Black people shouldn’t be exceptional to prove our humanity.

Minnesota is in the news again. This time, for the police killing of another Black man just ten miles from where George Floyd lost his life last year. Of course, just like George Floyd, this victim has already having is character destroyed by the conservative trolls on social media. While it is true that Daunte Wright did have a warrant out for his arrest, it wasn’t as dangerous as people make it seem. In 2019, the then Daunte Wright was arrested for possession of marijuana, he plead guilty. He was ordered to pay a fine of $75 plus $81 in fees. He was put on a payment plan but during the pandemic, he had defaulted in payments and it had went to collections. Because of this, they opened a warrant for his arrest. A warrant for his arrest in a city that decriminalized marijuana. A warrant for his over a single joint, in a country which more than 60% support legalizing marijuana.

However, this isn’t the first time they tried to ruin a black person’s character to justify killing them. They did it to George Floyd by painting him as a drug-addict who robbed a pregnant woman, which had been proven false. They did it to Ahmuad Arbery trying to make him look like a criminal for bringing a gun to an after school event years before his death. They did it to, Breonna Taylor simply because her ex boyfriend was a drug-dealer which social media had claimed she was involved in drug-dealing, which as proven false by her ex-boyfriend. They did it at the trial of George Zimmerman painting his victim, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, as a violent marijuana-smoking teenager, when neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman shot him on his way home from the convenience store.

Most of these accusations do not even support the reason for the use of deadly force. These cops and vigilantes lives weren’t in danger. Breonna Taylor was sleeping, Ahmuad Arbery was running, George Floyd was already on the ground with handcuffs behind his back. Why must we, as black people, must be cookie-cutter to be worthy of humanity? How come if we, or a family member does one thing wrong, we are deemed as violent and our deaths “well deserved”? When white men commit atrocities, we still try to make them seem innocent. When Brock Turner went to trial for the rape at a frat party, the media painted him as an innocent upper middle-class school boy with a bright future. They said that Atlanta spa mass shooter, Robert Aaron Long, was “just having a bad day”. They painted Ethan Couch as a victim of his own privilege because he couldn’t he couldn’t understand how his underage drinking and drunk driving killed four people and gave one of his friends permanent brain damage.

When white men commits a crime against humanity, we humanize him. We talk about the sports team he was on, his activities involving church, or how he wanted to go into the army. When we speak on the murder of a black person, we often justify their death with their past. We bring up anything that they did in their lifetime that was bad. Even if it was something as small as smoking marijuana, we use that against them to make it seem that they were a burden to this world. They brought up Trayvon’s use of marijuana but didn’t bring up his hopes of becoming a aviator. They’ll bring up how Breonna Taylor may have been involved in dealing drugs but won’t talk about how she was an award-winning EMT. They’ll speak on Oscar Grant’s stint in jail, the fact that he was a high school dropout but not how he was a loving father who was trying to change his life around. This is all just to rob us of our humanity.

Thing is, Daunte Wright wasn’t the first black person to lose his life to police brutality and he most definitely isn’t going to be the last. However, We must hold these vigilantes and police officers accountable instead of trying to blame the victim for their death.

The Reckoning of 2000’s Media:

I am a 90’s baby that grew up in the early 2000’s. Back when I was a kid, I didn’t know how much media had an effect on me. I can say I was heavily influenced by the misogyny and double-standards of the 2000s.  I was taught that Paris Hilton was a ditsy blonde slut for having been 19 having sex on camera with a 33 year old musician and having that sex tape go viral. I was taught that the teen girls on Maury were crazy and slutty for having sex with grown men. I was taught that Britney Spears was just being wild and reckless. I was taught that the harsh treatment of  Janet Jackson was exposed nipple at the 2003 Super Bowl was justified. That it was okay for her career to be ruined by it. I was taught that those teenaged girls that R-Kelly preyed upon knew what they were doing. Even at 15, I was taught girls Like Amanda Todd “deserved to kill herself” because she showed her breasts on camera. I was taught that I shouldn’t have any sympathy for these women and girls. 

