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How To Identify An Academic Bigot
By DARILAC SEMARGO-BLOBI
The Unintimidated Press
If you're like me, an adult who lives in the United States and who doesn't have a college education, you're probably aware of the insane stereotypes:
Slacker. Stoner. Underachiever. Automatically incapable of saying anything intelligent. Loser. Not willing to work hard. Intellectually inferior. Uneducated. Unmotivated ...
All of the aforementioned derogatory stereotypes crop up from time to time when characterizing those of us who don't have college degrees, and there's probably a whole bunch more that I missed. However, the truth is if any of these stereotypes apply to the so-called "uneducated" it would have to be only to a small percentage. The fact is I can, and will, give you more than one valid reason why an adult might not have a college degree other than the well known insanely, academically bigoted ones.
These stereotypes actually stem from the warped impressions that our society has of college educated people in relation to others and that college educated people have of themselves in relation to others. These warped impressions form in childhood and follow people throughout their adult lives. Well, the time has come for someone to come forward and set the record straight.
In reality, the main thing that separates college educated people from non-college educated people isn't motivation or intelligence. It's the pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella baby childhood. Without exception, every person who I've known in my adult life who had a college degree had a golden opportunity to intellectually and socially mature during childhood. But what the college educated people in the United States have never understood is that the opportunity that they had to intellectually and socially mature during childhood wasn't universally automatic for everyone else in our society. I'll use my own personal experience as an example.
I was born and raised in the United States. While growing up, the years of my childhood from age five through age seventeen were marred by mind-boggling, horrifying, child abuse. Abuse that included, but was not limited to, my father literally trying to beat me mentally retarded. No human being could've intellectually and socially matured under the circumstances that I grew up under. One of the reasons that I'm certain of that is because the physical and emotional abuse that I was subjected to during childhood was specifically designed to prevent me from making any intellectual and social progress during childhood.
What had happened was, by the time I was five years old my parents had already become insanely jealous of me because they could see that I had everything going for me. They decided that I wasn't to become aware of that. Consequently, they decided to lock my intellectual and social awareness in at the level of a child. Twelve years of mind-boggling, horrifying, physical and emotional abuse was their tool for accomplishing that.
The abuse was so affective in preventing me from intellectually and socially maturing that it was literally a waste of time to even send me to school. By the time I was expelled from high school in my senior year at age seventeen I was completely emotionally deranged from the twelve years of abuse and I still essentially had the same intellectual and social mentality that I had at age five. On top of that, the abuse caused me to grow up with the wrong personality, a fact that I didn't become aware of until age forty. In other words, I lived my entire adult life up to age forty with the wrong personality.
The reason that I don't have a college degree in relation to the people in this country that do has nothing to do with lack of intelligence or an unwillingness to work hard. It's because the circumstances that I grew up under prevented me from making progress in education from age five on and consequently warped my impression of education along with the impression that I had of myself in relation to others.
You see, our first contact with education occurs when we're very young, and also very ignorant. When I was going to school and making D's and F's I never had a clue that it was because of the environment I was growing up in. Consequently, what conclusion do you think that it was that I came to then? I concluded that the kids that I went to school with who were making A's and B's were superior in some way or another to me.
But it works both ways, too. What do you think was the impression that the kids who were making A's and B's, and who eventually went on to college, had of me? I'll give you a hint. How about:
Slacker. Stoner. Underachiever. Automatically incapable of saying anything intelligent. Loser. Not willing to work hard. Intellectually inferior. Uneducated. Unmotivated ...
You get the picture? The kids who I went to school with who were making A's and B's didn't have a clue why I was the way I was and I guarantee you that they're just as ignorant today as they were then - even if they went on to graduate from college!
And because I was incapable of doing good in school while growing up, I also acquired a warped impression of education. By the time I was expelled from high school in my senior year at age seventeen, I believed that education was something that I just couldn't do. Consequently, I didn't even consider it a realistic option for me at the time, and for many years after that as well.
