This semester I have a writing class on International Business. As far as the course goes, pretty straightforward. The only problem is my fellow classmates. It feels like the gang from the movie "Summer School." The first night alone we had one guy who's studying to be a lawyer, and already a bona fide jackass, get up and presume to lecture the class, completely disregarding the professor, a redneck woman who wouldn't shut up and wears her half-conceived notions on her sleeve, and another woman who's almost as loud that became friends with her. This is going to be a long semester. The commonly repeated phrase last night from myself and my new friend Z, the Croatian woman who sits next to me, was "Are you kidding me?" We were talking about globalization in general, and weighing the positive and negative aspects of it. The negative aspect we discussed was a diminishing cultural identity. Everyone agreed that globalization is a positive force overall. The redneck blurted out multiple times "What's wrong with everyone being on the same page?" or "Why does everyone think it's a bad thing?" After a time I couldn't take anymore and turned around and explained to her that if she had listened, not one single group said it was a bad thing. She gave me a "how dare you" face, but shut up nonetheless.
What I wanted to scream at her was "You're white!! Of course you don't care about diminishing culture, because your culture (western culture) tends to be the dominating one! You probably want everyone to be just like you, a small-minded Christian who doesn't care that there are actual people with actual needs elsewhere in this giant world!" I guarantee she has never been to another country, unless it was on a cruise or some similar horse blinder fashion. But I didn't say those things, because the teacher urged us to be respectful of each other at the beginning of class. I just wish the three stooges understood what that meant.
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