We have all heard the phrase: you have to work twice as hard only to get half of what they get. It is an unfortunate problem the black community knows all too well.
Just this weekend my organization held a spectacular Mary Kay makeup event. I’ll spare you the details because that’s not why we are here. After all the fun, I was able to catch a few words with the amazing hostess; she was surprised to see that the room was filled with only young black women. We all paused for a moment and thought about other organizations on campus; many are structured similarly with mostly black members if not all.
Further into the conversation, she told us that as we get older and move into our careers we’ll see that the race wheel shifts and we’ll see less and less people that look like us and more white people as we become successful. Why is that?
Today, young people of the black community are being encouraged to participate in extracurricular organizations a lot more. “Give yourself an edge”; ‘make yourself stand out”; “Do above and beyond to get to where you want to go” because for some preconceived reason the color of your skin gives you that many more obstacles to overcome. We all are fighting to achieve the “American Dream”. Many have a long way to climb up the socioeconomic ladder, but unfortunately, it is systemically harder for people of African descent to do so.
By all means DO NOT stop your hustle, but we have become more aware of the injustice in our communities in order to promote change.