black women are rational and human. - Tressie McMillan Cottom

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 with only a high school diploma can expect to earn just under $700/week.

Then, and only then, will you understand the relative value of a ridiculous status symbol to someone who intuits that they cannot afford to not have it.

Beauty isn't actually what you look like; beauty is the preferences that reproduce the existing social order.