Carlton Banks Syndrome

I was watching an episode of Fresh Prince and realized something. We hate Smart people. When I say we I mean you and I that make up society. The thing is though is it our fault or is it something we learn over time because it is being taught to us from a young age . When someone is physically superior to us we look up to them, we marvel at their abilities. In grade school the physically superior individual is someone everyone wants to be friends with, wants to be seen with. In high school and college everyone wants to go to their parties and be connected to. After that we hang their posters on our bedrooms wall and their Fat Heads in our basement we buy their team jerseys and are willing to spend a few hundred dollars in an afternoon or evening to watch them.
When someone is smarter than us we do the exact opposite. In grade school we give them wedgies and nicknames in high school we avoid being seen with them and again we call them names and make them feel like outcasts and in college and our adult lives we call them elitist pricks . Then a funny thing happens at this point. people who are beginning to have kids urge their kids to study hard and do well in school and get mad and confused when their children and nieces and nephews are not interested in getting smarter.

When I used to watch Fresh Prince I wanted to be like Will. He seemed invincible. He was a great athlete, could get any girl he wanted always seemed to know how to talk his way in our out of any situation, he could rap and didn't seem to be scared of anything. He would easily be considered the Alpha Dog in any setting. Then there was Carlton he was a nerd, used good grammar, wore button downs all the time, got good grades and was probably going to go to Princeton like his dad, Carlton was portrayed as an "uncle Tom " type who was not promiscuous and actually I think was a virgin till college and we hated him. Ironically all these things that he was is what one of the basic messages of the show was telling us were wrong. In the second part of my academic life I was fortunate enough to have been sent by my parents to schools were I became friends with guys like Carlton. I became friends with them in tapped into my inner Carlton and have been OK with it ever since.

I am not 6 8 250lbs like lebron, and i cant run 40 yrds in 4 secs like most NFL receivers and no matter how many hours I spend in a gym Ill never be able to do any of what these guys can do but I have my brain and I can read. Our brains are what evens the playing field. I am still able to expand it to whatever level I want it to get to. I refuse to be made to feel guilty by anyone because I can name backwards the U.S. Presidents from Obama to FDR or because I still remember how to break down chemical equations from chemistry class or because I blog. I can understand how these things can make someone seem like a huge doushebag in a social setting but before we reach for their underwear so we can pull it out and up from their pants we must stop and listen, we might learn something just like we could teach them something too. Point is I refuse to turn myself into Stephan Urkel just so you can like me (google it) We should not demonize intelligence or at least the people who are in pursuit of it. I don't think I'm better than you because I know random facts, I got them from a book from a library or on Amazon that you can read too if you wanted not some mystical mountain on a distant island that only I know the location to.

Funny thing is now that I`m older and look back on it Will seemed to be having way to much sex for his age and probably needed counseling from childhood traumatic experiences and I still think he might have been illiterate. Carlton seemed well adjusted and I'm pretty sure he would have been making Six figures a few years out of College, and banging models.



*Did you know that Will Smith turned down a full ride to M.I.T. to follow his music/acting career, then he ends up making millions of dollars on a t.v. showing playing a character that was probably the exact opposite of what he was in high school, go figure.