game day

So as many of you know I just moved to a college town whose college has a high-ranking division 1 football team. College football is a world I have never even begun to experience or understood. I am starting to understand it, and equally fear it. I woke up at 8 this morning with a tailgate party being set up in the parking lot directly outside my window.  I didn’t even know anyone owned copies of Jock Jams anymore. It is a really interesting study of conformity. Suddenly the world is divided into binary factions- Cal fans and Tennessee fans. I can’t believe how many Tennesee fans actually flew here for the event. I hope they get their money’s worth. It was kind of fun watching the folks from Knoxville interact with Liberalism, USA.

Also, it seems that alcohol laws are all suspended on game days. Wow. Open containers on the streets seems to be the rule, not the exception. Internalized oppression also seems to be the order of the day too, because I saw at least three women flash their breasts for blue and gold beads on my way to the coffeeshop where I am hiding out and writing this.

I guess it is great to band together with common enthusiasm…I think? But it just strikes me as weird that all these white people everywhere calling the team “their team”, benefiting from the fun and mass amounts of expensive alcohol, when in fact, a lot of the actual players and non-white and from lesser socioeconomic status. Are they being exploited for a huge amount of income for the university and the town? My guess would be a smidge.

Sigh. Only six more home games in the season.