(ThyBlackMan.com) Recently the news was rocked with he information that many wealthy Americans, and celebrities, had purchased their children’s admission to some of the most prestigious universities in this country. Money was paid, test results were altered, and athletic scholarships were given to children that never paid the sport. It was publicized that among those found to have participated in these practices was the beloved “Aunt Becky” from Full House Lori Loughlin. Many of our people were quite upset, as were many Americans in general. Many of us could only wonder how many of our children were denied seats as some of these universities that their academic record would have deemed deserving due to someone paying for admission. The sad part is admission was paid for students that come from money, but apparently were lacking academically. Basically, on scholastic merit they had no business at said university. The question is, are you surprised?
We have every right to be angry. Finally, a practice many of us know takes place is being addressed. Wealthy white people have paying for their children to go to elite schools for decades. We are told to 
pull ourselves up by our bootstraps while others have a way paved in money. Its infuriating when we know our children have to blow school out of the water, they have to have stand out test scores, and endure only God knows what just to secure the scholarships that their hard work merits. Yet, even with the work done we pray as hard as possible that the seats are available, because we know some will get in simply because their rich white parents altered the playing field. While some white students were fussing about affirmative action stealing seats from them, they should have been looking at their own. The entitlement in this country, if we were to be truthful, is as old as the country itself. Think about it, old money in this country, for some, is as old as the country.
Many wealthy white Americans build their fortune off the backs of slavery, and various forms of free labor. Working for the wealth one would enjoy was not a part of the plan. When we consider the history, nothing we are seeing right now should be a surprised. We should have suspected and expected said behavior. The biggest difference these days is the internet and social media make it easier to expose, with evidence, the practices we have always argued existed.
The infuriating part of all of this we know that black people have gone to jail for using someone else’s address to send their kids to a better school so that they would have a fighting chance to get into a good university. It’s a crime when we are willing to risk all for our children but considered privilege when wealthy white people do such. We are reminded that our children are deemed less than their children. Maybe, if states, cities, and school boards did right by inner city schools with high minority populations in the area of funding we wouldn’t have to try to send our children to schools outside of our communities for them to get a quality education. We bring attention to the disparities in education, but it is a problem we will have to fix ourselves.
Meanwhile we aren’t confident that those that have stolen seats in these universities will see the inside of a jail cell. Whose to say they won’t buy their way out of that also? Universities such as Yale can promise to kick out the students that didn’t earn admission. That is the response the public may want. However, we are left to wonder why this was never addressed, and there is no way we’ll believe the school were unaware. Basically, they have no choice but to act because so many have been caught, and the universities must do as much damage control as they can.
Don’t waste your energy with shock and surprise because we knew these practices take place. We know the wealthy often pay for what is not earned, and benefit from the same. All we can say these days is we tried to tell folks, and of course no one believed us. Now, America can play the denial game if they choose, but they can’t say they didn’t know. Its in their face.
Staff Writer; Christian Starr
May connect with this sister over at Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/christian.pierre.9809 and also Twitter; http://twitter.com/MrzZeta.
