Blackrook
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- Jun 20, 2014
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Dear Middle-Class People: Itâs Time to Cut the Entitled âNetworkingâ Crap
Dear Middle-Class People: Itâs Time to Cut the Entitled âNetworkingâ Crap
January 9, 2016 by Josette Souza
âNo, this upper-middle-class white girl did not just ask me to help her get famous.â
That was the first thought that ran through my head after receiving an e-mail from a former classmate I had just run into at a party asking me for professional help.
âThis is a long shot, but,â this woman wrote to me in an e-mail, the subject line of which began with âHelp?,â âIâm writing because you mentioned that you are one of the new staff members at Everyday Feminism, andâŚâ
She then preceded to ask me to advertise her blog to my new jobâs 250k+ Facebook followers, a blog she had decided to make feminist three days ago just so I could advertise it for her.
I stared at the e-mail for a hot minute, astonished at the depth of entitlement that lay bare before me, a level of entitlement I didnât even know existed â and I spent four years at an Ivy League university.
When youâre a working-class, first-generation student of color whoâs grown up in poverty, nobody gives you a map to navigate that confusing cluster of educational years we call college.
When youâre a working-class, first-generation student of color attending an Ivy League university 1,300 miles from where you grew up, nobody prepares you for the shocking amount of confusion, self-doubt, and anxiety youâll experience as you try to keep from drowning under all the money, power, and privilege most of your classmates throw around like it was confetti.
And, as I have now recently learned, when youâre a formerly poor, class-transitioning, first-generation college graduate of color with a shiny new full-time dream job at a big online independent feminist magazine, absolutely no one tells you about the bullshit your former classmates will try to pull with you.
I had known this woman for my entire four years of college â she was best friends with someone who lived three doors down from me in our freshman year, she was a part of the very insular social justice scene at my school, and she was a member of the tiny group of 17 people from my class majoring in Africana studies.
Over the years, I had attended her a capella concerts, taken classes with her, heard her preface her activism with pithy acknowledgements of her white upper-middle-classed-ness, and gone to the same holiday parties as her. Needless to say, our paths had crossed dozens, if not hundreds, of times.
And this woman had not even once tried to get to know me.
No matter how many times I attempted to engage her in conversation over the four years I had known her, she consistently brushed me off and wouldnât even respond to questions I asked her directly at dinner parties we attended.
Most of the time, she wouldnât even say hello to me.
Eventually I gave up, as her message to me each time we crossed paths became abundantly clear: I was not worth her time and effort.
That is, until I had something that she could use.
My time as a visitor in the Ivy League world taught me many things, not the least of which that there are hordes of middle- and upper-middle-class people out there who are encouraged to see the people around them only in terms of how they can use them.
This behavior is not only rampant, itâs normalized. We wrap it up in a pretty bow and call it networking. Weâre told that the only way to get ahead is by knowing the right people or knowing when to use the people around you at the right times.I watched her run around campus talking mad junk about radical politics, oppression, and resistance â and yet not one bit of her $250,000 degree in Africana studies seemed to make any meaningful dent in her consciousness when it comes to living anti-oppression in life.
This woman, who has almost every conceivable privilege in the world, thought it was permissible to disregard my existence for four years and then use me, a working-class person of color, for her personal and professional gain once she found out I was just hired at one of the largest feminist media outlets in the world.
Because struggling through poverty, racism, sexism, and class oppression isnât enough â I need to carry her on my back as well.
In this womanâs mind, I am some thing that exists only to serve her in her great big middle-class white girl dreams of fame and glory.
Well, I have news for her and every other middle-class former classmate trying to act out their elitist and dehumanizing values on me:I never have been â and never will be â here for you, so you can just move right along.
*******
Wow, I think this is the most self-destructive articles I have ever seen anyone write. Not only is this girl burning bridges with a former classmate, she is burning bridges with every graduate at Harvard who is "middle class" (white?).
This article is the reason minorities, especially blacks, have such a hard time succeeding. They just aren't smart enough to realize that getting ahead in life through networking is more important than getting revenge.
Maybe the woman described in the article was a bitch, but making her an enemy in this very public way, so that every graduate in her class will know who she is, will ultimately backfire. This girl will be blackballed by her former classmatesm (and their powerful parents) and will ultimately be a failure in life.