However, I wasn’t taught the double standards of it. We never asked why Maury wasn’t exposing the pedophiles that were having sex with these little girls. Also, How come there was never any segments on wild teen boys? I can recall a few episodes but most of the time the focus was on teen girls. How come we let R-Kelly go free and still held him in high regard years after that sex tape with a 14-year-old girl went in the mainstream? How come we never took into account Britney Spears’s mental State? How come we often joked about rape and took sexual harassment as a regular thing that doesn’t need attention? Why did we Chastise famous women like Whitney Houston and  Courtney Love for their drug addictions but thought men like thought men like  Russell Brand and Robert Downey Jr. needed sympathy?

Almost 20 years too late Justin Timberlake finally addressed and admitted fault to Janet Jackson and Britney Spears in light of the 2021 Documentary, “Framing Britney Spears”, which described in great detail how much of a misogynistic jerk Justin Timberlake was to pop star and how he contributed to her mental breakdown. He also was spared criticism for being the one that exposed Janet Jackson’s boob while Jackson’s Career was scarred from that incident. He has also done other things that should’ve got him cancelled a long time ago. 

With all the talk over social media about early 2000’s and it’s treatment toward famous women, I can finally say that the 2000’s have reached it’s day of reckoning. Now, we can’t go back to the past and change what had happened. We can’t change the attitudes we felt during that moment in time. However, we must realize that there will be more leaked sex tapes, there will be more exposed nude photos, there will be more men trying to defame or shame women we see in the limelight. Our response is that we should start holding more men accountable for their treatment toward women. We should start canceling and exposing the men and women who put out nudes and sex videos without the person’s consent. To the women who think “that can never be me”,  you should show more solidarity to the women being humiliated online because if it can happen to her, it can happen to you too. 

Why skinny-shaming isn’t the same as fat-shaming.

I was once a fat girl. I first came to realize this when I was just kid. I was 10 years old, it was Friday and we had pizza. The school had done a physical a week prior and had wrote to my mother that I was obese. According to them I was 134 lbs when I should’ve been around 90-110lbs at the time. Instead of my mother allowing me to go outside to play and tried changing my diet, she scolded me. She blamed me for my weight and was ashamed that I was fat. She did all this while I was eating pizza. My mother after having 3 kids never thought of a healthy lifestyle for her family. That’s when my struggle with my weight began. 

In high school, I was around 140-150lbs. However, I wasn’t eating lunch at school. In college, I discovered I was 5’0 and 154lbs. In 2018 I went on a fitness and health journey and lost 32 lbs. Besides my new found confidence, I was treated better when I was in public. People who knew me when I was fat, commented on my weight loss saying I looked better. Because of the treatment I was getting I for one, can tell you that skinny-shaming is not nearly the same as fat-shaming. 

Now there was two times in my life where I lost weight. One was on my health journey back in 2018.  The other was in 2015, when I had just transferred to Virginia State University. I was literally on a diet of coffee and cigarettes everyday and very rarely was I eating food. I didn’t feel it but I had lost weight due to stress, anxiety, and depression. I had developed an eating disorder. When I came back home, my family and friends although few were concerned for my health, a lot more people asked me “what my secret was” to my weight loss.  I do take into account how people knew how much I wanted to lose weight.  Point is, no one told me that I was unhealthy when I was skinny. 

The point that I am trying to convey is that being fat-shamed is not just how people find you unattractive because you’re fat. When we think of fat we don’t think of healthy. Trust me, if you’re fat you’re not healthy. When we think of fat we think lazy, lower-class, unattractive, unhygienic, dumb etc. Fat people, for the longest time, were the butt of jokes. Fat men were looked at as stupid and neglectful while fat women were seen as desperate and unworthy of love. 

Even in real life, a fat person faces more discrimination based on their appearance than someone of an average or healthy weight. Fat people have more likely to be discriminate against and have harder time finding work and earn less.  They are taken less seriously and treated harsher in hospitals when seeking treatment. This is especially true amongst women. I knew someone in high school, who couldn’t get a job at Abercrombie because they overheard the manager say that they weren’t gonna hire someone as big as her.

