Facebook Publication Date: 11/23/2021 1:11

I feel perhaps that I am taking a different lesson from this.

If the student in question *had not* done well in college, would her life still have value?

I could care less about the veracity of whether or not she got into college with the grade point average that she did.

There are many ways to work around that. There’s Community College, there are certain colleges that don’t give a rip about GPA oh, and there’s remedial studies once she’s there.

Let’s set that aside.

I wonder about the girl who had the same experience but didn’t Triumph, or more accurately, *didn’t Triumph by the world’s standards*.

There comes a point in time in a young person’s life when they stop being heroic for ‘overcoming’, if they manage to overcome, but rather when they start getting blamed for not doing as well as *we* think they should, even given those deficits.

The *only* time we talk about heroism is when we get what we feel is a happy ending.

And we *never* talk about the systems and the barriers in place that make heroism a necessary virtue in the first place.

And we don’t talk about the toll that it takes on this heroic, perhaps mythical, young woman as she had to navigate school and probably at least one, maybe more than one job oh, about what she had to sacrifice in terms of collegial life so that she could grind away for probably not for four years, but more likely 5 to 7, which is how long it takes the average person to actually obtain a four-year degree, the debt load she’s probably carrying oh, and the fact that if she came from such modest circumstances, even when she finishes college, she will indeed be expected to help take care of family. This is particularly true for black and brown students.

That is what I’m thinking about.

What if she dropped out, and now she works second shift at the 7-Eleven on Lemon Grove Avenue?

Will we still look her in the eye?

Will we still praise her for getting up out of bed under challenging circumstances?

Or, because she cleans Slurpee machines for a living, do we feel she’s an abject failure and thus not deserving of a bed and a decent life?

Let’s tell the truth.

*Most people do not go to college*.

Regardless of whether or not they have an innerspring mattress or not.

Read that again. That most people go to college is a myth, very much like 2,000 square feet of Manhattan real estate while working as a waitress. Looking at you, Rachel and Monica.

Most who start college don’t finish, particularly if they’re black or brown, particularly if they come from Modest circumstances. At least not the first time around.

What about them?

Praising this perhaps mythical creature absolutely throws the rest of her compatriots under the bus.

That is what I will be thinking about as I go to bed tonight.

Thank you Brian Koon for prompting this meditation.

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