The sequence of ideas in our class conversations never stops amazing me. I have a lot of international students. When reading from their journals, which is where they explore writing songs, some choose painful memories. There is no better choice for writing a song; art heals. Why not go head first towards any wound. A young Indian woman read something she wrote about her life changing at fourteen because of skin colour. Told she was inferior because of how dark she was and this blindsided her. Until then, this was not a line of thought ever meaningful. She was normal. The result was insecurity and obsessively purchasing skin-lightening creams, she confessed. I did not know any of this. In India, I asked? Yes, she said, and other Indian students piped up this was their experience growing up as well. Just moments before, the class was discussing Trump. It came during an album presentation about Kanye West and near the end the presenter brought up controversies. One of them was Kanye supporting Trump which angered one student who led a conversation explaining Trump’s appeal to racists. Then another student challenged him for proof because more black people voted for Trump in the recent election plus Trump had appointed more than just white men to important positions during his first term and now this time. The first student claimed it was tokenism only. The student at the corner who never talks, raised her hand. She said it’s no different than Spotify allowing anyone to upload their music and claim their an artist but only very few impress listeners with how perfect their music is. I asked can you be more specific with your point? She said life does not need people to be intelligent it just requires people wasting their time in ignorance. Someone’s getting an A.