Go off, queen!!!!I commented on one of her posts.As anAsian woman, I recognize that I have certain privileges that other POCs don’t, and I commend you for bringing light to this issue!!!
—
The next evening, Eunjin andI were at the business school studying. Well, we were both on our phones, but we were supposed to be studying.
“Um…why did you post this?” Eunjin showed me her phone screen. She had pulled up my comment on Amala’s post about Asian people’s “proximity to whiteness.”
I shrugged. “Are you saying you don’t agree?”
“No…I mean…I don’t not agree. Well, okay. I should say that I think the issue is complicated. But I was just saying that I’m pretty certainyoudon’t agree.”
“Why would you think that I don’t agree?”
“Didn’t your prelaw advisor basically tell you that you didn’t get into Harvard because you’re an Asian woman?”
“Well, Eunjin, affirmative action is illegal,” I said in a semi-ironic tone.
Eunjin rolled her eyes. “Wouldn’t you say that the reason you didn’t get into Harvard is related to the reason people think Asians have proximity to whiteness?”
“You mean because proximity to whiteness makes it sound like Asians are more privileged, so they don’t need help getting into college or grad school?”
“Something like that.”
“But I can’t just support policies based on whether they benefit me personally. That would make me just as bad as those billionaires who want lower taxes for themselves.”
“I know. I’m just curious, since Harvard meant so much toyou, whether this thing has changed your perspective on affirmative action. Or whatever they’re calling it these days. ‘Efforts in making a holistic student body,’ I guess.”
“I don’t know,” I said. I wasn’t lying. I really didn’t know. Frankly, I hadn’t thought that far. I was more focused on winning within the system than on changing the system. If you were to force me to also form a view on the system, I would say that my issue wasn’t with affirmative action. My issue was why I had to be interesting to get into law school in the first place. I didn’t think it was Harvard’s place to decide which eighteen-year-old was more interesting than this other eighteen-year-old, or which twenty-one-year-old was more boring than this other twenty-one-year-old. When I explained this perspective to Eunjin, she didn’t seem convinced.
“Hm…I understand that. But I guess my question is, what’s the alternative option? We move to a system where your grades and standardized test scores are the only things that count? That also doesn’t seem ideal.”
“It’s not,” I said, “but at least it’s honest.”
—
I expected an immediate firestormaround Laura, but the reaction was more mixed than I would’ve liked.
The most leftist people on campus, most of whom were already Amala’s friends, called for a reckoning. They demanded that Columbia expel Laura immediately. But everyone else remained silent. Most people were waiting for Amala to show proof. The most conservative students on campus started a campaign against Amala. They weren’t denying that the author was Laura, but they thought it was unfair that Amala wouldn’t justlet the author remain anonymous. They said that it should’ve been the author’s own decision whether to reveal their identity or not. The gossip on campus became more about whether or not you believed Amala and less about what repercussions Laura should face. This, for obvious reasons, pissed me off.
Laura herself went radio silent. Amala had revealed Laura’s identity on a Friday, and from Saturday to Sunday I didn’t spot her on campus a single time. She didn’t delete any of her social media accounts, but she had turned off all the comments and ceased any online activity.
Clearly, Amala needed a bit more hand-holding than I thought. I was fine with that. I deleted my previous burner account after sending Amala the first tip, so I created a new one to send her the evidence that she needed to back up her accusation. She was so lucky to have me; she didn’t even need to hire a web scraper. I could just send her all of my own documentation, including the list of every student’s name, residential hall, and hometown, along with the list of restaurants in the United States that served caviar tater tots, which she could then easily cross-reference to come to the exact same conclusion that I did.
Fortunately, Amala opened my message right away. She had been getting quite a bit of heat from people who found it distasteful at best and evil at worst to reveal the author’s identity without any concrete justification, especially when the stakes were so high. I imagined that was why she waited just an hour after she received my message to post all of the evidence I sent her to social media, almost word for word. I admit, I was a little upset that she took the credit for all the sleuthing. For instance, she said, “I pulled together this list,” rather than mention evena single time the generous benefactor of information who slid into her Instagram DMs. But once again, I couldn’t stay mad for long. I would let the firestorm commence, and once a petition for Laura to get expelled inevitably received hundreds of signatures, I would send it to Harvard.
FIFTEEN
I was pretty pleased withmyself. The tides were turning. Now it wasn’t just the most extreme leftists who believed Laura had authored the post; the moderately extreme leftists were also starting to come around. I wanted to celebrate with my friends, but of course, I wouldn’t be able to tell them why I was in such a good mood. That was okay. I decided that I’d reveal to them my other piece of good news: I had gotten into Harvard!
Okay, I knew that wasn’t totally accurate. I hadn’t quite gotten into Harvardyet. I wasgoing toget into Harvard. But to state the latter would require that I explain the whole pregnancy situation to them, which I was not yet ready for. To make things simpler, I’d just tell them that I had already gotten in. And then only later I’d tell them about the baby. Only when I was ready, when it was too late for an abortion so they wouldn’t try to talk me out of having it.
It was the perfect opportunity to celebrate with my friends. Not only was the campus population starting to turn on Laura,Alex and Leah were finally back together, restoring the four-person harmony of our friend group. Their reconciliation had almost been as messy as their breakup. One day, I had come home to find Alex packing their clothes into the same oversized suitcase they had rolled into my room a couple months prior. Alex explained that to get back at Alex for hooking up with their ex, Elliot, Leah had decided to hook up with Elliot as well. According to Alex, this had somehow evened the score in Leah’s mind, and now she was no longer upset about Alex hooking up with him, even though he was a boy. Leah’s explanation was a little different. She said that hooking up with Elliot opened her eyes to the fact that he had no redeeming qualities except for his generosity in bed. In terms of personality, he was exceedingly dull. All he wanted to talk about was his recent ADHD diagnosis and bitcoin, and she finally believed Alex’s explanation that Alex was hooking up with him solely for sexual pleasure.
It seemed that things were back to normal. They had canceled their request to switch roommates. The only change to their living arrangements was to keep the twin beds separated rather than like before, when they had pushed them together to form one large bed. “I think what we really needed in our relationship was a little space,” Leah had explained, and I nodded, pretending I agreed.
I told my friends to meet me in my dorm at 8:00 p.m., just a few hours after Amala had posted the evidence I sent her. I spent the afternoon cleaning up the place. I made my bed, threw out all the trash, straightened the posters, mopped the floor, and wiped down all the surfaces. I even sanitized the inside of the microwave. I opened the window to let in fresh air, then I lit a stick of palo santo and waved it like a magic wand around myentire room, letting the woody and minty aroma encourage an atmosphere of renewal and positivity.
They all arrived at around 8:30, even Eunjin, who literally lived next door. But she said she had been running late from a rehearsal, so I guess I couldn’t blame her. I only had one chair, so the three of them sat on my bed, leaning against the wall. I was a bit annoyed that all of them were late for my special announcement, but I decided that now I was a future Harvard-trained lawyer, I would need to be a bigger person. I couldn’t let myself be affected by these silly little things. I brushed off my irritation like swatting away a bothersome fly.
