This topic is a very new yet touchy subject for me. I grew up with the mindset that if you played by the rules, checked all the boxes, got the answers right, then you won the game of life. Examples would be plastered on every billboard in my hometown. It was either, you go to college, trade school or the military. Simple as that.
You do well in high school, to get into college. You do well in college, to land a good job. MTV’s Laguna Beach and The Hills made it look so sweet and simple. However, I quickly realized once I got into “the real world” that those girls in sunny California were definitely rich, well-connected, unaware and above all else, white.
Like déjà vu, 10 years later, I found myself sitting in the office of a wealthy white woman in southern California who personified that same TV image and she was my boss. It was like tuning into the latest episode of The Real Housewives of Manhattan Beach, no not Beverly Hills… or Orange County, but Manhattan Beach. Just a skip and hop away from Inglewood, Gardena, and Compton, yet she seemed to be so unaware of the short 10-minute drive.
Nevertheless, I sat for a few more stories of her daughter’s road to stardom before she finally asked me why I wanted the job. I gave her what
