By the time I made it to the last semester of my senior year at UC Santa Cruz, I reached full saturation of the hippie lifestyle. There was once a time where I could be found galavanting in hemp pants in the grassy quad of my dorm. Covered in amber jewelry, and drinking from my regulation Nalgene bottle. Yet, alas once I discovered the magical properties of alcohol… weed no longer called to me, and as a direct result looking like David the Gnome’s cousin was no longer a desired style choice.
This sent me spiraling into the world of slam poetry. I wore bold halter tops, giant wooden earrings, and scarfs that were vague political statements (nevermind I bought them at the local Urban Outfitters). If there was a cause, I would find myself in the mix conversing about all the inequalities that faced the world. When moved, I would speak in slow cadence highlighting all the key elements of my words: “because I AM… a BLACK… … Woman…” After going to countless Slam Contest, devoting all my research papers to Slam Poetry, and sitting in on the Slam Poetry team meetings (held in my living room), it hit me… there is a strict formula to win any slam poetry contest:
1. You have to be a minority (sorry white dudes… unless you’re kinda Jewish, the best you can get is a happy 3rd place).
2. You have to speak in a… slow… Shatner-esq… way.
3. Hand movements! Hand movements! Hand movements!
4. Get so emotional at some point, you almost cry… but pause right before your key phrase… and don’t loose your cool.
5. If you are Black… sing something in the middle of your poem.
6. If you are Asian… act like you’re Black.
7. The only people allowed to speak Spanish in their poems are Latinos, and they HAVE too… or the cred is out the window.
8. Ladies… either use your sexuality, or despise it!
9. You must dress like a reject from an urban dance movie.
10. Always look up to the heavens, either at God or a dead relative.
Once I figured these out, I decided Slam Poetry was phony.
At the end of my rope, and fully frustrated with the subsets of college culture, I retreated into the relationship I was in at the time and took classes that would stimulate my intellectual mind and not my “social conscious” which needed a break after being massaged for three plus years. Being in a rather romantic state I decided on a class called the Politics of Love. Taught by a woman in her thirties, always dressed in black, with a severe bun, and dark plum lipstick. The first couple days went smooth, I hunkered down to the dry words of Socrates and Plato, watched the videos and basically went through the motions to get my passing grade. Until one day our militant professor decided to expose her bleeding vegan heart and let a tiny political hippie girl speak during the last 20 minutes of class.
Did she speak on Love? Politics? Philosophers from the B. C. era? Nope, she spoke about meat. Yup, the meat industry and how horrible it is to eat cows. Strangely she didn’t touch on chickens too much. As she pounded her chest and looked to the heavens, I felt my hand slowly raise in the air. The hippie tossed her dreads and at the professor on what to do. Who nodded, and I suddenly, I found myself saying, “What does this have to do with Politics and Love?”
There was silence, because I had committed the UCSC unthinkable. You never… EVER… question a left wing political speech no matter how random the placing. I might as well slapped a giant sticker on my forehead which read, “Republican Fuck.” At this point, I didn’t care. I was as left wing as any one could be, but I wanted to learn- weird I know. Plus, this tiny hippie was so obviously privileged I couldn’t handle her mumbo-jumbo, that overlooked how expensive organic, and soy products are. She never once talked about poverty in America, or gave inexpensive alternatives to eating meat. She just continued on about the “poor cows” working herself up until she almost cried. She paused and said in a slow strong whisper:
“The MEAT… industry… is like the Holocaust… for Cows…”
With that I walked out, and decided to get a burger.
