Patricia Hill Collins once called on the idea of controlling images, those stereotypes that are so powerful they flatten all empirical status differe… - Tressie McMillan Cottom

Being too much of one thing and not enough of another had been a recurring theme in my life. I was, like many young women, expected to be small so that boys could expand and white girls could shine.

When I would not shrink, people made sure that I knew I had erred.

We were respectable.13 We went to church and paid tithes and wore slips and we drank but had the good sense to be ashamed that we did.

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.