            Unless the person is as skinny as Youtuber, Eugenia Cooney, no one really comments on a skinny person’s lifestyle because they just assume they are more active and living healthily. A skinny person can eat unhealthy processed  foods such as pizza or Chinese take out, a skinny person can do drugs like cocaine and no one would assume that they’re unhealthy. Yet a fat person can just exist and people believe they aren’t doing nothing to better themselves. 

            We shouldn’t bully others simply because of their appearance. However, Fat people go through more likely to be discriminated against than thinner people.  To act like skinny-shaming is on the same level as  fat-shaming is ignoring this problem. Yes, we are all judged by our appearances but most go beyond the point of just name calling and belittlement. 

All dogs go to heaven: Why DMX’s death should highlight why we must stop glorifying child abuse.

I wasn’t gonna right this post until next week. Originally, I saw a video on Tik-Tok. Where a black man gloried being hit with by a belt when he was a kid. He called it discipline. Many other folks agreed. Because apparently since you didn’t end up in prison and a the psych ward everything is good and those whippings set you straight, right? I immediately thought of DMX and how his abusive childhood was one of the reasons he got addicted to drugs. In the song, “Slippin’”, DMX, speaks on his turbulent childhood. How his mother and her boyfriends would physically abuse him. How he started doing drugs in his early teens and found comfort in the stray dogs on the streets just to escape the abuse happening at home. This addiction that he was fighting ultimately lead to his death yesterday Friday, April 9th, 2021 at the age of 50.

There are many studies done by experienced child psychologists on. The topic of child abuse. These studies have shown that there is no connection between spankings and improved behavior. It doesn’t show children the severity in their actions but it does show them how to hide from their parents. It also shows kids that they should solve their problems with aggression or fight-or-flight response. Abuse gives children low-self esteem, thinking that they are the problem. 1/3 of addicts had experienced child abuse.

I know people dealing with or had dealt with drug-addiction that stemmed from childhood abuse. My uncle Cedric, became addicted to crack-cocaine when he came to the United States in the 1980’s, however his road to addiction started way before he came to America. My grandmother was known to be abusive to her children. She was a strict Pentecostal who use to wake up her children by whipping them on Sundays.

Even when I was a child and faced corporal punishment, it didn’t make me a good student in school. I was facing truancy problems, My grades never improved. I never even liked math or doing homework because my mother was frustrated over the fact that I was not understanding my assignments. Even some of the kids that I knew who are for corporal punishment because they went through it didn’t even turn out that great. Some, during their teens and early 20’s, who got in trouble with the law a lot. Many were of whom were the most disrespectful to the teachers.

It pains me as a young millennial, to see other millennials being pro-spanking children. We are supposed to do better than the previous generation. Yet here we are setting up the same system of punishment that didn’t do any of us good. Also, if you come across this article ask yourself, “how did spanking help me?”

And while asking this question, answer these as well:

1. Did I go to my parents in looking for advice or didn’t talk to them because of fear that i may get hit?
2. Do I flinch anytime someone raises their voice at me?
3. Are you able to empathize or are emotionally inept?
4. Are you a people pleaser?
5. How many times have your parents preached against underaged drinking no marijuana but you participated in that?

Think about these questions before you speak on how “positive” corporal punishment is. We need to break this cycle of abuse!!

Why you shouldn’t judge someone based on how you knew them back in high school

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: [text reads: “The girls that bullied us in high school vs. now. Lmao I’m sorry she probably nice but… (Insert laughing emoji)”. Below picture depicts a side by side photo of a blonde haired girl in high school with blonde hair vs. the same girl in a updated photo with black and red hair and goth make up]

I’m a young adult who still lives in her hometown (unfortunately). For the past seven years, post graduation from high school, I’ve seen a few of my classmates in public and they often comment on how much I’ve changed. I often find this weird considering I still think not much has changed about me since high school. I mean, my music choices are still the same, my political views are still the same, I’m still weird. Then I realized, they’re only talking about my physical appearance. Like I’ve gotten tattoos and piercings, I have locs, I lost weight and fitness is my new groove.

However, I didn’t really change, I only changed physically and somewhat mentally as well. As a result of this, many of my classmates from high school have resorted to calling me a “poser” or “fake” because I have a more alternative look now. Which is insulting because many people didn’t know or even got to know me in high school and are only making assumptions of what they remembered of me. This is what brings me to writing this article because you can’t really base someone on how they were in high school.

