm not in law school to be a law firm partner or a U.S. Senator. I'm in law school so that I can eventually end up a beach bum.
posted by The Fox at 1:40 AM
2 Comments:
I can be (and usually am) brutally honest. Unfortunately, this results in some law school people thinking I'm an asshole, so that makes two of us.
Today, I was talking to one of my best law school friends who was telling me a story about some of his non-law friends. The story was primarily about A. "Have you ever met A?" he asked....
Now I have very little problem using race or looks or anything else as descriptors if that quality is likely to make the person I am talking to know who I am talking about. But today, I found something I just couldn't bring myself to use as a descriptor. Running through my head:
"Oh, you mean your friend A, the cancer patient?"
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