For Many Black Women, We Only Get HALF an Education - Let Me Explain
When I was in college back in the 90’s ( I know—the age of the dinosaurs) I had one focus. As the child of a share cropper’s son and a school teacher’s daughter, it had been instilled in me that education was the key to a better life. I was part of the first generation that didn’t experience state and federally sanctioned racism. I was free to chart my own course with nothing overtly obvious standing in my way. Despite getting pregnant and giving birth in my sophomore and junior year and slashing relationship ties with my ‘IBM,’ I managed to graduate from Loyola Marymount University on time and with honors. That’s it, right? That’s all we’re supposed to do and life will be great…won’t it?
It wasn’t until much later after graduation that I realized that I got through college with only half an education. I squandered perhaps the easiest and most organic opportunity I would ever have to meet and mingle with people of high socio-economic levels, who were well-connected and literally could have carried me on a zephyr to success and wealth.
—Money isn’t everything, but it sure is something.—
I found out about the second part of education quite by accident after I broke up with ‘baby daddy’ and met my current husband. He had already graduated from a prestigious university and came from a wealthy New England family. I became friends with his sister, who was an Ivy League graduate two times over, and boy—did I get a crash course on how college is often the incubator for wealth to perpetuate itself. Despite all the feminist ramblings, be clear: women of higher classes STILL go to institutions of higher learning to land a future rich and powerful husband. While black young women are taught to “keep their legs closed” and only focus on their studies, non-black women who were raised to know better are entering these institutions with a sense of entitlement that it is their birthright to marry well and rub elbows with the future titans of industry.
Now that my sister-in-law has her daughter enrolled in the same Ivy League college she met her husband, she is busy playing the role of subtle matchmaker, and encouraging her daughter to gravitate toward the finance and banking crowd, because that this particular Ivy (and pretty much all the others) one is guaranteed a six-figure starting salary, with a clear path to becoming a millionaire by 30.
After my marriage and entry into literally another world, I realized there indeed is a parallel universe within the college experience. In one world, there’s us, who focused on our studies, tried not to get pregnant, joined the Black Student Union, pledged The Divine Nine, and hoped for the black male gaze. In the other, non-black women are joining social clubs, societies, volunteer organizations, going on group dates, and traveling abroad. They haunt the halls of the STEM and Finance buildings and batting their eyes at the men who are on track for greatness. We leave college with a degree, they leave college with a degree and prospects—socially, financially and romantically.
Just like when Neo discovered that he was asleep in a world of monotony and low expectations after he took the red pill, so too will the the black women who take The Pink Pill, and the upcoming Pink Pill for College. The not knowing, the missed opportunities, the decades-long detours, lopsided mating options and poor self-image of black women are coming to a close. The questions are being asked, and the logical conclusions are being contemplated.
Christelyn Karazin is the author of Swirling: How to Date, Mate & Relate, Mixing Race, Culture and Creed. She is also a YouTube vlogger and blogger, and has created the first self-improvement course—The Pink Pill—specifically for black women. She is now in the process of developing The Pink Pill for College. If you would like to receive about when she launches this course, click here.
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