C: I still don’t understand why it’s so hard for Black men to just….go to school? I grew up poor and the same 7 girls I grew up with in our dingy neighborhood are in college like me. But the boys? Most of them just smoke weed and chill. In fact I recognized one that was an honors student in high school at a party a few weeks ago; he was bragging about his music on Soundcloud only to ask me to hold some money until he can pay me back.

Like….how does that even work? Black women face racism and sexism at the same time (misogynoir) but that isn’t slowing us down from being business owners or networking to host events like Black Women Career Fairs. I just wish more young Black men felt motivated to push harder and succeed for the benefit of the community. It’s disappointing. And maybe it’s cause I grew up low income idk the mentality is hard to outgrow. But even the other poor Black girls like me managed to crawl out the pit (single mothers, disabled,) so I guess don’t see the exact excuse, for the ones that aren’t imprisoned or have no criminal record, to not go to school or at least try to get a better job. I met many Black adults that are thirsty for young Black males to come into their programs and often mainly promote outreach to them. But so many don’t care and I wish I knew why. I wish…