Someone once commented that I got into medical school because I’m a single mum.

what’s the use of a relationship if not to have a uniquely important platform to occasionally tell a person they’re being a shithead?

Amazing. Holy shit.

I once had a really ugly thought about one of my friends that I’m completely ashamed to admit, but this sort of thinking that this person had about you is not always tied to race? As a black girl in high school, my asian friend and I had to do the same project - a personal essay. My teacher (who was pretty racist…

Welcome!

I’m an editor. A lot of my customers are grad students in medicine who clearly know their stuff but struggle mightily with English (their first language is usually Chinese or Arabic). Sometimes I feel as if I’m being ethically sketchy by putting their tortured prose into readable English to help them get through their…

I feel you. While it was never said out-loud like that, I had a similar thing go down. Except it was my bff across the table from me. She was white. I was not. I got a fat stack of acceptance letters. She got like two. We did everything together in HS like twinsies. It damaged the hell out of our relationship - still…

I got waitlisted at Stanford and the valedictorian at my high school got flat out rejected, and I heard rumors that he claimed that the only reason I had a better chance of getting in than him was because I was a Latina and a girl. Granted, he did have a higher GPA, obviously, but my grades still put me in the top 10…

Ugh, I want to give you a hug (or a high-five if you’re not a hugger). Fuck that girl.

This part resonated with me as well. As does the uneasy relationship to “gratitude” that those of us who are fortunate enough to make it when there are so many working hard. On the one hand, the position was earned, not granted. But on the other, when you recognize the crapshoot that college admissions often is, you…

OMG, I work in government records so I had SO many opinions on the Clinton email thing, because email archiving is a thing I do and I know how important it is. Most people thought I was going crazy over nothing, or like a secret Cruz or Trump fangirl, it was frustrating. That’s like, our history, people! I mean, I’m…

I feel you on that, I tell people I have a Masters in Information, but that it’s not as cool as it sounds, mostly a lib degree focused on archives and records management. hahah! I had a electronic records management class right about the time that Edward Snowden was like GOIN’ DOWN. Super fascinating. Lots of lovely…

I worked my butt off all through high school to be the smartest, best rounded person I could be, because I knew my options were “college” and “working at the factory,” and I was so grateful for every single school that accepted me. The idea that I could just assume I would be let in is baffling to me (and I have white…

Bloody hell. I rage hard whenever someone insinuated I got my job because I was a woman (internally, can’t go setting off the delicate dudebros “bitch”-ometers). I got my job because I’m a bad-ass with a stellar resume who worked my ass off to both make it through university while taking an insane amount of…

Oh man, yeah, that imposter syndrome... I was 2nd in my class and had high SAT scores and activities out the wazoo and worked all kinds of jobs on top of it, and I still believed it when I was told that I got into my undergrad institution because I’m female. I’m white, and it’s probably true that affirmative action…

Haha, I say librarian because I went to library school and it’s easier to explain, but yeah I’m an archivist. I did work for a year for a republican, but what I always tell people is hey, I’m making sure the incriminating shit isn’t getting illegally shred and erased. Just cause I work 9-6 and don’t protest the IMF…

I feel like a sell out, aka corporate archiving, but like HEY-O at least we have the funds to do shit right. I didn’t get an MSI so I can make $30K a year for the rest of my life begging for funding for the most basic of projects. SORRY. Also libraries ain’t hiring around me. He was just jealous that you were smart…

I’m there with you. I recently ended a short-term, well-paying gig where I was doing potentially “morally questionable” ghostwriting. I told my boyfriend all about it, every day, and he never once put on his judgement hat, only supported what I needed to do at the time. He plays way too many video games for my taste,…

This whole piece, and especially that quote, really struck a chord with me. I grew up in a working class family and attended an elementary school in a predominately black and Latino neighborhood in Los Angeles. I earned a scholarship for all four years to a prestigious, private all girls high school. During my time…

Yeah this really bugged me. Like when I dated this guy I met in some activism circles who called me a sellout for pulling back on my activism and focus my time on going to grad school to become a librarian. A LIBRARIAN, of all things, was a sellout to him.

It bugs me just a bit that you felt you had to quit a lucrative gig because it offended your boyfriend’s finely tuned sense of social justice. From the way it sounds, you weren’t depriving a non-white student of a place at UT Austin; you were just indirectly helping prop up the delusions of adequacy of mediocre white…