One reason why you shouldn’t judge someone based on who they were in high school is because of bodily autonomy.
Now, not everyone was fortunate enough to have parents that believed in self expression and not every kid was rebellious enough to go against their parents orders. If your parents were anything like mine, then self-expression was probably a no. I look alternative now but back when I was a teen, I wasn’t even allowed to wear black, unless it was in a conservative style. I couldn’t wear shirts that featured Hendrix or Marley because It related back to drug paraphernalia. I couldn’t wear jeans with rips on them. I’ve wanted locs since I was 15 but I didn’t get them until 21 because of stereotypes associating locs with marijuana use. I didn’t even get my first pair of converse until my senior year of high school after I begged them too. This wasn’t in the school’s dress code policy but my parents dress code policy. They were very rigid on my appearance because to them, I am an example of them and according to my mom, “the way I present myself in public is how people know the home I am from”.

Came to find out later that a childs’ appearance has nothing to do with the home they are from. Unless the family is poor, and the child constantly wears rags to school or is malnourished, no one is gonna look at an alternative kid and say, “oh, that nose ring! They must come from a bad family.” Also why are judging someone with a nose ring? What have they done to you?

Even in public, if my mom saw someone who looked alternative, she just assume they came from a bad home or they do drugs. The funny part of that is, the kids that did do drugs or engaged in under-aged drinking were the kids that were involved in sports and took honors/AP classes, the ones that were considered “all-american”. Not saying that all the kids were like this but you just shouldn’t judge someone based on their appearance.

When I got to college, I started to dressing the way I wanted to. My parents weren’t around and I started stretching my ears, got a few piercing and started dressing more alternative. I started to love the way I looked and I didn’t care what anyone thought about my appearance.

Another reason why you shouldn’t judge people based on how they were like in high school is because of high school cliques.

We have all heard of the expression “show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are” and thats pretty much how people took you in high school. You’re association with others in high school can make you or break you. We judge a person and act like we know all about their life based on who they hang out with. This is not just exclusive to high school but throughout all aspects of life. We typically hang with people that have the same thought and views as us.

However in high school, alot of us acted like we knew someone’s whole life based on who they were associated with in high school.

Now, I hung out with the loners and weird kids. However, in that group of weird kids, we had one or two “goodie two-shoes”. As in, they never drank or involved themselves in marijuana use. They were considered prudes and because of this, I was considered a prude. Even when I tried to distance myself from them I was still still considered a “goodie-two shoes” even though I was just quiet.

Since, I was associated with these people I didn’t get to experience much in my teens. A lot of people didn’t invite me to things and wasn’t asked to do certain things because I was considered a prude even though I wasn’t.

The final reason why you shouldn’t judge someone based on how they were in high school is because people will change. Everyone goes through different, experimental phases in life. It’s all apart of the human experience. I knew people that were “against the system” who ended up working corporate jobs. I knew kids that partied hard become devoutly Christian. I’ve seen the very preppy kids have their emo phase at 21. People who use to tell others to “kill themselves” or they were just straight up vile or mean to other kids are the ones that act so sweet and would often talk about sharing “good vibes”. Even conservative political pundit, Kaitlin Bennett, was a wannabe scene-queen back in her teens. It doesn’t mean they are fake for doing so, they’re growing and changing and they are allowed to grow and change.

On a final note, high school is a small part of your life. Alot of us didn’t have the chance to be our true selves in high school. Also, just because people change doesn’t mean they’re fake. People allowed to explore themselves, people are allowed to try new things. So to judge someone based on how they were in school is unfair. Also If you judge someone based on how they were in high school, then high school was the peak for you.

My Red Flags in men

We all have them, red flags. The warning signs of a person that we don’t want to be around. This us setting boundaries for ourselves so that way we don’t get hurt. Red Flags aren’t blunt. I mean, no one really goes out of their way to tell on themselves, like no one is gonna come out and say “I hate women” however they would say something or exhibit behavior that makes you realize that they hate women or don’t see women as equal to men.

