Say hello to Jennifer Knox, an English professor at Iowa State University, according to The Daily Caller News Foundation. A student in Professor Knox’s class recently used the r-word in his poem and listen, I probably would’ve taken my severance pay and quit or just lost it and assaulted the guy right there, but true to the Gryffindor colors of her school, Ms. Knox is really brave and made it into a learning experience. Because this isn’t about power; this is about compassionate people like Ms. Knox and me helping you become a better person. The professor writes in the Washington Post:
“A student — a strong writer with strong politics — oh, that means he’s probably a progressive, gnarly dude! — chose to spice up a rant with the r-word, mocking people with Down syndrome. It appeared like a glowing toxic weed in the middle of a pile of F-bombs.”
Ok, so I know Knox doesn’t post the actual poem or even that part, so you can’t really see if the student used the r-word in a quote, or ironically or anything, but context doesn’t matter! Professor Knox continues:
“When I read [the r-word] — hoo boy — I really wanted that student to feel censored. I wanted his fingers to curl up with shame and his hands to crawl backward up his shirt sleeves like tapped turtle heads the next time he even thought about writing a poem.”
Now it’s a shame because Knox apparently doesn’t punish this ableist scum and instead she and the class just give him advice to revise the piece but I don’t know why the guy didn’t follow the advice in Knox’s syllabus, where she says “words that hurt people…can stop all forward momentum in a poem. Writing a poem is like cooking a dish, and words are your ingredients. Some words will render your dish sickening — even inedible.”
