In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal this weekend, a Pennsylvania high school student named Suzy lee Weiss addresses her misgivings at having been rejected from most of the elite universities of her choice. This will be a delightful little read, I thought. A lot of us can relate to that feeling. But then the piece took a turn into the worst sort of "conservative humor" stereotyping imaginable, all couched in a phoney sense of self-deprecation.
Weiss alludes to her own shortcomings with tongue in cheek, but that's not really what did her in in the end, she suggests. Much like with Abigail Fisher, the plaintiff in the Fisher v. University of Texas Supreme Court case over affirmative action, it wasn't the fact that she was too dumb to actually be accepted, it was other people's fault. More specifically "Other" people's fault.
She was lied to, Weiss writes, by colleges who told her she should just be herself when applying. The problem is, she's just a default human being, aka white, straight, middle class. She doesn't fit into any of the affirmative action categories that keep the long-suffering whites in this country down.
Colleges tell you, "Just be yourself." That is great advice, as long as yourself has nine extracurriculars, six leadership positions, three varsity sports, killer SAT scores and two moms. Then by all means, be yourself! If you work at a local pizza shop and are the slowest person on the cross-country team, consider taking your business elsewhere.
TWO MOMS. Ho ho! Certainly that's got to be at the top of any universities recruitment criteria.
It doesn't get better from there. What else could she have tried, save, you know, actually trying, and/or setting up her mom with a yoga instructor or something?
"For starters, had I known two years ago what I know now, I would have gladly worn a headdress to school. Show me to any closet, and I would've happily come out of it. "Diversity!" I offer about as much diversity as a saltine cracker. If it were up to me, I would've been any of the diversities: Navajo, Pacific Islander, anything. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, I salute you and your 1/32 Cherokee heritage."
Headdresses. You know who have had it pretty good in this country for a long time? Native Americans, what with their casinos, and always coasting right along into Harvard with the barest of effort all the time, and their eradicated culture and forced displacement. LOL.
"I also probably should have started a fake charity. Providing veterinary services for homeless people's pets. Collecting donations for the underprivileged chimpanzees of the Congo. Raising awareness for Chapped-Lips-in-the-Winter Syndrome. Fun-runs, dance-a-thons, bake sales—as long as you're using someone else's misfortunes to try to propel yourself into the Ivy League, you're golden."
Sounds like she's doing a pretty good job of using her own misfortune to get ahead here actually.
Then there was summer camp. I should've done what I knew was best—go to Africa, scoop up some suffering child, take a few pictures, and write my essays about how spending that afternoon with Kinto changed my life. Because everyone knows that if you don't have anything difficult going on in your own life, you should just hop on a plane so you're able to talk about what other people have to deal with.
What follows is a list of things she's not good at, hasn't tried, and hasn't completed. There's also a stop off to blame her parents for not trying hard enough to make her try harder, all of which is pretty strange coming from a teenage conservative. The entire premise behind the everything espouses by the right in this country revolves around the idea of personal responsibility. If she's going to make it as a conservative opinion writer she'll probably need to know that. Maybe she should have done a little more reading in high school in the first place?
Ultimately, I don't think it's actually any of the reasons she gives that explain why she didn't get into the top colleges. It's actually because she's a little spiteful, know-nothing shit.
Still though: two moms! Man, those children of same-sex parents have got it made in the shade out there.
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3 comments:
Worst part: the comments section of that article is a really sloppy blowjob. "I bet this girl can have any college she wants now!" Oh, yeah, Harvard is banging down her fuckin door.
Or, it could have been an attempt at humor that failed when your hyper-sensitive, ridiculously quick to judge eyes came across it. I bet you think you are a liberal; with hate, anger and unwillingness to leave others alone, you are anything but.
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