I came across this thread on twitter called “weird red flags” and it’s mainly people talking about things they find in other people that makes them suspicious or they are not someone to pursue when wanting a relationship. Seeing this trend on twitter, I would like to share my red flags regarding men. 

Now, if you’re a man and any of these apply to you. Don’t take it personal. I’m sure you’re probably an alright person but because of my experience with these red flags that I’m gonna share with you, I personally wouldn’t want to date you or be associated with you. So here, are my ten red flags about men. 

1. Has no Social Media:

Now, I feel most women wouldn’t find it concerning if the guy they’re interested in has no social media (or so he claims). In my experience though, most of the dudes that don’t have any social media or claim to not have any social media are probably hiding something, may have a 4chan or reddit account in which they spew hatred about women and minorities, or they might be registered sex offenders.  Yes, depending on the level of the offense most registered sex offenders can’t use the social media apps like facebook or instagram. A lot of them find loopholes around it but still. To me, not having any social media means that you’re probably hiding a wife or girlfriend you don’t want me knowing about or you’re probably a predator.

 I don’t think I’ve met offenders but most men that have told me they don’t have any other social media accounts other then Snapchat, reddit, or whisper tend to be creepy or their hiding something that they don’t want you to know.

2. Against sexual predators but does or defends predatory shit:

I have often heard men express anger over sexual predators. However, because of the #metoo era, a lot of men are starting to realize that their encounter with women might have been predatory. These men don’t apologize for their past behavior or they’ll still try to blame the women in this situation. Others may even defend their behavior.

“yeah, I did wait until she was drunk or high enough to have sex with me but that I’m not a weirdo that rapes people.”

“yeah she’s 17, but she came on to me!”

“maybe if I send this picture of my p*nis, she’ll love me!”

“I don’t pay for sex because I’m above that so I log into snapchat and harass women until they block me or send me nudes for free!”

There are men that exclaim they’ll kill pedophiles but think it’s okay to date someone as young as 16 year old when their past the age of 25 because “they don’t seem 16”. They think it’s perfectly normal when they flash women in the DMs on facebook or instagram but if a man does that in public than he’s a creep. This is still predatory behavior.

When the topic of age of consent came up in conversation, this man, that had expressed interests in me, had said “if they’re 16 or 17 then, yeah! that is pedophilia… but if they’re 18 or 19 then that’s okay.” This person was 39 at the time and unknowingly expressed that the only thing stopping him from dating younger was the law, not his morals.

Point is, if you find yourself with someone who says they hate predators but defends the idea of dating a teenager when they’re over 25, finds nothing wrong with women of a certain race being fetishized, or even plays devils advocate on the topic of rape, then I hope you run because this person is hiding something they don’t want to share.

3. Putting down other women as an attempt at flirtation:

I am an android user, a samsung user to be specific. I have been for over a decade. As a photographer, I just found the camera quality better than iPhones. When I use to work at Marshall’s I had a male colleague compliment me for being different. I asked how, and he said it was because I chose a Samsung over a iPhone and according to him, I was “different from other girls because I took quality over trends”. This annoyed me because one, he practically generalized every women and thought that we all had iPhones. Two, in that statement he made, he put down women by saying that we are all generic because of our choice in cellphones.

You don’t have to diss other women to compliment one. As a black women, I often hate it when most men try to come on to me by dissing white women or other women just to flirt.

4. Elon Musk:

Elon Musk is a dumb man’s version of a smart man. Most people look to him as some real-life Tony Stark, when really, the man was born rich due to his family’s South African diamond mine. he went to a specialized prep school. Not only that but Elon musk acts like the cool billionaire although he is heartless as any other billionaire. To be honest, this goes for anyone in the lower classes who defends any billionaire. Not all billionaires became accumulated their wealth through hard work and being incredibly smart.

5. “The double standard” :

Now, nothing bothers me more than a man who constantly must point out “double standards” when comparing men and women, particularly in cases of sexual assault or physical abuse. One of the reasons as to why I am opposed to this is because the men who do this, often don’t care about the male victim but often point out these “double standards” to shut women up when they come out with their stories of abuse. Now don’t get me wrong, I know men who have been raped or victims of domestic violence. However, they are more of an ally in the fight for womens’ liberation than to use their experience to be misogynists.

