The Joys of Getting an Education

So, I was recently assigned the task of completing a PowerPoint assignment on “JoAna Robinson” under the subject of civil rights in my “America’s Diverse Cultural Heritage” class, which seemed easy enough, despite my having never even heard of JoAna Robinson.

My problem arose when apparently no one else had heard of her either.

Yes, after nearly an hour of scouring the internet I could find seemingly no information on JoAna Robinson. Granted, I was offered law advice by a white Columbia graduate by the same name, however, I doubted that she was the civil rights activist in question.

Slightly disturbed, I e-mailed my professor, Dr. Yarborough, detailing my problem. She responded by encouraging me to try alternate spellings stating that “You’ll find that her name is spelled many different ways.”

Now, wait.

How can someone’s name be spelled many different ways? Granted, one comes across different translations and such when speaking of foreign born people, but a black woman who participated in the civil rights movement? Right.

However, I followed my dear instructor’s advice of alternate spellings and still found nothing for quite a while. Joanna Robinson. Jo Ana Robinson. And on and on.

Then, finally, I made a last resort search for “Jo Ann Robinson.” And there she was. Jo Ann Robinson, the civil rights activist.

So, seeing as I found no information on dear “JoAna” while searching for various versions of the name, one could only conclude that my professor’s alternate spelling was, in fact, simply an incorrect spelling. Which led to the following discussion in our next class period.

Dr. Yarborough: “Matt, have you had any more problems with your research?”

Me: “No, it’s gone fine since I found the correct spelling.”

Dr. Yarborough: “Oh, but you find that name spelled so many ways! Really, you don’t have to use just the internet, we have a great resource at our library here, there’s a huge section on African Americans!”

Me: “Yeah, well, I only found her name spelled one way.”

Dr. Yarborough: “You probably just had to look a little deeper, sometimes you have to look several pages online.”

I essentially just shook my head flabbergasted and stopped the discussion at this point, since it was starting to piss me off just a bit. Really, I can understand a teacher making a mistake on spelling (and costing me at least an hour of my life looking up a person who doesn’t exist), but at least have the decency to admit you just misspelled it. And don’t fucking turn it into some speech on how my research is lacking because I wasn’t using the library.

Still, perhaps she’s right. I think when I turn in my next assignment I’ll start with the following:

Name: Mat Scot

Instructor: Dr. Yarburrow

Because, really, names can be spelled so many different ways . . .