On Student Loan Debt and System Design

The student loan debt ruling was shared with the masses this morning. You can likely guess the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling without having to go and look it up.

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And there goes the possibility of millions of U.S. Americans being able to break cycles of debt and poverty in their lifetime and generations to come. And all because they wanted an education to improve things for themselves and their families. That's what we were told to do, right? Take out loans that have grown increasingly more predatory over the past thirty years with little to no governmental checks and balances to go to college to get degrees that we might barely earn a living with, if we're lucky, just enough left over to spend the next fifty years of our lives trying to repay them while trying to eat, pay our bills, take care of our mental and physical health, and save money to help the next generation seek an education without the shackles they witness us unable to break.

The beat goes on.

And it's all by design in a country whose decision-makers have openly let it be known how they feel about the masses being educated, especially the poor and underserved, the melanated, and those whom the original sins of this unceded land have rendered invisible and subhuman.

I guess most of us best get back to budgeting. September will be here before we know it.

On Affirmative Action and the Designing of Systems

Affirmative action.

It's wild to me that the United States always finds a way to ensure the melanated, especially Black, Brown, and Indigenous folx, know that they don't deserve anything. No options. No opportunities. No possibilities for advancement or breaking the generational shackles of white supremacy.

It's wild to me that those who have power and positionality provided by their proximity to white supremacy (or, in some cases, those who sell their souls to garner favor from white supremacy) get to make decisions that impact those whom laws were supposed to support and amplify.

It's also wild to me that white supremacy continues to try and wield Global Majority folx as weapons against one another, in this case, trying to place the onus for their decision to dismantle affirmative action on the heads of AAPI communities so they don't have to take ownership of the fact that white supremacy's goal is to own nothing that it inflicts upon those it views as less than.

It's wild but not surprising.

It's all working by design.

Let's be honest with ourselves. Affirmative action was appeasement. Affirmative action had become a tool almost exclusively structured for white women to achieve academic access. The data shows this. Hell, white women were suing colleges and universities a few years ago because they felt they didn't get the college placements they "deserved." However, it was one of the only things still in place in this country that remotely offered educational access and socioeconomic progress to communities that were never meant to move beyond poverty, hate, and enslavement. And when you live in a country that likes to parade around how good it believes it is to its citizenry for the world to see, you find yourself clinging to the ledge where the little things you fought for by the tips of your fingers while hoping something better will come.

But we're not getting something better this time, are we?

Instead, we're getting an oily ledge that will impact the grips of melanated folx for generations.

All by design.

The beat goes on. The generational chains of poverty will continue to chafe the wrists and ankles of Black bodies. The progeny of the Black bodies that endured being considered subhuman slaves for hundreds of years will still be regarded as such. AAPI communities will continue to be weaponized to harm others in the name of whiteness, preserving the perceived right to power and comfort of whiteness while doing generational harm to AAPI folx. White women will continue to have the ability to harm melanated folx and take opportunities from their communities because of their proximity to white masculine cisgender societal norms, losing a system of advancement that catered to them exclusively for decades but believing that this decision is not aimed at them. Hence, their place in the pecking order is "safe."

The design is working.

It just isn't working for those who aren't white.

By design.

Black Poetry Tuesdays (June 27, 2023 Edition): "Who Said It Was So Simple" by Audre Lorde

This week's Black Poetry Tuesday poem comes from writer, activist, radical feminist, professor, and philosopher Audre Lorde. I present Audre's powerful poem, "Who Said It Was Simple, " to y'all."

Who Said It Was So Simple

"There are so many roots to the tree of anger   
that sometimes the branches shatter   
before they bear.

Sitting in Nedicks
the women rally before they march   
discussing the problematic girls   
they hire to make them free.
An almost white counterman passes   
a waiting brother to serve them first   
and the ladies neither notice nor reject   
the slighter pleasures of their slavery.   
But I who am bound by my mirror   
as well as my bed
see causes in colour
as well as sex

and sit here wondering   
which me will survive   
all these liberations."

Lorde's focus in the piece was to point out the racism and classism of the feminist movement's whiteness and lack of intersectionality. She turns the language of the women she's observing back against them, using it to underscore how the "liberations" they seek both depend on and exclude "problematic girls" such as Lorde. Audre, who openly talked about the difficulties and traumas that came with being viewed as "other" in every group her identities were part of, keeps it short and sweet with this piece. But you can also sense her exhaustion, her need to make sure her identities were viewed as relevant and not tokenized. This piece was written in 1973 but is still relevant and impactful in 2023.

You can learn more about Audre Lorde here.

On Normalizing a New Normal

Normalize walking away from people and relationships that do not energize, elevate, comfort, or support you, your trauma, and your healing how you need them to.

Normalize walking away from people and relationships that let it be known, blatantly or subtly, that your focusing on your health and well-being is somehow an affront to their toxicity and how they want to use your shoulders to carry their trauma.

Normalize the understanding that blood may be thicker than water, but they are both liquids with the power to drown you, body and soul, and you deserve to remain undrowned.

Normalize that there is a thin line between codependence and helping and supporting those you love and that the line is so thin because, for many of us, it is a taut thread of generational and societal trauma that our families and friends are scared to tug on lest it unravels and leave us to face our traumas raw and unfiltered.

Normalize embodying that you are enough and deserve to rest, heal, and be surrounded by supportive people who care about you and your needs.

Normalize that all of the above-mentioned are not selfish thoughts.

Normalize a new normal.

We all deserve that.

Black Poetry Tuesdays (June 20, 2023 Edition): "I Apologize" by Oscar Brown, Jr.

Let's start a new weekly tradition, y'all. Here's the first installment of Black Poetry Tuesdays, an opportunity to be exposed to poets you've never heard of and works from those whose mainstream works might be more familiar than their B-sides.

Let's start with a lil' satire in the form of "I Apologize" from the late great singer-songwriter Oscar Brown, Jr.

I Apologize

"I apologize for being black

All I am plus all I lack

Please, sir, please, ma'am

Give me some slack

‘Cause I apologize

I apologize for being poor

For being sick and tired and sore

Since I ain’t slick

Don’t know the score

I do apologize

I apologize because I bear

Resemblance most black people share

Thick lips, flat nose, and nappy hair

Yes I apologize

I apologize for how I look

For all of the lows and blows I took

On those, Lord knows, I’d close the book

As I apologize

I apologize for all I gave

For letting you make me yo’ slave

And going to my early grave

Yes I apologize

I apologize for being caught

For being sold, for being bought

For being told I count for naught

Yeah I apologize

I apologize for all I’ve done

For all my toil out in the sun

Don’t want to spoil your righteous fun

So I apologize

I apologize and curse my kind

For being fooled, for being blind

For being ruled and in your bind

Yes I apologize

I apologize and curse my feet

For being slow, for being late

Because I know it’s me you hate

Why not apologize

I apologize and tip my hat

‘Cause you so rich and free and fat

Son of a bitch, that’s where it’s at

And I apologize."

Learn more about Oscar Brown, Jr. here.