I am pretty big Harry Potter fan.
Not quite on the “Pottermore comments section” level, but I own books three through seven in hardback. When book seven ultimately dropped, I went back and reread the whole series from the beginning. I’ve watched every movie. And I was even an apologist for the first two, which were unapologetically terrible.
For those of you who didn’t follow the series - which, if you didn’t then what the hell is wrong with you? - there were three main characters. Harry, of course, is the titular character. But there were also his two sidekicks: Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.
Hermione was an all around badass. She was smart as a whip and knew it, she had wit for days, and she had a mean twist out. Ron, on the other hand? Nice enough dude. But ultimately all around middling, in talent and ability. What he DID have over the other two, however, was access. Ron was born in the wizarding world, molded by it, and ultimately had a leg up on minor things that Harry and Hermione could never intrinsically know. And even with that reinforcement, he still occasionally gave into his worst characteristics. Namely, being deeply envious of the competencies that Harry and Hermione had, even while receiving benefits they never had.
I say all that to say that Abigail Fisher is the worst parts of Ron Weasley, even down to their physical likenesses.
Abby Fisher is sincerely convinced that she was denied admission to the University of Texas in favor of less qualified students due to race. Mind you, she was rejected. Not waitlisted, but rejected. She didn’t even get friend zoned by the school she is convinced she was a perfect match for. Her entire petition to the Supreme Court boils down to “I never went to jail and I don’t have any kids, so where’s the bad bitch that I was promised?”
Boo, you aint a 10. You aint even really a solid seven. Her scores and grades were more mediocre than the current season of Empire. As the ancient African proverb goes, don’t go chasing waterfalls.
As we’ve been shown time and time again, however, that’s how privilege works. It’s summarily assuming that if a person of color got into a school and you didn’t, they must have been less qualified than you — even if they took the same classes as you and had the same coursework as you and took the same bus as you. It’s almost as if that ideology is ingrained with every bite of green bean casserole.
The rub of it all is that this all went down in 2008. Since then, Abby has gone on to graduate from a top school and get a damn good job. Why. Are. You. Still. Mad. Boo? *claps for emphasis* In 2008 I had fallen out with a friend who had basically abandoned me in Thailand, and I still can’t bring myself to be incensed over my near-deportation almost seven years ago.
Are LSU alums not salty that Dear Abby is out here basically telling the US Supreme Court that the institution that gave her a diploma ain’t a lick of shit? Does she not realize that at the end of the day, a degree is a degree? Again I ask, why is she still so mad? Did her UT Alum dad remind her of her rejection every year at Thanksgiving while passing the green bean casserole?
I’m not even going to bother to really break down the impact of the Abbys of the world intrinsically assuming that her Black counterparts are somehow under qualified for a spot she deemed herself entitled to. I’ve spent too much of my life proving my worthiness to White people in both personal and professional spaces, and folks like Abby Fisher and Antonin Scalia are just going to have to stay mad while they chow down on their unseasoned meatloafs (or is it meatloaves? QTNA) and lament a world where they’re not just given stuff because they decided that they deserve it. I learned that lesson when I was five and my mom asked me if “I had McDonald’s money.”
Long story short: I can only hope that the Supreme Court of the United States teaches her that too when they send her lily-why posterior back from whence she came.