We never think of college educated people as having had an advantage. It's always something like: "best," or "bright," or "brightest," or "was willing to work hard to get an education." Well, I've got news for you. If a person had a golden opportunity to intellectually and socially mature while growing up, as clearly the vast majority of people with degrees did, it wouldn't be adequate to merely say that they had an advantage over someone who had little or no opportunity. It wouldn't be adequate to merely say that they had an unfair advantage. Nope. You would literally have to take it all the way to insanely unfair advantage! A person my age who had a golden opportunity to intellectually and socially mature from age 5 through age 17 literally had a thirteen-year head start over me. And that would actually be a minimum figure. It would assume that when I was seventeen I was where they were at intellectually and socially when they were age five. It wouldn't take into account that when I was seventeen I was also completely emotionally deranged from 12 years of being subjected to the abuse that I previously mentioned and had also grown up with the wrong personality. Thirteen years would clearly be conservative.
I don't want to imply that every adult in this country who doesn't have a college degree grew up under the same circumstances that I did. But a person wouldn't have to have been subjected to those same circumstances to have had their ability to intellectually and socially mature during childhood significantly impacted in relation to someone who had a golden opportunity to intellectually and socially mature. The way it works is on one side of the spectrum you have the pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella baby childhoods and on the other side you have childhoods similar to the one that I had, but everyone else falls somewhere in between. The childhoods of the vast majority of college graduates in this country fall squarely on the pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella baby side of the spectrum. That's a fact that college educated people in the United States have been oblivious of for at least 200 years.
People in the United States, including the college educated, don't have a clue of the forces that shaped the lives of other people who they come in contact with in our society. That ignorance leads to warped impressions that people have of themselves in relation to other people. I believe that it is those warped impressions that lie at the heart of what I consider to be the most widespread form of bigotry in the United States: Insane academic bigotry.
Notice that I didn't just say academic bigotry. I said "insane academic bigotry." That's because academic bigots are just as sick as racial bigots and sexual bigots. The mentality is the same. It's that same old "you're inferior to me" mentality. An insane bigot is an insane bigot ... is an insane bigot ...
Academic bigotry is subtle and doesn't stick out like other forms of bigotry. If you're an adult who doesn't have a college degree, and doesn't feel it's likely that you'll obtain one anytime soon, here are some tips for identifying an insane academic bigot:
Any college graduate who implies that because you don't have a college degree you're automatically incapable of saying something important or intelligent is what I would classify as a worst-case, insane academic bigot. Hang the "insane academic bigot" moniker around the sick jerk's neck. People in the United States who don't have college degrees are every bit as intelligent as the people that do. As I said, the main thing that separates the college educated from the non-college educated is the pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella baby childhood. Intelligence and education are not the same thing. Education is knowledge. It is not intelligence. The college educated do not have a monopoly on intelligence. Just because you don't have a college degree doesn't mean that you automatically don't have something significantly intelligent to say.
Any college graduate who implies that because you don't have a college degree you're automatically incapable of having an intelligent idea is an insane academic bigot. Hang the "insane academic bigot" moniker around the sick jerk's neck. There's no shortage of examples of people who did not have college degrees who exhibited profound intellectual prowess. Benjamin Franklin had two years of schooling his entire life. Thomas Edison had a whopping six months of school - his entire life! Ernest Hemingway had just a high school education. If you look, you'll run out of time before you go through the list. There is such a thing as self-educated.
If any college graduate implies that because you don't have a college degree you automatically can't know something that he or she doesn't know, that would be another example of what I would classify as a worst-case, insane academic bigot. Hang the "insane academic bigot" moniker around the sick jerk's neck.
Any college graduate who automatically writes you off or dismisses you out-of-hand because you don't have a college degree is an insane academic bigot. Hang the "insane academic bigot" moniker around the sick jerk's neck. The first question that college educated people ask about you in their mind is did you graduate from college? If the answer is no, they automatically dismiss you out-of-hand.
Any college graduate who insults your intelligence merely because you don't have a college degree is an insane academic bigot. Hang the "insane academic bigot" moniker around the sick jerk's neck.