Another thing that I want to point out about the sex crime double-standard is that it makes it seem that women are automatically believed when they accuse a man of abuse and that justice happens swiftly for us but men suffer in silence. Thing is, sex crimes in general aren’t reported often. And most accused offenders regardless of gender often get off with nothing more than a slap on the risk. while Britney Zamora sits rightfully so in a californian prison, rotting away for the next 20 years, a male rapist got no jail time simply because he used a condom. Brock Turner only got six months.

6. Doesn’t believe women or minorities have it that hard:

The most ignorant thing you can do to a woman and/or a minority is telling them that their problems are minuscule. Just because we live in the 21st century, doesn’t mean things are better for women or other minorities. Women are still fighting for equal pay, paid maternity leave, and reproduction rights. Most women still find it hard to be independent in most developed countries. Just because a very few amount of women managed to break glass ceilings doesn’t mean we have accomplished equality for women. If you are talking from a place of privilege, then you have no business telling women or PoC that we are exaggerating our shared experiences.

7. All their ex’s are crazy or they have a poor view of women:

Now, if not one of your past relationships worked out, than you might be a huge factor in that. I have seen women broken down by this. Most of the time, it’s the men who caused that craziness.

8. “Preferences”:

Now don’t get me wrong on this one. We all have preferences. I prefer a man with a bachelors degree, with no kids, taller than me, between 26-30. However, because these are my dating preferences, I’m not gonna bash the men who don’t meet these preferences. I might not date them but I’m not gonna make them feel less human or less deserving of respect simply because I’m not attracted to them. Now, this I don’t find it with women but I do see this a lot with men. That if they don’t find you sexually appealing they’ll treat you like the worst thing on earth. 

9. Refers to women as everything other than women:

“Girls”, “thots”,  “bitches”, “hoes”, and “females”.  If you’re a man and you use any of these words to describe a women over the age of 20. I automatically assume that you don’t generally see women as people or your equal.  However, I don’t understand how men find it hard to refer to women as women?

It’s like the term “women” is a title to be earned. As if I must “have it all” before I get to call myself a women. And the funny thing is, I have heard people refer to boys in their teens as men. Actually, come to think about it… the only time I have ever heard someone use the term “women” is when a sex scandal breaks out and becomes national news. All of a sudden, that child isn’t a girl anymore, they’re considered “underaged woman”. Which downplays the scary trend of sexualizing teenaged girls.

10. How they treat women they aren’t attracted to:

If you read number 8, then you know I am about to piggy-back here. One of my biggest red flags is how you treat women who you aren’t related to and women you aren’t attracted to. Now, I have been on both sides of this. Where a dude disrespected me for not being attractive enough for him but also had men treat me with the upmost “respect” simply because they found me cute. If a man is treating me kindly while treating the next women like garbage simply because she’s not attractive, it shows that he doesn’t respect women or sees them as human. Plus, even having “respect” for women you find attractive isn’t respect. This is just another sexual conquest for you.

When I was younger, I use to ignore the red flags and ultimately I got played simply because I put being kind and accepting over my own worth. Today, I’ve learn from the past, and I do believe we shouldn’t ignore these red flags. I am still a nice person but I refuse to be around people who don’t value me. If we ignore red flags, we are ignoring our boundaries and settling simply because we fear being alone. So if someone has a Red Flag, do not ignore that sign. Remember, they are called red flags for a reason.

Share your thoughts in the comments! Agree or disagree? Also, what are your red flags?

Is college worth it?

Is college worth it? Do you really need a degree to secure a job? Does it give you respect when you are among others?

It is believed that the next generation will be better with the previous one. With our generation, we were told that college is the only way towards success. However, with the current times we are in, it’s hard to believe that it still holds true. Millennials are the most educated generation in history. However, a lot of us are in crippling debt that from the loans we unknowingly signed up for at 18. More than 50% of us still live with our parents after college. With many of our educated friends and colleagues still in low-paying menial jobs, with many of us not in fields that we majored in, and with the ever rising cost of tuition it makes you wonder, “is college worth it or is it a scam?” Let us dive in, to see why that may so many of us believe college education isn’t worth it anymore.

