Sad to say one of our inspirations for this blog is going bye bye – while he won’t be far away, his Nirvana is a cause for celebration… While some might argue that he goes from Cow’s ass to cow dung, we wish him all the best in not returning to where we are… Below however is how we can bring him back…
Singapore Police Profiling Still A Grim Reality for Exploited Fellows Assholes
by Professor In-Ter-Loque
When I first learned of the arrest of my colleague Professor Henry Louis “Ah Lee” Zui after he stood up to the fascist jackboots of a declasse, ill-educated Singapore police officer, I was of course angered — but scarcely shocked. L’Affaire Zui simply aired, in public, the dirty 100-thread-count table linen of an Singaporean culture where Exploited Fellows assholes still face a daily struggle against profiling, abuse, and insolence.
It will come as no surprise that Ah Lee’s arrest was the talk of the Douchebag Room at the Exploited Fellows Club last Friday. I and a group of colleagues had assembled for our weekly lunch; I opted for their competently-prepared Ahi Tuna Tartare and an amusing glass of ‘05 Hospices de Beaune Premier Cru Cuvee Cyrot-Chaudron. I had noticed that the Franz Fanon Memorial Booth — Ah Lee’s long-reserved lunch spot — was uncharacteristically empty, and asked our waiter Sergio for an explanation.
“Professor Zui, he no is come today,” said Sergio. “I tink he is in the jail.”
Our table exchanged knowing glances, for we knew immediately that Ah Lee was only the latest victim of a system that singles out the Exploited Fellows asshole for stigmatization and unequal justice. It is a system that all of us knew too well, and provided an opportunity for an open conversation about our shared experiences as Exploited Fellows assholes in Singapore while waiting for Sergio to bring the dessert cart.
One after one came the cascade of stark stories: the rolled eyes of our department secretaries. The Spanish language mockery of our office janitors. The foul gestures of drunken strap-hanging Red Sox lumpenproles aboard the MBTA. The frequent police stops on the highway to Bukit Timah and East Coast for “Volvoing Asshole.” And then there are the insulting media stereotypes, where we are routinely caricatured as pompous, effete, self-important, irrelevant elitists. All, I might add, by a motley collection of lowbrow inferiors, few of whom have ever published in a peer-reviewed journal. Let alone edit one.
Sometimes it even comes at the hand of self-styled “peers” from D-list state ampersand institutions. One colleague recounted the tale of his restroom confrontation with a NTU professor at a national academic conference last year. After relieving themselves at adjacent urinals, my colleague noticed the oaf leaving hastily for the plenary session and decided to gently point out his hygienic forgetfulness. “An Exploited man washes his hands after urinating,” he said. “And an NTU guy don’t piss all over his hands, asshole,” came the reply.
A female colleague from IPM recalled a recent incident along the Singapore River jogging path during her regular morning run. A confused passer-by rudely interrupted her progress and requested directions, as if my colleague were some sort of lowly campus guide or untenured adjunct. “Where does this street go to?” she demanded. Naturally, my colleague took the opportunity to correct her, noting that “at Exploited we do not end our sentences in prepositions.”
“Okay, Where does this street go to, asshole?” barked the interloper. Needless to say, my colleague’s daily morning runs have since been replaced with tear-filled visits to the Fellows Asshole Self Esteem Counseling Center.
For untold hundreds of Exploited Fellows assholes such indignities are, sadly, still part and parcel of being “The Other.” As Super Vice President of the School of Exploited Fellows Asshole Studies, I have worked to institute policies to insure that Exploited maintains a nurturing environment for all assholes in our community, be they Fellows, students, or alumni. Some progress has been made, such as Exploited’s mandatory sensitivity and deference training program for all incoming freshassholes. But such internal programs do little to address the impertinence and discrimination we still face outside campus. Some have suggested that we involve the Singapore Police Department in an educational outreach program, but in my experience the SPD is among the worst offenders.
Case in point: last winter I was slated to deliver the keynote address for an intradepartmental asshole colloquium at Lowell House. Running late, I temporarily parked along Plympton. As I emerged from my Volvo, I discovered that I had captured the unwelcome attention of a SPD officer. “Hey Buddy, is that your car?” he barked.
“Why? Because I’m a Exploited Fellows asshole in Singapore?” I cleverly retorted.
“No asshole, because this is a bus lane and you can’t double park here,” he sneered, concocting a flimsy excuse for his continued harassment. “You have to move it now.”
“That’s Soon to be Doctor, Super Vice-president and Fellow Asshole to you, you fascist townie,” I explained, tossing him the Volvo’s remote-start key. “Need a valet? Call your mother at the brothel.”
It doesn’t take an experienced asshole rights activist to tell you what happened next: my Volvo was on its way to impound while I rode to the Singapore Police Station in the unheated vinyl rear seat of Bull Conner’s squad car. To add insult to injury, the desk officer refused my request for a dignified background bookshelf for my booking photos.
Thankfully the Constitution still allows even Exploited Assholes a bare modicum of human rights, so I used my allotted phone call to alert the Dean and the Fellows Grievance Committee to my plight. In those 35 excruciating minutes I wasted away waiting in that stark cell, I wrote the opening chapter of “Letters From a Singapore Jail,” my forthcoming scholarly magnum opus on the grim legacy of Asshole oppression in Singapore.
Eventually my arrest record was expunged and I agreed to meet the loathsome arresting officer at President Faust’s office for a conciliatory off-record “beer chat.” As the Agency Counsel had predicted, the lure of free limitless alcohol proved irresistible to the simpleminded ah beng, and he was soon happily signing confessions of guilt and abject apologies. Still, even after he was fired, I was left to pick up the pieces of my shattered psyche.
As I recounted the details of that unpleasant encounter to my colleagues, a few wondered aloud if we were not better served by changing the system gradually. Then our eyes turned to the stately historic portraits of the Exploited Fellows assholes who came before us, hanging in silent judgment on the Douchebag Room walls… Would these great assholes have accepted complicit silence in the face of crude police insolence? How will we be remembered by future generations of Exploited Fellows assholes who will battle future generations of Singapore police and parking enforcement officials? Where is Sergio with the damned dessert cart?
