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There were no full-length mirrors in our house. One could stand on the downstairs toilet (forbidden!) and glimpse parts of yourself or stand on a dining room chair and see your body from the waist down. I wanted curly long hair and was given uneven bangs and a Dutch boy haircut. There was Chanel N°5, but that was the extent of the mystery surrounding the womanly future. There was a high price for beauty taught to me in the constant reading of fairy tales with The Little Mermaid’s fate of walking on glass, Snow White, the targeting of the pretty one by the cruel sisters, the death of Anna Karenina and Nora: a Doll’s House and all the beautiful women loved by James Bond who were invariably shot or poisoned or painted gold so they suffocated. And my mother’s ambition was thwarted by her being female, so it made sense to reject most of those things, but I did not.

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In 1971 I was thirteen, Richard Nixon was president, the voting age was lowered to eighteen, the Vietnam War raged on, and my history teacher started to sleep with my friend, also thirteen, with me as their beard. History was my favorite subject, but I hated this man and felt his behavior reflected the essential truth that the world was terrible. Adults had no interest in protecting me from harm. My father was still drinking with periodic binges that left marks on my mother and our family life in pieces. My eldest sister was attending Radcliffe, and the riots on college campuses were constant and terrifying. On May 4th, 1970, the Ohio National Guard fired into acrowd of students and killed four.

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This recent decision to eliminate Affirmative Action enrages me as a person who has taught for decades and understands the struggle to survive, never mind matriculate in a decent college, as well as any privileged white person can.

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