Is your major marketable?

In the job market, you need applicable skills. Many of us majored in degrees that, aren’t marketable. Hence why you see so many college educated people working in careers that had nothing to do with their major. So if you’re degree is not in science, business, law or education, then you might want to reconsider going to college.

It’s not about what you know, it’s who you know: 

One thing that makes a person successful in life is the connections they have. Even though college.Even though Affirmative action was passed in 1965 so that white women and other minorities have the right to go to college. The process to get into college, is still unfair. For example, if a kid from a lower income neighborhood and a kid from upper class neighborhood can have the same stats, academically and applied to Princeton. Princeton will more likely accept the kid from the upper class neighborhood. Why? Because the kid may have more connections to Princeton than the kid from the lower income neighborhood. He could have parents or grandparents that were went to Princeton and got in because of his legacy status. Their parents may have donated money a lot of money to Princeton which secured his spot. Many children who come from well-to-do families have this advantage over poor children. One real life example of this is Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law who got into Harvard with a 2.5gpa and mediocre SAT scores. However, his father pledged 2.5 million dollars to the school right before Jared kushner was admitted.

Ableism and classism:

College is a class-gateway. It is also going to be difficult if you have a learning disorder or you’re neurodivergent. Most people dropout of college due to financial inability. Hence why the more prestigious universities and colleges are more inclined to accept those in from middle class to upper middle class backgrounds. Besides financial reasons many students come from high schools that were poorly funded. Besides subjects like math and science, Some schools don’t even have art programs. Most didn’t have after school programs to go to. Because the schools don’t offer AP or IB programs. So when they go to college they are already at a disadvantage.  I for one, have a learning disorder. It hard for me to concentrate. Plus math is hard for me and no I do not mean it generically. Anything above fifth grade math is hard for me to do. And doing it without a calculator is even harder. Most remedial math classes in college forbid you from using a calculator. This was difficult, since I’ve used a calculator from the 6^th grade up to high school. However this problem started in the school district that I came from that doesn’t push kids who aren’t honors students or athletes not the colleges I attended.

Degrees don’t mean job security.

I have a BA in Communications with a concentration in media production. And one thing I often joke about when people ask me what my degree is all about. I typically say, “Oh I just spent 4.5 years and a lot of money to learn how to hold a camera.”  And that’s basically it. When I use to hang with my art and music friends, most of them had aspired to be famous. However you don’t need a degree for that. Most of our favorite musicians, actors, and artist didn’t need college for that it was just their god-given talent that made them who they are. Not only that but I remember watching YouTube videos and realizing that most of these content creators didn’t go to school to hold a camera. They just learn it online.

It’s a business:

When one thinks of college they don’t think of it as a business. However like business, regardless of whether you go to small liberal arts college in the northeast or a state college out west, all colleges share have one thing in common, a Corporate business structure. A typical college in America has a president (CEO) however college has different schools (departments) with in their campuses. Their students are customers. They get people with no credit history to unknowingly take out loans they may never pay back that’s how they make their money.

My final opinion:

             Is college worth it? Yes. Is it a scam? Not 100% percent.

Let’s face it. In this world, regardless of where you go you can not go without some sort of qualification.   On average the more educated you are the more money you make. I knew someone who use to gloat about how he made 50k a year and didn’t go to college. However, it took him longer to make that amount and had to various jobs before landing a job as a security officer for a retail company. Even though, he makes 50k he actually works more than 50+ hours to make just as much as someone who makes that in half the time or less.  Although people say you can just “learn it online”, I wouldn’t trust someone with no medical degree or license to perform surgery on me because they watched a video tutorial on it. That’s why it’s not fully a scam because we need lawyers, we need doctors, we need educators, we need engineers. We can’t rely on YouTube videos or online articles.

My college career wasn’t an easy one. I went through periods of depression, I’ve taken semesters off and I went to three different colleges. I use to feel as if I was wasting my life going to college. Especially when you look at people who didn’t go to college who are thriving while you’re struggling to make money. Sometimes, I even wanted to dropout. However, looking back now that I’m in my late 20s, those same people who I believed were thriving, had to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet. And while some might use Bill gates in this argument, it is not true for all college dropouts or most who didn’t pursue college. 

