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It's a hashtag and Felicity Huffman and Aunt Becky's face are plastered all over everywhere. You know what's not plastered? Their damn mugshots because it's been decided that those won't be released publicly. And where the fuck is William H. Macy's face? He's Huffman's husband, and therefore, assumably, the father of the kids they were bribing folks to get into college. But nevermind that this mom and this mom's shots were everywhere--BECAUSE THEY WENT TO JAIL for a similar thing. Goodness, their cases and harsh as fuck sentences seem different in the light of March 2019.
Let's see what kind of time ANY of these 50 people get for federal FELONY crimes and RICO violations.
My guess: NONE
But here's the thing: is this really a scam though? Or is this just normal, business as usual run through to its fallacious, slippery slope end? Is anyone really surprised?
Because let's be honest, no POC, underprivileged youth, first gen college student, low-income person, or anyone who ever had to work doubly and triply as hard or were ever told "college might be a stretch for you" is survived by this.
You know who else isn't surprised: people who work in higher ed. We've LONG known that who gets into colleges, who goes to the better schools, who can throw their weight around gets better opportunities. What's the saying? The best way to be rich in life is to be born rich.
This investigation and these arrests should surprise precisely no one. Because let's be real: there are plenty of legal methods to cheat the system. But tell me again how we're a meritocracy and award people for what they can achieve and accomplish through their own hard work. Go ahead. Tell me that again. And then you can purchase this Brooklyn Bridge or Bridge to Nowhere, and go fuck yourself. (Can you sense I'm agitated about this? Read on to find out why.)
So, let's consider who might be surprised: 1) middle income people who save and save and do their best to put their kids in school, wishing like hell they could afford better schools, tutors, exam prep shit. 2) wealthy and privilege people who were using the "legal" bribing. 3) people who still are under the delusional belief that this is a meritocracy. 4) people who delusionally believe that people are only successful in life because they worked really hard.
Obviously, this mess has me feeling some type of way. I've been reading about this since the news broke, but I'd been struggling to express my thoughts, until I read "The College Admissions Scandal Should Remind Grads Of Color We Were Always Good Enough"--which set off a storm of bees in my head.
Way too often in my undergrad years, I'd hear white students (typically who came from money) complaining that the black students got scholarships while their parents had to pay full tuition. Lordy does that feed into one's impostor syndrome, and ramp up the anxiety you already had. You hear that shit enough, and you're conditioned to question: "oh, god. Am I NOT good enough? Am I really taking someone else's space?" And then you recall that shit like the Fisher v. University of Texas case advanced to the Supreme Court and remember Justice Scalia's (ugh!) comments that “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well,” Scalia said, “as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school ... a slower-track school where they do well.” Whut!? No, fuck you. I worked hard, bust my ass to work twice and thrice as hard, but because someone else feels they deserve this spot more than you, they'll sue.
Yes, we were always good enough. And though some will never think so, we always will be, and in some instances, we're better than people who piss away tons of opportunities that their privilege and wealth has afforded them while STILL complaining about what others have been "given." No, we worked hard as hell to EARN our scholarships because we grew up KNOWING the world wouldn't give us shit unless we worked doubly, sometimes triply as hard as the average white student.
And good god, don't let me get started on the microaggressions.
"You're so articulate...for a black person (from Memphis)."
Yes, of course I am. I read dictionaries and encyclopedias and watch documentaries for fun. I'm pretty well-read. I'm a fucking nerd, a fucking walking encyclopedia of knowledge. My memory palace is ginormous!
And then, we arrive here--where we find that wealthy, privileged parents who already had legal bribing methods out here stealing, scheming, and breaking laws to get their maybe bright, maybe not kids into schools. Taking up space that a student with tons of talent, tons of skills, but not the network or networth of these wealthy folks. They're out here taking up space, can't even fill out apps that the rest of us some how figured out, and still complaining and don't want to be there. This is affluenza--without, or before, the murder.
So, yeah, I'm pissed.
This case proves what many of us have known for a very long time--the game is rigged. It always has been. It always will be. Most kids of color and low-income people hit a wall of meritocracy being a myth around middle school when we start to come of age and see that for some people no matter how hard they work, they'll never climb out and for others, no matter how many times they fail or prove they are dumb as a box of rocks, they will always have someone there to smooth things over and buy them a better future.
For the lucky ones who hit that wall, we have people around us who support and nurture us and keep pushing us until we regain our confidence and keep striving--even harder because we now see how fucked the world is.
For the lucky ones, we find our tribe of people with similar experiences or if not, at least the empathy and compassionate to understand your experiences and keep pushing you along too.
For the lucky ones, we grow into functional, productive citizens who never have to work for an incompetent, mediocre ass whose wealth, privilege, and parents bought them their position in life all while they thought they earned everything they have.
Pay attention.
Be informed.
Fight back against the asininity.
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