Yesterday I read an article from the Prospect (http://www.theprospect.net/!) that detailed the daily schedule of a high school student. It went something like this - school, internet, homework, sleep, repeat cycle, weekend, breathe.
I deviated from that path and after coming home from school and messing around on the internet for a bit, I went to sleep. It was only 7PM so I woke up at 3AM and started working on my homework. Most of it wasn't that pressing so I decided to devote all of my precious time and attention towards my math homework.
I'm not regretting that decision or anything, I have a quiz later on today regarding hyperbolas and lemme tell you I'm shaking in my boots. Never mind the fact that I'm barefoot, I'm so incredibly nervous.
It's the practical application part of the lesson that's killing me. Never in my entire life will I ever voluntarily feel inclined to measure distance using hyperbolas but that's what I'm being made to do. The logic behind it is doing me under. I keep reaching for some type of safety, some variation of a life float, but either it doesn't exist or we repel each other.
It's killing me. I'm dying.
On another hand, I was on Facebook a little while earlier and someone posted an article written by a sorority member about how she wasn't entitled (http://totalsororitymove.com/im-an-upper-middle-class-white-girl-but-im-not-entitled/). I want to feel for her but I'm a little conflicted. Everybody that commented on the article on facebook was cringing and did not support her views at all.
In the article, the girl (she doesn't reveal her name) states that because girls like her do well academically, because they, "work [their] asses off to achieve those accomplishments" that means that they aren't entitled. Because they have jobs and work hard and earn money to pay for their Starbucks coffee and designer bags, they aren't entitled. They joined a sorority because they are aware of the struggles that others are born with and they want to make their community a better place.
Entitled generally means to feel as if you have a right to wealth, to success, to your possessions. Generally, those who believe that hard work is necessary for success aren't entitled. Ordinarily I would be on her side; she worked hard for her everyday luxuries and it wouldn't be correct to say that she believes she deserves them.
BUT... :(
At the end of the article she mentions that she is "just like you–only in a hair bow."
No, dear author, you're not. I am not a rich white girl. My parents don't have the means to have me join a sorority. I live in an apartment in the inner city. I'm not saying that I'm not privileged, I definitely enjoy luxuries that many other inner city kids don't have. My parents are very much of the belief that education is one of the greatest assets a person living in this global society can have. My mother believes that its important for children to experience luxuries so that when they grow older they can realize that money, cars, and fancy hotels aren't anything to sell your soul over.They work hard to provide me and my siblings with the supplies necessary to succeed (such as the laptop that I'm typing this with) as well as every-once-in-a-while pleasantries like trips to the movies, or a new video game.
My family is not in a stellar financial situation, I cannot buy Starbucks every day let alone every week. I know not to take money, food, and luxuries for granted. I also understand that hard work bears results but I also understand that sometimes the world doesn't comply.
Sometimes, no matter how hard you work, the harvest reaped is dismal. When you understand this, I think that's the point that you can justifiably be called 'entitled'.
Yes, the sorority rich white girl author works hard for her things. Yes, she is moderately independent (who's paying for her tuition? her dorm/apartment? her sorority membership?) but does she know that some people work just as hard and sometimes even harder and have not as much to show for it?
She mainly talked about herself and her current situation. She talked about how she earned what she has now. She acknowledged that not everyone has the same opportunities as her. I just want to know if she knows that she is lucky. She's not only lucky to have those opportunities but also be able to bear fruit from them.
Does she think that she deserves what she has because she worked hard? I'm definitely not saying she doesn't, but I need her to really appreciate what she's got going for her there. It's not just her hard at work. It's the combined effect of her skin, her hair, her family, her wealth, her schooling.
Her sense of entitlement probably is attune to her sense of human rights.
Everyone should be joining her in feeling that particular sense of entitlement but unfortunately, some just aren't as privileged.
Can a sorority change the judicial system, change economic inequality, change sub-par educational institutes?
So yeah, I think she's entitled.
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