Dudes, It Ain't Me. But I Like It.

Warning: Potty Mouth ahead. OK. You've been duly warned.
OK. If you really want to get into the spirit of this post, totally listen to this. Seriously, you need like the first 15 seconds of it to understand where I'm going with this... In fact, let it play while you read the rest of this post:



Now that you're properly prepared, let me begin by saying, this ain't my fault, but I'm totally behind it. The first heads up came from El Hijo. He phoned me at my other job to ask me, basically, if I knew about what had happened or if I had any part in what had happened. The answers are 1) No and 2) I wish. Where do I fucking sign? Some brave, courageous and totally support-worthy soul put this in all the graduate teaching assistants' mail boxes. Here's what the original resolution says. MLA, by the way, stands for Modern Language Association and is the giant poop of all GTAs, adjuncts, faculty, all Englishy folk. Teh Big Deal. Here's what they wrote:

The 2006 Delegate Assembly approved the following resolutions. Members may vote yes or no on each resolution.

Resolution 2006-1
Whereas undocumented workers, through their labor, contribute greatly to the economy of the United States; and
Whereas they are shamefully deprived of most legal rights other workers enjoy; and
Whereas they are superexploited as a result; and
Whereas the MLA is appropriately concerned about the use of language and about access to higher education;
Be it resolved that the MLA urge that the phrase "undocumented wokres" be used in place of the abusive term "illegal aliens" and that every state guarantee undocumented workers who live there in-state tuition.

OK. Here's what somebody with real skirt did. They crossed out all the places it said "undocumented workers" and put "graduate students". Here's what it said as it appeared in our mailboxes:

Resolution 2006-1
Whereas Graduate students, through their labor, contribute greatly to the economy of the United States; and
Whereas they are shamefully deprived of most benefits other faculty enjoy; and
Whereas they are superexploited as a result; and
Whereas the MLA is appropriately concerned about the use of language but not of action;
Be it resolved that the MLA urge that the phrase "faculty" be used in place of the abusive term "assistant" and that every state guarantee "faculty" who live there a livable wage.

Hear, fucking, hear! OK, first off, people, did I do this?? Hell, no! Would I have helped had I have known? Hell fucking yes! There was a mild debate on this subject between me and another person about how the person who did this "took away" from the point the MLA was trying to make. The MLA has no goddamned business taking a stance on undocumented workers when it is A) politically impotent and B) not taking care of business in its own backyard.

The point of the flier was to show how crappy the pay and work situation for grad students is. We teach your fundamentally basic classes. People learn to write a coherent paragraph and argument through our basic classes. I once had a prof in a position of power tell our class that our other profs wouldn't give us a break on when our own assignments were due for our own classes based on when we had to grade our students' papers, "nor should they." I bit my lip that day. Hard. Because I wanted to say (with only four weeks in the business, mind you) that hell, yes, they fucking should cut us a break. Because if it weren't for us, they would be teaching those fucking classes. We allow them to pursue "higher" literature with students who actually give a shit whether they learn or not. They fucking owe us.

Before the MLA decides to put it's pointy nose in the air about the immigration issue, it had best make sure that its own house is in order. The adjunct pay is atrocious. No benefits, less than $3000 per class for a semester's worth of mentoring for at least 22 students. Nobody goes into the adjunct business unless they have a secondary source of income, they absolutely LOVE to teach, or their spouse makes enough for them to dick around in the profession. The grad students here teach a two class per semester load, which is really fucking hard compared to other schools who teach a 2 class fall/1 class spring load. The super privileged teach a 1/1 load, and make nearly twice as much money as we do. Keep in mind that on top of this, we're expected to rock class out with papers that will be published in academic journals; sometimes getting published determines whether we'll get into good graduate schools, get real jobs as professors, or be doomed to semesterly contracts as "senior lecturers." Fuck you, MLA. Fix the pay scale of your own goddamned employees before you make the limp-dicked suggestion that the US take care of its own undocumented workers. You have papers on us. You know we make shit and do ten times the work for it.

Did I do this? No. But I promise you, dear reader, that there will be at least four people asking me about this before I get into work again next week.

Will the GTAs and adjuncts actually do anything about their situation and unionize? Nah. They ain't got the skirt. If they did, I'd fucking lead the charge. But I ain't about to ride into battle alone.

If the person who did do this wants some support, and I'm talking one hell of a backbone, here, baby, can they contact, me? Hell fucking yes. I've been waiting for a kindred spirit. Let's put a brick through their window!

-- Virgil