Thread by @Mikel_Jollett

I went to Stanford on scholarship. My dad and brother never made it past eighth grade. I worked so hard to get in and was shocked at the legacy kids.

I remember thinking, "Why would you come to one of the great learning institutions of the world and then smoke all that weed?"

Since few people in my family ever went to college, I remember thinking I was gonna get there and everyone was going to be in lab coats or something.

During freshman orientation, someone suggested we go to a frat party and I remember thinking, "They still have those?"

I was in the federal work study program and worked 15 hours-a-week all 4 years while taking 18 units a quarter, maintaining a 3.8 GPA & graduating w honors.

For a kid whose dad & uncles had gone to prison instead of college, it felt like the best opportunity I'd ever been given.

I just want to add, that despite all this, I still had white privilege.

I went to junior high and high schools that were 80% black and many of my peers who were brilliant, hard-working students dealt with racism from teachers, cops, administrators that I never had to deal with.

When they saw me, they saw a beaming white face. They didn't know I'd been on food stamps or my dad had done time or even that I had broken the law countless times before I went straight edge.

I could just pass as something acceptable and receive their praise and faith.

To this day it is burned in my brain just how many doctors, lawyers, successful businesspeople, etc. were lost among my peers because they didn't have that basic advantage of passing for what society at large deems "college worthy."