I Call This Look

the ‘What is Omar Even Doing’?

Omar is a Professor in the Philosophy department at Princeton. Omar was never tenure-track per se — he was given tenure immediately upon hiring, seven years ago. He is now thirty-five.

Omar always sticks out in the department’s annual photo. This is because everyone else wears suits. But every day is Casual Friday with Omar.

At the annual department Christmas banquet, Omar always shows up late. Omar doesn’t eat anything but the shrimp, and he always brings his own drinks. He brings two bottles of Colt 45, and mixes them with lemonade from the drink table. If anyone says anything about it, he tells them that they are racist.

Omar is pretty popular with the ladies. He’s much more popular, however, with the white men, which is a little strange because he is constantly telling them that they are racist. In fact, he generally doesn’t speak to white people, except to say one of the following three things:

1. You’re racist.
2. You’re sexist.
3. You’re a sexist racist homophobe, get out of my office.

But Omar doesn’t raise his voice. Omar is always laid back, even that one time last year when he walked on stage and interrupted the Provost during his Convocation speech to tell him that vanilla ice cream is racist. This year, all dorms on campus only serve chocolate or pistachio.

Omar loves pistachio.

Omar usually doesn’t go to academic conferences, but when he does, he sits in the back. Omar never brings a pen and paper to take notes, but he does bring an immaculately maintained, 1999 pink camo Gameboy Color, on which he either plays Pokémon (Red) or Tetris. He wears headphones. A few people have looked over his shoulder as he plays, and they say that he’s quite good.

Nobody in the Philosophy department has ever seen Omar teach, but the reviews from his students are always stellar. He’s got a near-perfect score on RateMyProfessors.com, and it’s only near-perfect because someone accidentally gave him a 4 out of 5 for “Helpfulness”, and then forgot their password. They logged in under a different account to apologize, and also sent Omar a pair of tickets to the rodeo.

Omar loves the rodeo.

Sometimes the department head asks Omar to come to a meeting, but Omar replies that he can’t, because it is Ramadan. He does this all year.

One time Omar left in the middle of the Spring semester. The University Administration was angry, but he told them that he had to leave for his biannual Kwanzaa Pilgrimage to his ancestral homelands of Hawaii, Thailand, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. They were upset, but they let him go, because he called them racist.

He was gone until June, at which point it was time for summer vacation. Naturally, he received a pay raise upon return.

Nobody is entirely sure how he got hired at Princeton, but it seems to have something to do with a rumor that he has been ghostwriting all of Noam Chomsky’s work since 1995, and most of Michio Kaku’s work since about 2000. These rumors have never been substantiated, but Noam Chomsky has been seen wearing sunglasses that look an awful lot like Omar’s lately. Slavoj Žižek has Omar on speed dial. That last one is not a rumor.

Omar rejects requests by other faculty to monitor his classes, on the grounds that “the White Man’s presence would ruin the whole vibe”. The department has talked about hiring something other than a white man to circumvent this for the past few years, but hasn’t really gotten around to it yet.