No longer the Teacher's pet

Well, in most cases i never WAS the teacher's pet, though you would think that that would be the case for someone like me. However, I have no problem saying controversial things or pointing out when others are dead wrong. And I especially love doing those two things to teachers. Anyways, here are two instances in the last week when I said something that made me very hated by everyone else:

I am taking a feminism class that's pretty ridiculous (for a number of reasons). When I get finished, I am going to take a chauvanism class - oh wait damnit there isn't one. PS - i hate things that don't have an acceptable counterpart. So anyways my teacher points out that there are TWICE the number of animal shelters in this country than battered women shelters. I raised my hand and asked what the ratio was of animals to battered women. Suddenly I'm the enemy! I tried to say that this didn't mean there wasn't a problem of not having enough shelters for battered women, but that an animal rights activist (which I am not really, but let's pretend) would point out that there are FAR more animals than battered women AND that animal shelters kill their inhabitants after a week. What if battered women shelters did that? Everyone started saying that I missed the point and the statistic is supposed to prove that Americans value women less than dogs. I don't see the connection. I mean - I bet there are five times as many car garages as battered women shelters. Does that mean we value cars more than women?

Then in my English class we were discussing Huck Finn and OF COURSE we got onto slavery and my teacher used Jefferson as the example of the penultimate hypocrite for writing the Declaration of Independence and yet owning slaves. I pointed out that, in all fairness to my beloved TJ, he treated his slaves VERY well. Like better than anyone documented. And naturally all the students (esp the black ones) get all mad and tell me that no matter how you treat a slave, it's still wrong. DUH! I wasn't advocating slavery. I clarified my point by explaining that - as with people who joined the Nazi party or Middle Eastern suicide bombers or anything - you cannot blame people for being a product of their environment and believing what higher authorities tell them. Not every slave owner was a bad person!!! It's not an automatic qualifyer. And what's more - Jefferson would never have had the money and political authority to do ANYTHING that he did without owning slaves. He would have been some activist nut living in a small house telling others not to have slaves. What would that have done?

So no one likes me. But I think i had valid points.