My Response to "Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy"

The night before I had started this post, I was considering writing a scathing yet detailed letter to my former supervisor about the microagressions that took place in that work environment. I wanted to let go of those feelings and finally pull her into the loop.

A core value that kept appearing in Naïka Apeakorang's blog, which I follow, is that all people should be able to feel what they feel. If you don't have anything else in the world, you have your feelings.

And the primary source of "growing" pains, I felt in D.C. and in that position, was that I allowed being in that position to suppress my feelings. I didn't feel comfortable voicing myself in a way that wasn't overly exuberant but was true to me, and because I wasn't feeling or able to challenge, I was in a numb and stagnant place.

I had started jotting in my journal about June 14. It was my last day in D.C., my last day teaching, and most importantly 2 days before my 25th birthday. But when I came to class that morning, there were no decorations on my door, no birthday cards, no recognition as there had been for Lead teachers and one ultra special Assistant Teacher. I didn't realize it then but, I was hurt.

Four hours later at 5 in the morning, 11 his time, my partner ironically sends me a link to a trending article about why educated young professionals "yuppies" are unhappy because our reality doesn't even come close to our expectations for ourselves (link below).

The article went on to say that yuppies (who came up what that terrible sounding word?) are unhappy because we have a lot of ambition but unrealistic expectations about the amount of hard work and time it takes to achieve success.
We're not all special because that erases the definition of the word.
Our sense of entitlement is unhealthy because nothing should be given to us, we should earn it.
We're delusional because we live in an age of social media where we're bombarded with images of successful people, while we don't take into account that successful people will, of course, show their success while unsuccessful people won't... so we're only comparing our failures to those who've made it.
And lastly that our parents era was relatively stable so most were able to achieve their dreams through hard work, and they instilled in us that we can do even better.
Yuppies Article

All fair points, if they weren't so poorly thought out. I don't know the race of the author but the article itself was written from a naive and (middle to upperclass) White perspective. Success almost always disproportionately benefits those with privilege, especially in 2013. The majority of Black kids, immigrant kids, Latino kids who saw their parents thrive is not nearly as high as White Americans. And even if it were, the messages that society sends to our minority boys and girls is most definitely not that they can be what ever they want and that they're entitled to things.

We're, and now I'm talking from a P.O.C. perspective, taught to work our asses off for everything we have because for a lot of us, our parents didn't have shit. Most immigrant kids grew up in housing projects, not white houses with picket fences. Working as hard and as many hours as they do for as many years as they have, my folks will never see affluence.

That's probably where the disappointment in not succeeding in the workforce for educated young people of color and for educated white kids who stem from poverty comes in.

The idea that folks thought the article was honest and refreshing and worth putting in the Huffington is troubling. We can't agree with just what anyone writes, we have to challenge things. And the article's author is reinforcing an American myth about equal playing fields and hard work that is, to use her language, delusional.

So... what does one thing have to do with another?

I'll give this example: My workday ended at 4, I was paid until 4, there was rarely a day I left before 4:30 or 5, rarely a day I didn't come at least 15 minutes early, rarely a day I took a full lunch, to make sure things were done for my teammates and my kids. And I never brought this up to her, because it was my own ideas about principle. Even though, I knew fair well that this woman, who was only 3 years my senior, and who had attended a college that was sub-par to mine, held my fate in her hands.

In addition, I didn't always smile when she came along to observe or when she told me her 'feedback' of me after those awkward, short, and invasive observations. I just chose to take from them the valuable pieces of advice. I wasn't enthused to go watch baseball with the team because I don't like baseball and I like crowds even less, and I wasn't always praising people because I would be speaking out of my ass and that is ungenuine and insulting. I wasn't going to go outside of myself to comfort her in her own White space of managing students and staff of color and thinking that she knew best for us.
But I loved my kiddos and I did all the menial tasks that a college kid would never imagine she would have to do, along with tasks that other Assistants weren't asked to do because of my education.

But throughout all of that, I felt. I felt questioned for not kissing ass. I felt silenced for ONLY being seen and evaluated for those menial tasks. I felt like a shadow in the classroom because of how the hierarchy in the classroom was set up and enforced within that system. I felt exploited for the of sake the classroom to "sacrifice" a year of my life when the opportunity wasn't there for me to show what I had to give intellectually and managerially yet those factors were considered when a decision was made on whether or not I should move up to the next rung there.
And mostly, I felt alone and isolated in the journey of my own growth.

I knew from beginning to end that is was unjust. Of sacrificing what you have,
to do the best you can,
for a cause that you care for,
yet you're being silenced and told not to feel or question
or explore your other options for the sake of prolonging people's comfort
and up-keeping their system
in which, you, as a woman of color, are just a player in.

That's privilege.

THIS wasn't a typical Ivy league kid who came from a family that made six figures and knew that they had a CHOICE to either do a year of service after college or work at the bottom of a company so they can steadily climb up the way their parents had. Most likely, if they don't skip from one career to another, they'll get there. Wealth stays at the top.

(Those are choices only a select few can AFFORD to pursue. If you've forced yourself to learn your hard work this way, fine, but it's your choice and you'll eventually get rewarded for your guilt down the line. That probability is not as high when you're either a minority or a first generation college kid. Fact.)

THIS, is the continuation of a history where more people of color are asked to be invisible and asked to fill the voids in society, that society cannot function without, yet society fails to value. And we're just supposed to swallow it because we're not entitled. THIS is saying that when a woman of color has the credentials to grow and to be an example to other women and people of color that... to dismiss it is and to perpetuate a system where society is thriving through exploitation but only a select few are allowed to succeed.

It's not about entitlement. I write about entitlement A LOT because I feel entitled to justice and an ability to grow myself as a citizen in this country. Kids who grow up in poor neighborhoods should be entitled to access good schools but they're not. Children should be entitled to safe neighborhoods but they aren't. All children should have food security and nutritious meals consistently but they don't. Children should grow up in a world where racism doesn't exist, where their education includes examples of how people who look like them have shaped their history, they should see successful examples of people like themselves in their world, but they don't. Young boys of color should be judged fairly by the judicial system, and there's no way that's the case. That's the reality of it. So when kids of color work their asses off they should be allowed to want all of those things.

But here are more facts:
I've seen more homeless people than I ever remembered seeing 10 years ago in my hometown.
This world is revolving because people are working harder than ever, spending more hours at the office than ever, being more innovative than ever.
Work related stress is high. People bust their ass.
Study after study show that the majority of people today are poorer than they've ever been. There's no such thing as trickle down.
College is expensive.
Cost of living is high.
Opportunities are scarce. I've seen how difficult it is to look for opportunities that are rewarding and allows room for professional  growth-- and those are so scarce that they're fought over to the nail. There are so many talented, ambitious, people who want to grow themselves.

And it's not feasible for most young people who have just graduated from a $200,000 education (with loans and grants $40,00- 100,000 if you're lucky, nevermind interest) to work for $10- $12 an hour or $25,000 a year, and wait for our turn. It's not.

What's delusional is to call people delusional for not loving the idea of being stepped on and being in poverty after college.
I forget that I used to work as Opinion Editor in College until I read articles like this and they piss me off.