Ranting and raving

I went to a party the other night.

No, not that kind of party. A lady on the street retired. A block party. I need to stop hanging out with my parents and their friends.

I think I do it because the food and alcohol is free. I also do it because the one of the neighbors is/has been the CFO of some pretty big companies in the city. I’m trying to bug him to bug his buddies to get me an internship or something.

The other kids my age on the block that live at home didn’t come down.

They went out to bars.

We used to be good friends in middle school. Haven’t hung out much since. I don’t really know why. I think it has something to do with they went to private school and I went to the public school… In the hood.

It’s an odd dynamic. A white neighborhood in the city that wishes it were suburbia. But he hood is right across the street.

Seriously.
Most kids in the neighborhood go to private schools and such.

I went to school in the hood.

I hung out in the hood.

I can’t help but wonder if that’s negatively affected me somehow.

I was popular in high school.

I was the white guy that all the black girls liked. I played basketball, ran track, joined freestyle circles in the cafeteria, skipped school, sold weed, smoked weed, was top of my class, high SAT scores.

I had braids at one point, then usually just a fade.

I went to one of the top colleges in the state.

I can’t find a job.

I wonder if my accent affects my job prospects.

My friends from college joke around and say no matter where I go, I talk like I’m from [ the hood].

It’s not slang. I talk proper enough. It’s my accent. Girls say I sound like T.I.

People call the house and say I sound like my dad. I can’t even figure that out. How can it be both? How can I sound black and sound like my dad?

Then again my dad is from Tennessee. Dropped out of high school when he was 16. He says idea as “idear”, washed is “warshed”. I’m not sure sounding like him is much better.

I feel like White America doesn’t like me.

The private school on the block quit hanging out with me in high school.

Then, that carried over into church.

I was Catholic. My confirmation class was so bad, that had to bring a mediator in to separate give us some kind of “can’t we all just get along” presentation. We got into fights at every church retreat. The private school kids vs. The public school kids. Which broken down racially was the white kids vs. The Mexicans. I was with the Mexicans.

We finally did get along. But it wasn’t because of the presentation. Somebody snuck some alcohol in to one of the hotels, somebody else snuck some weed in.

Nothing like drugs and alcohol to bring teenagers together at a church function.

I feel like White America doesn’t want to hire me.

If I walk into the recruiters office for interview and the recruiter is black, I feel like have a substantially better chance of getting the job than if the recruiter is white.

The only accounting firm to offer me a summer internship right now is the biggest African-American owned firm in the city. They treat me like the Big 4 could steal me away from them any day now.

The Big 4 act like they don’t notice me.

My network within the black community is vast – I know the club owners, the local rappers, lawyers, accountants, millionaires, drug dealers, the athletes that made it out to the NBA and NFL, the athletes who didn’t make it and are back in the hood with a baby mama or two.

White America? I know one CFO.

That’s it.

It took me until I was 24 to finally understand why being black in America is harder. Why there’s a glass ceiling so to speak. Why black men make less then white men.

It basically comes down to networking. The black network is smaller. And its hard for outsiders to get into the inner circle.

My brother is an Engineering major with a high GPA. He’s about to graduate, and doesn’t have a job offer.

Everybody else he knows in Engineering – is in Engineering because their dad is an Engineer.

Seriously.

They have a network in the field by association. Before they even go to school.

It makes me wonder what suburbia is really like.

It makes me wonder if a college degree is really worth anything.

College is expensive. Poor people are less likely to go to college…. When they do go they’re less likely to finish.

Statistics tend to show that people with a college degree make a lot more than people without one in lifetime earnings.

But, if people with a college degree parents made more than people without the degree’s parents, and they already had a better network in place through their parents and better access to the higher up jobs and opportunities because of their parents then is it really the degree that’s the cause for their higher lifetime earnings?

I’m pretty much at the point where I regret going to college at all.

What has this degree done for me?

I was told a degree from the school I got it from was “gold”.

Literally.

That’s what I was told.

Well, I graduated 2.5 years ago and haven’t seen any gold yet.

I haven’t seen any money yet either for that matter.

I have friends with college degrees waitressing at restaurants, working at call centers making $10 an hour.

Maybe Im the asshole for being too prideful to do that. I feel like the world owes me something.

Maybe I’m the dick who thinks he’s “special”. But I don’t see how a shitty paying job benefits my life much. I have too much debt and way too many wants for that.

I was a top student in high school, high GPA, high SAT. I could’ve went to any college I wanted to. They told me where I went that the degree was gold.

It wasn’t.

Now I have a GMAT score higher than most Harvard students.

Yet, I don’t want an MBA. I really just don’t want to go to school for two more years.

Fuck that shit.

I should’ve dropped out of college when I wanted to. I didn’t out of fear. What would my family say?

Now, I’m going back to school for damage control. Because unless you have a degree in engineering or accounting, a degree is worthless.

I think an MBA is becoming worthless. So is a law degree.

I think I’m dual sided. I’m not sure if I want to be Naughty Nomad or Don Drapper.

There was always that dream of being top dog, running New York, being a somebody in business of some sort.

But is it even worth it?

Anyway… Back to the party.

My mom got drunk. It was embarrassing.

Another lady (one of the private school boys mothers) fell on her face in the street.

It was that kind of party. Old people getting drunk.

I had three beers, a couple glasses of champagne and some wine and I didnt feel shit.

I guess my tolerance is higher than these senior citizens.

I was the only one there who didnt qualify for an AARP card. Well, except for one of the neighbor’s daughters. She’s 15. Freshman in high school. Is it weird, she’s starting to look attractive to me now? I’ve known her since she was 6.

Fuck it, I dont feel bad about it.

But it does remind me….. I need to start dating younger women.

When I was her age… A freshman in high school. I was trying to talk to girls who were seniors. I got a few of their numbers and would talk to them on the phone. But I pretty much got LBJF’d. They were probably more interested in college guys. Hell, the freshman girls in my class all dated juniors and shit.

My friends that lost their virginity early in 9th or 10th grade generally did so fucking 8th graders. By the time I was a senior in high school, I could’ve fucked all of the attractive freshmen and sophomores, yet I was busy dating college girls and at the mall trying to holler at 23 year olds and shit.

One of the first girls I fucked when I was a freshman in college was a 17year old high school senior. Why is it just now occurring to me that part of the reason I fucked is because I was a “college guy”.

Why have I always gone after girls older than me? Even recently – my last ex, Crush, Army Brat, Freshman Orientation – all of them were older than me.

Both of my one night stands and February Fling were younger than me.

I need to do a better job preying on younger women. The “higher value” is instantly easier to obtain if you can let the girl know you’re older, smarter, more experienced than her…