Radiation Day 2: Screw Aunt Becky

White people.

Is there anything we can’t ruin?

Please pardon me, I’m in a bit of a rage black out. Here I’ve been wasting my white privilege on sitting in Starbucks without making a purchase when I should have been committing treason and lying my way into Yale.

This morning at radiation they were playing CBS This Morning in the lobby, and they were discussing the college admissions cheating scandal that broke yesterday. I had spent most of yesterday reading about the story, but there was something about seeing Aunt Becky’s face as the first of my Morning Blend kicked in that really sent me over the edge.

Here’s a link if you don’t know what I’m talking about:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/us/college-admissions-cheating-scandal.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Basically wealthy parents have been lying and cheating and bribing to get their worthless children into fancy colleges. Now I can hear people of color’s eyes rolling. “WE’VE BEEN TELLING YOU THIS FOR CENTURIES!” “WELCOME TO THE PARTY!” I know! My only excuse is that I’ve been busy fighting cancer the past couple of years and have had to choose my outrage selectively.

But this Aunt Becky thing. And yes, I blame Aunt Becky from Full House. I was in love with her when I was a child and now all I can see is her daughter’s face, gleaning with the sheen of entitlement. Apparently she is a social media influencer? I had no idea. But if we are dumb enough to be influenced by a teenager whose biggest accomplishment is being born to the woman tamed John Stamos thirty ago, then maybe we deserve everything we get.

These rich parents have been paying people to take their children’s SATs, faking learning disabilities. Having their personal essays ghostwritten. But the thing that has made me the most angry is the sports. These parents were saying their children were star high school athletes when the only thing they were good at were keg stand of Veuve Clicquot. It was the lame sports, too. The ones white people invented so we could feel athletically relevant. You know, sports like water polo. I had no idea that there even was high school water polo. If your high school had a water polo team then you’ve already used up all your privilege. Schools in South Carolina can’t afford books or to pay teachers and schools have water polo teams!? Which meant they had water polo try outs. If they had tryouts then surely there were people who didn’t make the team. How do you practice more for that? Parents just throwing their kids in the middle of the pool- tread harder! Drown less!

But these kids didn’t even play the sport. These parents were bribing athletic coaches. Photo shopping their children on row boats and calling them coxains!

But these cheating parents know. They know how badly they’ve rigged the system and how desperately they need to stay in the game. People of color have to deal with the silent questions of whether or not they belong all the while these rich white parents are buying their kids ways into schools like it’s their birthright to go to Harvard and reap all the advantages that come along.

I hope these people go to jail. I hope their kids get kicked out of school. But none of it will happen. We will forget about this in a day and a half and the game will continue. We will go on fighting amongst ourselves and the people with the real money and power will go right back to hoarding the cards, stacking the deck. We’ll fall asleep again dreaming of boot straps that never existed and continue letting people born on third think they hit triples.

Maybe these X-Ray beams are riling me up. If anyone needs me for the rest of the day, I’ll be trying to meditate.