It also feels good to say that I am a college graduate. Not only for the status but to finally hold myself up in a society that wanted to see me fail. 

“Not like other girls” and pick-me’s: are they same?

NLOG= not like other girls.

When I was younger, I was what you consider a girl who was, “not like other girls”. I thought I was cool and unique because I felt different from most girls. Grant it,  other girls reminded me that I wasn’t like them because, according to them, I wasn’t pretty enough or not being feminine enough and not having the latest trends geared towards girls. I hung out with the nerds and weirdos, and the few male friends had use to tell me, “you’re different. You’re not like other girls” as a compliment. I would actually be happy about this because girlhood was often portrayed as boring in media. Films and television shows made it cool to be a girl who’s not like other girls. Even girls who were considered “not like other girls” used that to make fun of themselves because they considered themselves inadequate when it came to other girls. 

In the past few years, the internet started using a new word for girls who thought they were different, “Pick-me”. This term originated in african-american vernacular english (AAVE). A “pick me” is a girl or a woman who thinks that she’s better than other girls and people believe that Pick-me’s are the same as NLOGs. However,  NLOGs are different from women and girls who are considered “pick me’s”. 

NLOGs, while knowing they don’t really fit in with other women, aren’t necessarily doing it for male attention and they are not really trying to compete with other women. NLOGs are pretty much the awkward girl, the nerdy girl, the tomboy, or literally just girls who are seen as shy, quiet, and doesn’t really light up room. While NLOGs are left in girlhood and grow older and wiser, Pick-me’s, are a more extreme version of NLOGs. They compete with women and adhere to the misogynist rhetoric that men spew about women. They do so by making themselves seem superior towards other woman and they shame other women in the process. This is just so they can appeal more to men. 

Pick me’s tend to follow traditional gender roles and are victims of internalized misogyny. They’ll typically gloat about how they are “wifey material” because they cook and clean. They make fun of other women just for doing fun stuff like clubbing, drinking, or dressing in a “scandalous” way. They even blame women for the sexism that oppresses them. They think feminism is outdated and the modern version of feminism just hates men. They believe men have it harder than women in this world and even think men are the true victims of society even though statistics, data, and just…logic will prove otherwise. 

Because they feel superior to other women, they don’t help women who are trying to build themselves up. They don’t mind shaming and degrading other women just to get the approval of men. They typically make themselves the voice of all women when they agree with a man who says something sexist or misogynistic. One example of this is the word “Female”. If there was a group of ten women who say they don’t like it when men refer to them as female, instead of women or girls. Then one of those ten women comes out to say, “well, I don’t find a problem with that word.”.  Pick-me’s put way too much value in men and finding a man.  Making  it seem like everything that women do, we do for the attention of  men. 

Now, NLOG’s have probably slut-shamed women and thought it was cool to have guy friends. However, NLOGs just really took pride in not being full-on girly girls. They never felt accepted into girlhood, sometimes they were even bullied by their peers for not adhering to the status quo. And while NLOGs liked being accepted by men, Pick-me’s are often trying to appeal more to men. I know this because the popular girls use to make fun of me for not being girly enough. It’s ironic because the same girls that use to make fun of me for being an NLOG are the same ones have turned into pick-me’s.

With that being said, as a NLOG in my youth, I thought it was cool to be different from other girls. However,  when I became an adult I realized that women and girls aren’t a monolith, we aren’t all just the color pink and lipgloss. We are a multifaceted sex. We could be dykes but wear make up, we can be gothic but still love bright colors. We could be into trending fashion but still play violent video games. We are all different in our own way.  And while there are still women out there that feel superior to other women in some manner,  sexism and misogyny is here to remind all women that regardless of what we do, we will never be respected by men nor will men accept us as equals. Instead we should help build each other up. Instead of shaming NLOGs and pick-me’s we should teach other women about internalized misogyny instead of shaming them for their ignorance because we we’re probably pick-me’s and NLOGs at some point in our lives. 

@theneverbroken, copyright 2021.