Anyone who really knows me knows that I’m quite hopeful in my heart.
I may exude harsh words often, but it’s only because I hold high standards.
I complain so often about Morehouse because I expect so much from it and I hope that some form of prodding will push it to become the institution for Black men that I expect it to be.
This is one of those complaints.
I really wanted to be positive for the first issue of the paper. I knew I would have a page to fill and that I would have to do so single-handedly. Over the course of two days, I knew I would have to type a minimum of 1,900 words about my positive expectations for the year and not to frighten all the new “Franklin Men” with their pristine blazers. I had hoped to do this and then turn on the anger for the second issue, but Morehouse pushed me.
On my arrival, I saw the poorly paved streets of the
West End once again.
The Greensferry Project is still a thorn in our community’s side.
I go through the check-in process to move into my room in Mays.
I have no idea who my roommate is (which is something many other institutions try to avoid).
I get my room after finding out I have no folder for my paperwork.
I enter my room to find I have no mattress and no blinds.
Tigernet works only when it wants to, but this doesn’t stop the rumor of a very early purging of classes. The financial aid director refuses to see most people despite the heavy traffic in these early days. The cafeteria doesn’t have continuous service, and the ladies who swipe the cards are actually annoyed to tell students the cafeteria is closed. Young men crowd about the door, waiting for food like the prospect of eating is more exciting than a movie premiere for a summer blockbuster.
This is in addition to the fact that the internet has not worked in the residence halls for four solid days. Truth be told, the article you are reading right now did not even make deadline because Morehouse believes that reconfiguring the digital infrastructure can be done in one seventh of the time it would normally take according to the present chair of the computer science department in his email praising the faculty and staff.
It’s the tail end of August and I still don’t have my yearbook after two years of waiting. Apparently, I could have picked it up Tuesday but the man that was distributing them left. It’s nice to know that it’s perfectly aright for the workday ends at 2pm for so many people here.
But among the things that bother me the most about Morehouse right now, it’s all symbolized in one thing: the bar that blocks entry into Perdue’s parking lot. I don’t have a car and if I did, I wouldn’t get a parking pass for Perdue’s parking lot, but the implication that this object is necessary only infuriates me. We have paid yet another tuition increase to fund an item made solely to insure that Morehouse collects more money. This isn’t about safety or even the essential welfare of the students. We made things a little easier for the bootman (hard working as he is).
The internet hardly works in general, which isn’t the best thing to have any time of year, but especially at the start. The bookstore has some items marked up as much as 500%. (Three dollars for notebook paper? Recycled notebook paper?!)
We couldn’t even get the first Hump Wednesday together. Normally I don’t care about Hump Wednesdays, but it’s hard to believe that everyone congregated at the Kilgore steps to loiter. Someone couldn’t have pulled out a boom box or something? There had to have been at least one somewhere.
When you get down to it, it’s business as usual at the ‘House. This isn’t any better or worse than I’ve come to expect every August and a new face in charge doesn’t make anything much better. President Franklin has been on the job for nearly a month, but I’m not seeing anything different. Perhaps he’s still in observation.
I essentially say what I’ve been saying all along: I make my own experience. I can make Morehouse better or worse because if I left everything I wanted to Gloster Hall or the SGA, I’d be sorely disappointed.
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