Any college graduate who subscribes to the notion that you're automatically intellectually insignificant because you don't have a college degree is an insane academic bigot. Hang the "insane academic bigot" moniker around the sick jerk's neck. Just because you don't have a college degree doesn't mean that you can't know anything intellectually significant.
Any college graduate who belittles you on the job or in any other setting is an insane academic bigot. Hang the "insane academic bigot" moniker around the sick jerk's neck. In fact, you might want to tell them to go find a gay person to bash in, or a black. After all, like I said, insane bigotry is insane bigotry ... is insane bigotry ...
Any college graduate who implies that the reason that you don't have a college degree automatically must be because you weren't willing to work hard to get an education is an insane academic bigot. Hang the "insane academic bigot" moniker around the sick jerk's neck.
I seen a couple of college graduates on a well known talk show recently saying that the reason that they were where they were at is because they were willing to work hard to get an education. The point was that if you don't have a college degree it's because you automatically weren't willing to work hard to get an education. One of them was a young woman who looked like she was in her early to middle twenties. Although I didn't go into specific detail about what I was made to indure during my childhood, would anyone care to guess what would happen if we could take her back to age five and insert her into the circumstances that I had to grow up under from that age on? I'll tell you what would happen - she'd be dead! Take my word for it. She just simply could not have survived to see her eighteenth birthday had she been subjected to the same conditions I was, let alone get an education.
In fact, I've always said that if I could be granted one wish I wouldn't wish for money. What I would wish for would be the ability to take every person in the United States who has a college degree back to age five and insert them into the circumstances that I grew up under from that age on. There's a lot of people in this country who think they're hot crap. If we could take them back to age five and give them a dose of reality they'd find out real fast-like how hot crap they are. We know what they can do when they have the pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella baby childhood. But what could they have accomplished if they had had to face something?
In fact, I would bet every penny to my name that if you could take every person in the United States who has a college degree back to age five and insert them into the circumstances that I had to grow up under from that age on you'd find that at least half wouldn't live to see their eighteenth birthday - and that would be a minimum figure - let alone get an education. And of the half that might make it, nary a one would go on to college at the age that they did, if ever at all. None. Zilch. Nada.
Some college educated people are walking around with delirious hallucinations in their head that everyone had the same opportunity that they did to intellectually and socially mature during childhood and consequently the only reasons for a person to not be just like them can only be derogatory ones. The only images that they can think of to characterize non-college educated people are derogatory ones. College educated people love to compare themselves to non-college educated people in order to prop up the delirious hallucinations that they acquired about themselves when growing up.
The advantage that the vast majority of college educated people had over others started at a time when they were too ignorant to be aware that they had an advantage - childhood. And over the course of their adult lives they either never acquire the intellectual capacity to become aware that they had an advantage or they just don't want to admit it - it can't be that they had an insanely unfair advantage. Heck, who wants to admit that they had an insanely unfair advantage? It can't be that you came away with a warped impression of education. It can't be that you had little or no opportunity to intellectually and socially mature during childhood. Nope. It has to be something derogatory.
Our society likes to heap all kinds of accolades on college graduates - for instance, "overachiever." However, the main thing that really separates them from the rest of us is the insanely unfair advantage that they had that started in childhood. No one wants to talk about that but let's set the record straight.
I ask people in the United States who don't have college degrees to consider the following scenario. Let's say you go to a track meet to watch the one-mile race, four laps around the track. Let's say right before the gun sounds some people run up on the track and wrap their arms around half of the runners and hold on to them tightly, preventing them from taking off at the sound of the gun. When the gun sounds, the runners who aren't held back take off. When those runners complete two full laps around the track the runners that were held back are allowed to go. Would you be impressed by the athletes who win that race? Of course not! And that's exactly why you should also not be impressed by college educated people either. The scenario that I just described would apply to the vast majority of the people in the United States who have college degrees. The difference between you and them is you have the intellectual capacity to understand what I just said.
Those of us who don't have college degrees have to put up with a multitude of negative stereotypes that attempt to characterize us as some kind of inferior, unmotivated morons. Well, how about dishing out some of our own? How's this:
The vast majority of people in the United States who have college degrees are pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella babies who had an insanely unfair advantage and who likely don't have the intellectual capacity to understand what in the hell I'm even talking about.
