Eating in Protest

Eating in Protest

History’s replete with the opposite: hunger strikes, and I would argue, not often enough. But, occasionally, people actually eat things in support of a cause, and, again, I would argue, not often enough.

I had a terrible teacher for high school freshman algebra. He had no idea how to keep our attention or how to maintain order. It was a large class, some 50 kids, in a mini-tiered lecture hall; it took only a couple trouble-makers to disrupt each lesson, and that only embolded the wise-asses. Being an all-boy school, we weren’t showing off for girls but establishing dominance. A weak teacher smelled of blood in the air.

One day a pop quiz was passed out on material neither taught nor assigned. The teacher said he could have covered this material if we weren’t such a rude bunch, and this was the consequence. Couple of groans from the gallery but mostly silence. I counted to ten slowly, taking deep breaths, and stood nervously.

“This is unfair and I protest,” I said, or something-like, I hope better, with I’m sure more confidence than I actually possessed. I quickly shredded the quiz, stuffing it into my mouth, kinda chewing it, and forcing it down. Shocked silence met me and I sat quickly and quietly for several long moments.

Bam! No surprise, in the Dean’s Office. I was not asked, but explained my actions: the teacher sucked.

I was issued one JUG, having no priors. I insisted it state exactly what my transgression was, “for eating a quiz in class.” And so it did and so I served.

I escaped punishment at home though my interrogation was much more intense. I felt empathy for my fellow classmates who were struggling with the material taught by an inept teacher. I felt empathy for the trouble makers who did not want or belong at this school, and by years end, were transferred out anyway. I even felt empathy for this first-year teacher who I recognized as a fellow freshman in spirit.

The teacher went on to become a great teacher and I just went on …

Recently, a man was arrested for eating a paper ballot in Italy:

One would-be voter on Sunday channeled his frustration by tearing up and eating his ballot before being led away from a polling station in the southern town of Sorrento by police.

What have you eaten in protest?

-ramon

Pizza at Candlelite.

Ramon, really dig your story and am straining to recall a time I ate something in protest (not against my own protests, but as a demonstration). Still straining...I'm sure I've done so...just...can't...remember

Great story Ramon-your action probably helped this teacher become great.
The "Dean's" office and "jug" remind me of my time at St. Ignatius, where jug was my second home. I can't address Ramon's exact question, but this story brushs the issue. The "commons" or cafeteria was the domain of one 5 foot 5" 350# Brother who was the cook. The Italian-inspired food smelled of bile-probably from a cheap aged cheese that was used liberally. It probably should be mentioned that this Brother was also the sarge-at-arms, and when he would observe an infraction he would shout out "Hey you", quickly waddle over, grab the offender by the neck, and shake them until their eyes started to roll back.
Anyway, perhaps to protest the bad food, my friend ordered a hamburger, threw away the patty, replaced it with a pickled rodent from the biology lab, and brought it back to Brother screaming out something like "This is an outrage!" Twasn't long before he felt a vice-like grip...

HI,

While I don't recall eating food in protest. I have certainly protested eating some food: like my Grandmother's mutton stew.

People whose food is about to be confiscated by U.S. Customs have certainly eaten or debased their food in protest. It may be as simple as eating those prize sausages that are about to be led away. I have heard of people urinating on the food to make sure if they cannot have it, then nobody else will either.

I had an incompetent math teacher in 6th grade who never did progress to great teacher. He was finally dismissed after punching a kid while shreaking, "I put on 20 pounds this summer. I am not a weakling." A quote that whipped around the school at hyper speed.

Regards,

Ramon - Your story reminds me of a kid I went to elementary school and junior high with; his family reputedly split their residence between the USSR and Connecticut, so he would intermittently show up in my classes over a 12-year period. (This was during the Cold War.) He was like a Russian Ozzie Osbourne and would often eat the pop quizzes out of protest. He didn't have a noble civic purpose as you did, he just didn't want to take the quiz. The teachers couldn't get him to do anything; he didn't even like a breezer class like art and would rattle the very gentle hippie art teacher by occasionally downing a gloppy brushful of rubber cement. (Apparently, nothing was lethal to this kid.) Thankfully, as perestroika ensued, he showed up in my classes less and less, eventually in high school I had heard that his family moved back to Russia for good.

