In one sense, it seems obvious why credentials matter. Median weekly earnings for full-time workers with a master’s degree are $1,380, while someone … - Tressie McMillan Cottom

I am, by most measures, pretty smart. My grandmother was smarter. She was do-the-Times-crossword-in-pen smart.

We were writing personal essays because as far as authoritative voices go, the self was the only subject men and white people would cede to us.

"To get the "healthcare" promised by the healthcare bureaucracy, it helps tremendously if the bureaucracy assumes that you are competent. When I called the nurse and said that I was bleeding and in pain, the nurse needed to hear that a competent person was on the phone in order to process my problem for the crisis that it was. Instead, something about me and the interaction did not read as competent. That is why I was left in a general waiting room when I arrived, rather than being rushed to a private room with the equipment necessary to treat a pregnancy crisis."