I Admit It

    I Admit It

    Applying for summer jobs has been the bane of my existence, only to be surpassed by applying for an interim career between grad school/law school (I’m still unsure, but here we are). Whereas these last few years I was applying to internships and registering for classes in the coming semesters, this time around I am inundated with obligatory cover letters, resumés, and the occasional follow-up email (because apparently now I need to beg).

    I have been looking everywhere. I’ve searched through LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed, Google Job Boards, and weirdly obscure job sites powered by what looks like the computers my mom used in high school (sorry for the stray, Mom; this was for descriptive purposes only). If I have Easy Apply one more time, I think I would Easy Apply myself into a coma.

    It has definitely been humbling. Take this, for instance: have you ever heard of a Duke graduate who was denied an inventory job at Total Wine or a sales associate job at Urban Outfitters? Nah. I’m sure not a single Blue Devil will tell you that. Because it definitely hurts the ego, especially when you look back at all those accomplishments gleaming back to you on that .DOCX resumé you made. Not just made. Crafted. Research experience? Check. Published writing? That, too. I mean, come ON I am BILINGUAL.

    And yet, there in my email were those damn automated sympathy rejection letters. Thank goodness I am not alone, though. Seems like a lot my fellow 2024 graduates are feeling the sting of the failing collegiate graduate job market and rising inflation choking out those recent grads.

    Nights spent sacrificing my mental and physical capacities to study, to write, to cry, all of that culminated in those rejection letters, it feels. After all that, even with a degree in my name, I wasn’t qualified to work at Total Wine or Urban Outfitters. Crazy, right?

    So I began spinning. And I started to compare myself to people without degrees who I presumed had those jobs. And this is where my hypocrisy set in. I began to create a narrative: they probably didn’t make the best decisions like I did. They were probably not as talented as I was, let alone smart. As you can guess, my ego was hurt, and the minute I didn’t get my way, I began thinking about how I was being underserved and under-appreciated.  

  This should not have been where my mind went, especially after what Fanon has told me.

    *Yep, Fanon is back with another feature on @yani_reads (he will continue to be mentioned especially as I finish The Wretched of the Earth).*

 You’re probably sitting here thinking like me, how in the world does revolutionary work apply to retail jobs or entry level work? Let’s see what he has to tell us:

    “In order to assimilate the culture of the oppressor and venture into his fold, the colonized subject has had to pawn some of his own intellectual possessions…one of the things he has had to assimilate is the way the colonialist bourgeoisie thinks…he is unable to make himself inessential when confronted with a purpose of idea.”

    Ouch. And here’s what bell hooks offers in Rock My Soul:

    “One of the biggest cover-ups masking the low self-esteem of black folks with class privilege is their projection of the problem onto lower-class and poor black folks…To live with integrity, we must dare to choose on behalf of our moral good, creating the necessary culture of accountability.”

    Double ouch. Okay, so what now?

    As mentioned by Fanon, we as colonized subjects in privileged positions—for instance, those who were able to go to college, afford college, and earn a degree—are put in precarious positions in order to maximize our material gains. As we assimilate into these institutions (although many of us try not to) we garner certain expectations (many of which we don’t say out loud): "this degree has put us above others. This degree means we are more deserving." It’s a valid feeling, especially when knowing all you had to sacrifice to get it…

 but it’s a lie.

    I had the expectation that I would have a good job that provided me what I needed the second I showed people that I had a degree from Duke. The moment I found out that wasn’t true, I began to diminish those less privileged than I was. It’s sick, but that’s exactly what I was trained to do. AND it complemented my low self-esteem. This is why I continue to ask myself if I am a revolutionary, because how could I fight for the same people I internally admonished who did absolutely nothing to merit this treatment? How could I expect integrity when mine was apparently so fickle?

    So, let’s practice integrity. bell hooks in Rock My Soul talks greatly about Nathaniel Branden, one of the first mainstream psychologists to study self-esteem. She quotes directly from Branden, writing that practicing personal integrity means we must ask ourselves these four questions:

1. "Am I honest, reliable, and trustworthy?”

2. “Do I keep my promise?”

3. “Do I do the things that I say I deplore?”

4. “Am I fair and just in my dealing with others?”

    The biggest part of revolutionary work is having the courage to know when you are wrong and to be accountable for it, especially since it’s not often rewarded. Branden himself remarks that this is one of the most challenging things to do when living in a “moral sewer”. It’s often the case that dishonesty and duplicity is rewarded and at the very least necessary for personal security. This is the premise of our society, but we must reject it.

    We don’t have to loathe in our imperfection, either. It's true that we can never live perfectly virtuous lives, but to remedy this we must be able to keep ourselves accountable when we don’t. You are—I am—not perfect, but we are all perfectly capable of being accountable. We improve our self-esteem as we grow in our integrity.

 

    As I get back to the application races, I challenge you to be more vigilant of the ways you think—evaluate your work, your words, and your actions. Is there dissonance between what you believe and want for the future and what you engage in now? Decolonization and the revolution always begins within the mind and we must be courageous enough to admit when we are wrong. 

    Know you’re wrong. Do better. Know better. Then do better.

    

    

  

   .