Through the intervention of Providence, I escaped a Catholic school education. Therefore, I must ask what is JUG?

JUG = Justice Under God, which was pretty much synonymous with detention. In my case, you had to stay after school until you copied out one of four random pages of student rules. I waylaid this system by memorizing all four pages and could therefore copy it out in 12 minutes flat. No one else followed this same strategy, and it would generally take about an hour with all the procrastination, etc, of an adolescent boy.

By Junior year I had "indefinite JUG:" before school in the Dean's office, lunch in the Dean's office, after school in the Dean's office ... I should have been the Dean!

-ramon

FWIW, I do not believe I made the teacher any better. Being a first year teacher is like being an army grunt sent to the front line -- many do not make it back. It takes time for them to learn the strategies of survival.

-ramon

Ramon wrote:JUG = Justice Under God -ramon

Funny - my ENTIRE education , including college, was Catholic, and I never knew this was an acronym, although we had it, for sure.

My version of food protest: In high school, I decided that our music/history teacher was an idiot, and I decided the best protest of her inadequacy was to smuggle a full pound bag of M&Ms into the clasroom, which was one of those linoleum-tiled lecture halls with the desks on raised steps; my best friend and I sat at the very back and stuffed our faces with M&Ms every time she turned her back. (Eating during school was a crime tantamount to smoking or cutting class.) Woe unto me, the bag had a larger hole than I anticipated, and my purse overturned as I was leaving the classroom - spilling brightly colored candies in a musical waterfall down all the seven or so levels of the lecture hall. My friend and I tried to beat a hasty retreat, but were stopped by the teacher, who (not helping my opinion of her at all) decided to (I can only assume) scare us by pointedly making small talk without mentioning the contraband now covering her floor.

We also smuggled in sodas, which, thinking we were smart, we hid in the drains of the chemistry lab sinks - until busted by one a savvy nun. I don't remember how we escaped punishment on that one; I think we blamed an innocent upperclassman...

Clearly, religious education was completely wasted on me!

After law school, all the area law students converged on my law school to take a bar review class. Bar review was all day, every day and all the students needed a caffeine boost several times a day plus snacks to make to the end of the day.

Anyway, the school janitors decided that they would not empty the garbage cans since bar review was conducted by an outside vendor and and wasn't a real class. The school and the outside vendors decided rather than press the issue or pay for overtime, they would instead ban all food and drink from the bar review classes so the trash wouldn't need to be emptied.

Every student ignored this ban and continued to bring in sodas, coffee, tea and snacks. The level of protest was truly inspiring. The school and the outside vendor even went so far as to pay bar review students to stand outside the door and tell people that their food/drink was not allowed in the bar review session. These turncoats were widely ignored, jeered at and, in a few cases, gently threatened (and no not by me).

Eventually, the school and the outside vendor struck a deal with the janitors and this silliness was discontinued. It still sticks out in the memory as something funny during that stressful, strange period of my life.

Mine was basically a scene out of the movie "Real Women Have Curves". I'm pretty big for Asian female and throughout my teens, my mom always nagged me whenever I have dessert. One fine day at a family reunion, I was craving for kue lapis (an Indonesian layer cake) and cut myself a slice. My mother who was sitting across the table stared at me and mouthed to me "Do not eat that!"

I pretended not to understand and continually asked, "What? Whazzat?" until she ended up shouting "Don't eat that cake!"

Some of the relatives around us went silent and looked at us. My mother and I had a staring duel that lasted for what seemed like forever before I grabbed a fork and just enjoyed my kue lapis.

Sounds childish, I know, and I didn't even really eat in protest, just in defiance

My eat-to-protest moments mostly center around whatever the food nannies are demonizing, although I did draw the line at trans-fats.