I Deserve To Get In, But Not You!
Meet Jamal! Jamal is a black kid who grew up on the south side of Chicago. Jamal’s parents are working class and juggle several jobs to be able to make ends meet. Jamal is a smart and hardworking kid who gained acceptance into a selective magnet school, where he was surrounded by more privileged and wealthy classmates. Jamal puts 110% of effort into school in order to get stellar grades. His family did not have the money to pay for an SAT course, so he taught himself the test taking strategies by using free online resources. He ended up doing exceptionally well on these standardized exams. For his extracurricular activities, he did not volunteer in Africa and take pictures with starving children, nor did he have the resources to file a patent for an obscure invention that likely no one will ever use. But with what he did have, he volunteered his time in his local community as well as various school activities. He eventually applied to and was accepted to “insert generic elite institution.” HOORAY!
Although Jamal is extremely proud of himself, he starts to hear rumors from his privileged classmates that they did not get into said “elite school”, and they think that Jamal mainly got in over them because he’s black, and #AffirmativeAction. Even though Jamal does not know this yet, this will be the beginning of a lifelong struggle as an underrepresented minority to justify one’s…
