I have graduated from college.
Yes. If there?s anybody out there who wants to buy me a beer for the cause, I?d be more than happy, but don?t make a toast just yet.
I?m going back in the fall.
This time though, my pockets are pretty well empty ? so unless I find a reason (and enough loans) to go to graduate school, I won?t be setting foot on another university any time soon.
I plan to attend Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn two nights a week to learn Arabic.
When I announced this decision to my best friend, he raised an eyebrow and asked two questions:
?Why??
and
?Do you realize you?re going to be the only white person there??
Well boys and girls, the reason why I?m going to tell you.
I plan to take the course precisely because I?ll probably be the only white person there.
‘
As far as I see, with the latest findings on bombings of Madrid (excluding the current Iraqi Abuse Scandal), Islam is getting a boat-load of bad press these days.
We all know about how Muslim men treat the women, and we know a little bit about the crazy sub-Islam terrorist clans, but I feel that I don?t know enough about it to really have any opinion what-so-ever on anything.
In a nutshell ? I just don?t understand.
Last semester I thought I was interested in possibly writing a screenplay ? and still am ? so I took a television communications course.
To be honest, I didn?t learn anything in that class. I passed, with an A-, but I didn?t learn so much about television production as I did about Islam.
The professor brought a Muslim cleric on the set to be a guest on our ?show? ? don?t worry, I?m not going to plug our old program. I don?t know which station or what channel it was on and it only broadcasts in select portions of Michigan. I believe it interests a whopping 50,000 viewers.
That one show in particular, however, interested me for two reasons. The first reason was that I happened to not have a job that day ? meaning I wasn?t running a camera or working any other equipment so I was able to sit back and watch everything.
And also because of what the cleric had to say genuinely intrigued me.
I did not know that Islam is divided into separate sub-groups like Christianity. I didn?t know that these sub-groups represent different forms of worship ? and are as different as, say, Protestants and Catholics.
And more importantly, I had not realized that there was a rational side to the religion at all.
I learned through listening to the cleric speak, that I know nothing.
Which irritated me.
For the last two years in sporadically writing for this Web Site and the former Cheesehole, I?ve vented my thoughts and opinions on the current war without showing any regard to having any knowledge what-so-ever on Islam and the reasons things they are the way they are.
I don?t think very many other Americans have ever tried to understand either.
Yes, dear friend of mine, you?re right.
I?ll probably be the only white person there.
Thanks for helping me figure my classes anyway.
: )