The
other Friday at the student bar I went to go meet a friend and I ran into this
one Venezuelan philosophy Ph.D. student I know.
We
chit-chatted a bit about how shitty the job market is and how out of touch
professors are, and then I started asking him about Bergoglio.
“So what
do you think of the new pope?”, I was like.
“Isn’t he from Venezuela?”.
He
wasn’t clear that I was joking, so then I clarified that I knew that he was
from Venezuela, but the pope was from Argentina.
“Minnesota?”,
the philosophy Ph.D. student was like.
“Minnesota?”
Then, he
said that’s what a lot of people ask him, after he says he’s from Venezuela.
He also
said that even though he doesn’t practice, he’s happy the new pope is from
Latin America, but that Argentinians tend to be pedantic.
After
that, I asked him what he thought about Cesar Chavez, and just when he began to
correct me, I was like, “I know, I know, it’s Hugo Chavez, just kidding.”
Then, we
talked about Venezuelan politics, and he said that it’s complicated because the
issues don’t break down into a clear left and clear right like they do here;
there, Chavez was correct in his judgment to help the poor, but he was also
fascist and suppressed the press, so that made it harder for the left to
support him.
The
conversation went on for like 20 minutes in this very serious vein, and then my
friend who I had planned on meeting arrived and we went to go move into another
room of the bar to meet some other people, so me and the philosophy Ph.D.
student kind of had to abruptly wrap up the conversation about Venezuelan
politics.
“Well,”
I was like, “I still think it’s a good thing that California grape workers can
go on strike.”
“My
friend,” the philosophy Ph.D. student was like, “You know that is not funny,
that this is a serious issue that is tearing out my heart and the heart of all
the Venezuelan people,” and he held my glance with a very serious and
reproachful look without blinking while pursing his lips grimly.
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