I met with local sk8er boi Cliff Jenkins on the front steps of the Rock, since this is the only public space in which he spends his time. He greeted me with a disinterested nod and we sat down to chat about some of the rumors that have been circling. Right off the bat, Cliff emphasized that he “started reading Marx in sixth grade, not seventh.” This is a huge misconception that he urgently wants to correct. Can you believe that he was a mere twelve years old when he grasped the nuances of the M-C-M, or money-capital-money, theory? Wow! Some say this is, in fact, the event that inspired him to do MCM at Brown (“theory track, of course, lmao”).
Cliff then hurriedly reminded me that he is “totally a feminist.” It’s worth acknowledging that Cliff follows not one but two women of color on Twitter. While I find this very impressive, I also felt a need to remind Cliff of his reputation as being emotionally manipulative and abusive towards women. In response, he snorted and fished a cig out of the back pocket of his black, cropped Dickies, muttering “paranoid” as he rolled his eyes. He quickly moved the conversation toward “the important stuff,” reassuring me that he didn’t want to invalidate my experience as a “female”, but that he just doesn’t really care. “Wouldn’t it be a better use of our time to discuss exploitative labor as removed from any context of race or gender?” Good point, Cliffyboi!
It was here that the conversation started to get a little strange. As we talked, I decided to accept his general hostility as part of his alt charm. Just another quirk from a quirkie boi! It was hard to discern exactly what Cliff was trying to say, though I will recount what I am able to here. At several points he extended his hands, shrugged, and exclaimed “praxis amirite???” Soon after he started raving about craft beer and fair trade coffee, which is actually much more complex than I realized. It’s really interesting. You should ask Cliff to tell you about it sometime.
I got a little lost during Cliff’s detailed summary of Marx’s Das Kapital. I guess I just don’t have the theoretical background to get it. Other things Cliff explained include music and white cisheteropatriarchy. I find discussions of this topic are not dominated by cis white men frequently enough, so it was really interesting to hear all of his hot takes. Although it was difficult to get a word in, I did manage to mention at one point that something he had said was a little triggering. Well, boi, did I feel dumb! Did you know that PC culture and safe spaces are actually ruining honest discourse? Yeah, Cliff explains the whole thing really well. You should ask him to tell you about it sometime.
At this point, Cliff had to run for undisclosed reasons, so we quickly wrapped up our conversation. He gave me another nod and lazily muttered “catch you round” as he slithered down the steps.
I contacted Cliff later that day to follow up about his specific opinions about locally-roasted coffee (I still don’t think I get it), but he responded 7 hours later with merely a “u up.” Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get in touch with him since then. What a mysterious little boi!
Update: Cliff is looking for a bassist. If you’re down (“and hot lol”) please add him on snap or insta @sk8fasteatassjkidefdont.
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