Why am I not at the negotiating table?

Why am I not at the negotiating table? I’d like reform. You want me to conform. I’d like social acceptance 101. You want special topics in tolerance 646. I cannot move. I am chained to my seat. The books in your library are filled with blank pages, some dog-eared. I know you haven’t read every item on your shelf. There’s nothing to read. Give me a subject. I will produce ten pages. OK, hundreds of pages discussing why I understand that subject better than any other life form on the planet. You want me to speak to the universal human experience. What’s universal changes over time. You are slightly amused. If I were in dialogue with someone else, I could show you what words belong side-by-side on the printed page. What is this talk of social class reproduction? I thought the purpose of college was to bring honor to your family, to show you’re a thinker. I am still a believer in the need for a purpose and a place for everybody. It is not just mapped out for you based on heredity. Yes, I failed Genetics. And when I think of jeans, I think of cotton. I was not born a slave. I became one and as soon as I figure out how to release myself from this temporary prison sentence, how to write on those books with blank pages of yours, how to read the white space…then I’ll be a librarian.