Youthful Life: X

"What's wrong with being elitist if you are trying to encourage people to join the elite rather than being exclusive?" Richard Dawkins I'm an elitist . There I said it. Being in a place where I have an even wider variety of people with differing experiences, life paths, belief systems, etc. has made me realize just how much my access to education and corresponding "pedigree" has impacted me. The way I talk, what I talk about, how I carry myself, why I dress the way I do, and everything in between communicates I am a product of an immense amount of privilege. There's nothing implicitly wrong with that per say but it can easily become a problem in snobbishness, snootiness, and unappealing arrogance. I don't think I'm better than other people but pretending I'm like other people is a falsity for us all. I have had a rare life experience with a lot of opportunity. I think for me it shows up most when people are intimidated by me, have diffic...

" America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds  herself to be false to the future." Frederick Douglass The American Dream is dead. Rather it never existed. Maybe it did, but even then it was not made for everyone to be able to attain it. What's a dream if its within reach for everyone? No it was, is, and always will be reserved for a select few. And to those who don't fit the selection criteria but somehow, against all odds (*read systemic and interpersonal barriers) make it  - the narratives are co-opted to reify the propaganda that the dream is only deferred not denied. This country doesn't want us all the make it. Our society isn't built for everyone to thrive. Our perspective needs people to trounce upon, to use, to throw away as disposable. We need people to other. We need them to be different. We need there to be a distinction between us and them. That is what we are founded on - blood, the ideals of the rich white-ma...

Truth - Money only has value because we have made it that way. Think about it just like we covet dirty green pieces of paper with dead white men's faces on them we could just as easily be doing the same with q-tips, buttons, or pebbles. The object is arbitrary but the way we idolize it is where it gets all it's power from. Some say does not bring happiness, and while that may be true, it most definitely gives you access to obtaining it. More money more problems, but are some of those self-induced? This is unrestricted.  "Wealth is the ability to fully experience life" Henry David Thoreau In this day and age where the vast majority of people are seriously struggling to make ends meet, it has almost become taboo to speak on the topic of wealth. Who has it? What is it? Why does it matter? There has always been this shroud of secrecy and pretending when it comes to socioeconomic status. People put on a show to act as if they have more  (and sometimes less) than...

The 20s are all about finding your voice. There are so many things that hold us back from being bold, but most of it is internal. Fear is a powerful thing. Going against the grain, being different, and changing the learned narrative can be terrifying. We're taught to not just ignore difference, but to avoid it and not to acknowledge it. The truth about is difference speaks loudly in a sea of sameness. There's more than one story. There's more than one voice in society, but it's called history for a reason. I want to hear herstory . All the women whose voices and actions we don't learn about - the heroines, victors, and femme fatales. "Women shouldn't be valued because they are strong or because they kick-ass, but because they are people" * This is part two and the conclusion to my social justice posts on feminism. Missed part one - catch up right here "Women's Intuition" . Here's a quote to keep in mind about this opinion post...

*I'm in a competition to win the paid summer internship of a lifetime. Vote for me, Joseph Oteng, Jack Wills Voting  here once everyday for the next two weeks (go to vote, then guys only or search for Joseph Oteng) - It's the British University Outfitting brand, Jack Wills's annual "Best Summer Job In America" contest. 6 weeks spent working in Nantucket and the UK to live the lifestyle of a JW seasonnaire, get paid, and earn $20,000 for tuition. They choose one guy and one girl, and I need all the help I can get. Tell your friends, and your friend's friends - if I win this, I have the best blog readers of all time. Thanks so much for your help. Being a teenager is all about looking towards the future. When the word summer is spoken images of girls running around pools in bikinis, fruit salads, water balloon fights, ice cream trucks, and carnivals come to mind. But before you can live it up with the ultimate summer lifestyle you've got to get your financ...

Being a teenager means that you'll probably be getting a job over the , making some hard earned money. It can be a tough thing to balance having a social life with having a job, but a few weeks on being on the job you'll learn to balance it out. You can't always take off, and you're going to miss stuff, but at least you'll have the money to pay for things. If you're lucky, like me, and your parents pay for everything, and you're obligated to have a job, live it up, because entering the workforce, even for the summer, could be just around the corner. Get ready for some public placed laughs, uhm, paper or plastic? If you expected this post to be about getting paper, you must not have read that post. This one's all about some of the more ridiculous I keep seeing and experiencing whenever I'm not at home. So, the other day, I went out shopping for college stuff with my mother and my sister. We started at Bed Bath & Beyond and went from there. Tha...