I'm just trying to set the record straight here. In the United States we look upon a college degree as being some sort of standard to measure everyone else by. But the fact is it could never have been a standard of measurement in the first place. The only way that you can have a standard is if there's a level playing field where everyone has the exact, same, equal, identical opportunity to intellectually and socially mature during childhood. But we know that that just simply was never the case in the United States. As I said, if you could take every person in the United States who has a college degree back to age five and insert them into the circumstances that I had to grow up under from that age on you'd find that at least half would be dead.
College educated people have a warped sense of accomplishment. They measure accomplishment strictly on the basis of getting a college degree. In other words, if you don't have a college degree you never accomplished anything. Oh? What if you survived conditions that would've taken the life of at least fifty percent of the people in this country who have college degrees? I mean, if you survived conditions that would've taken their life, I'd have to believe that that would've been some sort of an accomplishment, right? And we don't even have to be talking about conditions that would've taken someone's life either. For instance, if you experienced conditions that impeded your ability to intellectually and socially mature while growing up but still did better in life than say half the people with college degrees would've done under the same conditions, then that would have to be considered an accomplishment.
In fact, the only thing that academic credentials tell me about a person is that they never had to face anything. Anyone who has a golden opportunity to intellectually and socially mature during childhood can get a college degree. But what would happen if you could take 'em back to age five and give 'em a dose of reality? Different story!
I mean, why should I be impressed by people who would've been killed by the conditions that I was subjected to but survived? I mean, let's get real.
I don't have anything against getting a college education. A college degree can be a fantastic tool for getting a better paying job, there's no dispute there. But that's where it ends. It does not extend all the way to superiority. It means that you have training that more than likely will get you a better paying job. But that's it. In most cases you'll find that the person with the degree not only had a significant advantage over others but in many cases even as much as a thirteen-year advantage - and doesn't even have a single iota of a clue that they did!
There's a very thin line between a mentality of feeling that you're automatically superior in whatever way and one of being an outright bigot. Sexual bigots think they're superior to those who don't exhibit the same sexual orientation. Racial bigots think they're superior to those who aren't the same race. Well, academic bigots think they're superior to those who don't have the same educational level. In fact, I have a pet theory that all bigotry starts with a higher education. You go back to the days when men were sailing the worlds oceans looking for people to make slaves out of, I don't think you'll exactly find that it was the uneducated people of the day who were responsible for that activity.
Academic bigotry is not only likely the most widespread form of bigotry, it does more harm to people as a group than any other form of bigotry. It results in the stereotypes that I discussed being falsely associated with people who don't have college degrees. It can, and more than likely does, also suppress people. For instance, if Benjamin Franklin, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Edison were alive today nobody would even know who they were because they would almost certainly be suppressed by insane academic bigotry. That should give you some idea of how insanely academically bigoted our society has become.
The military provides a great example of insane academic bigotry. When I was in the service, and I suspect to this day as well, enlisted, or non-college educated personnel, were required to salute officers, or college educated personnel. Given how insanely academically bigoted our society is, I'm surprised that same mentality hasn't creeped into the civilian side of our society.
Take 'em all back to age five, give 'em a dose of reality.
I call on people in the United States who do not have college degrees to join in on an all-out, frontal assault - nonviolent, of course - against insane academic bigotry. Do not tolerate this scourge any longer. Seek out and expose insane academic bigots. Even if you don't know what I'm talking about you've almost certainly encountered them, and more than likely have even been a victim yourself of some form of insane academic bigotry in the past. Use the tips that I gave on how to identify insane academic bigots. Either way, if you're not aware of this scourge, you better become aware.
If anyone who has a college degree automatically writes you off because you don't have one, automatically write them off as having had an insanely unfair advantage. Tell them to their face that they're as significant as someone who had a 2-lap head start in a 4-lap race.
You have the intellectual capacity to know that.
Copyright 2008 Unintimidated Press