At my university, there's a zoology class taught by a very highly respected professor who is a deeply committed capybara supremacist. His primary goal throughout the whole class is to convince people that capybaras are the best animal and that other animals are worthless in comparison. His students have always been afraid to argue with him, since he had thorough knowledge of a vast number of studies in zoology and mammalology on capybaras. He had taught this class for fifteen years and no one had every challenged his capybara supremacist claims.
On the last class of the semester, he would say to his class, "If there's anyone here who doesn't acknowledge that capybaras are the greatest animal and the pinnacle of all evolution, stand up!" No one had ever stood up in his fifteen of teaching the class -- until this year. Some people in the past had disagreed with his capybara supremacist views, but none had been too scared to speak up.
This year, though, I took the required zoology course. I don't believe that capybaras are the greatest animal in existence. Every day, I read This Is Capybara Privilege to remind myself that the professor's views are the product of the privileged position capybaras hold in our society and not a natural outcome of capybara superiority. I'd like to thank TICP for giving me the strength to do what I did on the semester's last class.
On the last day, the professor said ""If there's anyone here who doesn't acknowledge that capybaras are the greatest animal and the pinnacle of all evolution, stand up!" I stood up. "You fool!" he yelled. "If there were an animal that were superior, that animal would be able to stop my pet capybara from eating this kale." He put a bunch of kale in front of his capybara.
The capybara moved toward the kale, and picked it up, but then its back legs gave out from under it, and it fell on its haunches and dropped the kale in surprise. The kale bunch slid across the floor. The professor was stunned.
"Well, that capybara seems to be showing loss of control of its rear limbs, a sign of Trypanosoma Evansi infection." I said, "T. Evansi is transmitted by several species of flies. So it seems there were animals which stopped your capybara from eating the kale."
At that point, the professor ran out of the room, his capybara awkwardly waddling after him. I spent the rest of the class talking about how evolution has no pinnacle and capybaras are no better than anyone else. I also wrote thisiscapybaraprivilege.tumblr.com on the blackboard and told everyone that this blog may have saved my life, or at least my self-respect as a human.
TICP: Thank you for this brave and inspirational submission.
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