I washed dishes w/ Hugo Asamoah (Kif) during our first year at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
We were students in the Brandeis Transitional Year Program (TYP). Me, one of 4 Mexican-Americans on campus and Kif from Cambridge’s Malden Sqaure, alumnus of Ringe & Latin and a smack talking, hood genius.
For the unawares, Brandeis is was and forever will be predominately Jewish. The college was started in the late 40’s as a response to rampant anti-semitism in the Ivy League. The student body in the early 90s was 80%+ white (this is anecdotal but I did search for exact numbers and nada).
After MLK Jr was assassinated in ’68, black students on campus demanded the administration address inequities on campus. The TYP program was created as a concession.
Then, in ’69, a black TYP student was shot in the cheek with a BB gun while on campus. The black students weren’t having it. They took over an administrative building for 11 days, presented a list of demands and renamed the campus Malcolm X University. You can read more about the ordeal here.
Both Kif and I had jobs on campus. We worked in the dining hall. Now, dining Services was a good look for us for the obvious reasons. But it was a terrible look for equally obvious reasons. You see, part of my job included picking up trays students had lazily left behind.
So, after about a week of this denigrating dumb shit, I bought a whistle. Then, when students left a tray on the table, I’d blow a whistle on their asses.
That’s on mommas.
