Academia: the Last Refuge of the Coward

I sign up to teach the course, and I already know it's going to happen. I talk about texts involving race or sexuality, and damn . . . my students try so hard, but they're just . . . I mean, it's kind of adorable, because they don't even know they're being offensive.

"Audre Lorde wishes she weren't Black, because it's terrible."
(Did you capitalize "black" to disguise the fact that that was totally wrong?)

“The narrator of the Invisible Man wants to be judged by people just as they would judge someone of the opposite race.”
(And here I thought there were more than two races. My bad.)

“American women realized they had to choose between being frustrated housewives, or being successful but lonely and ugly.”
(I'm not sure if I should worry more or less because you're female.)

"He ‘hugs & kisses’ the U.S b/c he is proud that the U.S. is a free country & people are accepting of such things as gayism."
(I'm starting a new discipline: Gayism Studies! Who's with me?)

"The difference between regular poetry and Native American poetry is that I don't like Native American poetry."
(Shine on, you crazy diamond.)