by Reid Fitzsimons
We’ve had the pleasure and honor of being friends with a remarkable young person, now 41 or 42, for 10 years. She is a very accomplished professional and makes good money but lives frugally in an inner city area. She spends much if not most of her money mentoring and supporting young woman “of color,” both in the US and in poor countries. She is the type of person who would, and in fact has, put everything on hold and travel to the a third word country to help someone in crisis. She seeks no fanfare whatsoever and, it should be noted, is able to do what she does largely because the expensive tastes to which we are so accustomed do not interest her.
A number of years ago she expressed some frustration with one of her girls, perhaps 15 or 16, because she was doing poorly in school and was functionally illiterate. Reading was not important to her because, “Reading is for white people” she said. That is a significant and even tragic statement and mentality, obviously, but not the subject of this article (recall that one goal of slave owners was prohibiting literacy among their chattel). Several years later I asked our friend how this particular girl was doing. She replied she’s doing well and going to college. My response was predictable, an “oh great, so she buckled down and learned to read.” To which she replied her girl never really became literate, but “everyone knows the college she’s attending isn’t a real college.” Exposing my own naiveté at the time, I have to admit I didn’t realize there were colleges that weren’t real.