Kyle Dennis

👋 Hey! I'm Kyle Dennis, a recovering academic who turned my background in classical rhetorical theory into a career in product design and marketing. This a personal blog that contains musings and personal experiences about topics close to my life which include my journey to Islam, politics and US government, guns, drugs, eduction policy, dis/ability, and details about my time as a campus DEI agitator.

Currently writing -- "Oberservation February" about race and Higher Education.

* If you don't want to read my candid opinion on those things, click here to see a very cute picture of a random dog.

May 12, 2025

On God

This is my clearest articulation of my personal faith to date. For the majority of my life, I would have told you that I was an Atheist, but I was lying to myself and others. I have always prayed to God privately. As a child, I knew that there was something bigger and so much greater than my life or anybody else’s. I just didn’t unders...

April 15, 2025

Reset

To the handful of folks who have subscribed to this project, whatever it is, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I regret to inform you that I have no idea what I'm doing and there wasn't a plan. For 17 days in February, I authored something that still feels incoherent and hard to track. I'm not sure what to do with what I've writte...

February 18, 2025

The view from the hill is the perspective.

The view from the hill is the perspective. If it's a legal thing for an 18 year-old in the United States of America to get a federally-backed student loan to enroll, in my opinion, into somewhat loosely regulated college classes at a school that makes students take a mandatory series of seminars on what it means to be a "good person" w...

February 17, 2025

Nothing To See Here

“Nothing To See Here” This is the story of a time I got a Nazi fired. One of my least enjoyable times as an employee of William Jewell College was in the first couple of years of working there when a guy with a big Confederate flag in the back of his truck would drive around the middle of campus and scream intimidating things at Black ...

February 16, 2025

Your Life In Weeks

Your Life In Weeks Once you conceptualize your life like that, there’s no going back. In the end, people regret that they didn’t spend more time with the people they loved, speaking up and telling the truth, taking risks, telling people they loved them, and getting to know themselves or God. Nobody will regret not spending enough time ...

February 15, 2025

Nazi Dog

“Nazi Dog” 📸: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2016

February 14, 2025

Fear is the Most Elegant Weapon

February 13, 2025

White people are not real.

Observation February Twelve "White people are not real." I do not believe in the lie of race. I am not white. For some reason, supposed white people get mad when you tell them this, which seems self-evident to me: White people don't exist. They are made up. Race is a manner of blood-purity myths, usually advanced by people who dream th...

February 12, 2025

This is journalism.

"This is journalism." 🪦 RIP Jewell Theatre Majors If it can be said that journalism is writing what you know about, then I know this: William Jewell College was built, in part, by enslaved labor. And yet, its assets have remained in predominantly white hands—including Jewell Hall, one of the most valuable parcels of land in Clay County...

February 11, 2025

Sorry, I didn’t see you standing there.

📸 by Louise -- Sorry, I didn’t see you standing there. By Jess Rezac sorry, i don’t know how to feel. we were raised by raised hands. seen only by averted eyes. — averted eyes teach closed mouths. sorry, i don’t know what to say. we weren’t taught to find the words. shown silence. — decades of silence can heal everything but the pain. ...

February 9, 2025

Who is Susan Chambers?

Observation February Nine “Who is Susan Chambers?” “While critics have not yet harnessed all of these facts, they are successfully exploiting those they do have, suggesting that, when discovered, the others will also become effective ammunition.” I’ve had precisely one interaction in my entire life with current William Jewell College P...

February 9, 2025

The Custodians of Brown Hall

“The Custodians of Brown Hall” There’s a Jewell rumor about a ghost that lives in Brown Hall— someone who drowned in the old pool that used to be in the basement. When I worked at Jewell, I was always eager to re-purpose old furniture from over-stock storage to finish out rooms for students to study, have practice debates, or just hang...

February 8, 2025

Romans 1:26-27

Romans 1:26-27 When my Grandma Shirley Dennis died, the only thing I took from her house was her Bible because she’s the first person I ever heard call someone a f*ggot. “A what?” 5-year-old me said, innocently. “A f**, a fruit, a fairy, a queer, someone who diddles kids.” “What is diddling a kid,” I thought, but was too shy to ask. I ...

February 7, 2025

You can't take any of it with you.

"You can't take any of it with you." That’s what I keep telling my mom about my dad’s stuff and all of hers. “It’s just stuff, I don’t need or want any of it,” I’ll say. “But it’s my stuff,” she’ll respond in anger at my between-the-lines dismissal of her assets, and therefore, her life of hard work spent accumulating and caring about ...

February 6, 2025

Where is William Jewell College?

Where is William Jewell College? Liberty, Missouri. Where is William Jewell? Hell. Racists Go To Hell. Simple, succinct.

February 5, 2025

I have a lucid dream of giving back the land.

I have a lucid dream of giving back the land. The thing I always loved about being a debate coach—anything was possible. Debate was, basically and for most of us, lucid. You’re aware that you’re in a dream, suspended in time and space. Different rules applied, but there was always enough to keep you grounded. Any idea could be tried on...

February 4, 2025

RIP Jewell Debate

RIP Jewell Debate Funerals are for the living. The oldest record I ever saw for the William Jewell College Debate team dated the existence of the team back to 1873, making the debating program at WJC one of the longest continuously institution-supported debate programs in the United States of America. Records collected by previous facu...

February 3, 2025

Financial Exigency

Financial Exigency If I were still the debate coach at William Jewell College, I’d be encouraging the students to debate whether Jewell should cease ongoing enrollment and hand itself over to a land trust controlled by the ancestors of victims of William Jewell’s enslavement. On Jewell’s Financial Exigency in their own words: “Followin...

February 1, 2025

Amen

Amen Key personal property of institutions like William Jewell College were built with the hands of enslaved labor, yet their assets have remained in predominantly white hands, including Jewell Hall, one of the most valuable parcels of land in Clay County. If I were hosting a debate tournament today, I'd suggest the students debate: "R...