Dear Middle-Class People: Itâs Time to Cut the Entitled âNetworkingâ Crap
January 9, 2016 by Josette Souza
âNo, this upper-middle-class white girl did not just ask me to help her get famous.â
That was the first thought that ran through my head after receiving an e-mail from a former classmate I had just run into at a party asking me for professional help.
âThis is a long shot, but,â this woman wrote to me in an e-mail, the subject line of which began with âHelp?,â âIâm writing because you mentioned that you are one of the new staff members at Everyday Feminism, andâŚâ
She then preceded to ask me to advertise her blog to my new jobâs 250k+ Facebook followers, a blog she had decided to make feminist three days ago just so I could advertise it for her.
I stared at the e-mail for a hot minute, astonished at the depth of entitlement that lay bare before me, a level of entitlement I didnât even know existed â and I spent four years at an Ivy League university.
When youâre a working-class, first-generation student of color whoâs grown up in poverty, nobody gives you a map to navigate that confusing cluster of educational years we call college.
When youâre a working-class, first-generation student of color attending an Ivy League university 1,300 miles from where you grew up, nobody prepares you for the shocking amount of confusion, self-doubt, and anxiety youâll experience as you try to keep from drowning under all the money, power, and privilege most of your classmates throw around like it was confetti.
And, as I have now recently learned, when youâre a formerly poor, class-transitioning, first-generation college graduate of color with a shiny new full-time dream job at a big online independent feminist magazine, absolutely no one tells you about the bullshit your former classmates will try to pull with you.
I had known this woman for my entire four years of college â she was best friends with someone who lived three doors down from me in our freshman year, she was a part of the very insular social justice scene at my school, and she was a member of the tiny group of 17 people from my class majoring in Africana studies.
Over the years, I had attended her a capella concerts, taken classes with her, heard her preface her activism with pithy acknowledgements of her white upper-middle-classed-ness, and gone to the same holiday parties as her. Needless to say, our paths had crossed dozens, if not hundreds, of times.
And this woman had not even once tried to get to know me.
No matter how many times I attempted to engage her in conversation over the four years I had known her, she consistently brushed me off and wouldnât even respond to questions I asked her directly at dinner parties we attended.
Most of the time, she wouldnât even say hello to me.
Eventually I gave up, as her message to me each time we crossed paths became abundantly clear: I was not worth her time and effort.
That is, until I had something that she could use.
My time as a visitor in the Ivy League world taught me many things, not the least of which that there are hordes of middle- and upper-middle-class people out there who are encouraged to see the people around them only in terms of how they can use them.
This behavior is not only rampant, itâs normalized. We wrap it up in a pretty bow and call it networking. Weâre told that the only way to get ahead is by knowing the right people or knowing when to use the people around you at the right times.I watched her run around campus talking mad junk about radical politics, oppression, and resistance â and yet not one bit of her $250,000 degree in Africana studies seemed to make any meaningful dent in her consciousness when it comes to living anti-oppression in life.
This woman, who has almost every conceivable privilege in the world, thought it was permissible to disregard my existence for four years and then use me, a working-class person of color, for her personal and professional gain once she found out I was just hired at one of the largest feminist media outlets in the world.
Because struggling through poverty, racism, sexism, and class oppression isnât enough â I need to carry her on my back as well.
In this womanâs mind, I am some thing that exists only to serve her in her great big middle-class white girl dreams of fame and glory.
Well, I have news for her and every other middle-class former classmate trying to act out their elitist and dehumanizing values on me:I never have been â and never will be â here for you, so you can just move right along.
*******
Wow, I think this is the most self-destructive articles I have ever seen anyone write. Not only is this girl burning bridges with a former classmate, she is burning bridges with every graduate at Harvard who is "middle class" (white?).
This article is the reason minorities, especially blacks, have such a hard time succeeding. They just aren't smart enough to realize that getting ahead in life through networking is more important than getting revenge.
Maybe the woman described in the article was a bitch, but making her an enemy in this very public way, so that every graduate in her class will know who she is, will ultimately backfire. This girl will be blackballed by her former classmatesm (and their powerful parents) and will ultimately be a failure in life.
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