Tell em why you mad son...

I went to the Sprint store in December (thank you for your prayers and well wishes) and was minding my own business (as the employees struggled with a seemingly basic request – sigh). All of a sudden, I heard something very strange. Someone asked for an upgrade, but it was the way she said it that made my ears perk up.

"I believe I'm entitled to an upgrade - it's been 2 years" said the White woman next to me.

I furrowed my brow.

I searched for the term that I'm used to.

"Eligible!" I finally recalled.

I'm eligible for an upgrade. That's the language Sprint hits you with when it's time to get a new product.

I chuckled a bit because I thought it was such an affirmative (pun blatantly intended – just wait for it) way of stating her request.

That same day, my girl Abigail Fisher came rolling back into the news as the Supreme Court considered her case against the University of Texas.

I’m sure you know her well at this point. In fact, I’ve started a list of songs for her:

Petty Playlist

-Cry Me a River

-You Can’t Always Get What You Want

-Back up off Me (yah yah)…

And some cover art:

Nevertheless, what really gets to me about Abby, as we’ve so affectionately started calling her, is her sense of entitlement.

And not just her sense, but the folks who continue to select the defendants in these cases. As a Michigan grad (Hey Abby! Coincidentally, Michigan was my first choice too! But I actually got in. So there’s that), I’m very familiar with Jennifer Gratz, the Abby of U of M’s Gratz v. Bollinger case brought to the Supreme Court and decided in 2003.

Jenn, meet Abby, Abby, Jenn. (aka White women who were rejected from their top schools which happened to take minority students "only through affirmative action policies")

Here’s the deal – the makeup of any incoming class has a certain number of admitted students. Even though there aren’t quota slots that were once conjured up in terminology of yore, admission is granted to folks based on a myriad of characteristics (e.g., legacy, GPA, life experiences, donor status, etc.). But none, and I underscore none, of the schools' policies indicated that race was the sole and defining characteristic of entrance for applicants. Indeed, for both Jenn and Abby, not only were there other White applicants with better qualifications who did not gain admission, there were statistically more people of color denied admission with equal or better criteria.

So, back to the lecture at hand.

The entitled sense of admission, or "I deserve a spot," is the same rhetorical generalization bolstering "they only got in Because they're Black". And, of course, the same denial buttressing the fact that race actually/still/blatantly does matter in 2016.

And yet, Abby had the nerve to state the following:

“I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has ruled that students applying to the University of Texas can be treated differently because of their race or ethnicity...I hope that the nation will one day move beyond affirmative action.”

But Abby, when did we move into it?

The same nation you hope will magically transcend from a racialized framework is the same nation supporting your sense of entitlement for admission, success, promotion, and achievement - the structure works both ways. As I've mentioned countless times regarding our "post-racial" society, it is absolutely preposterous to imagine that America is ready to "move on" to a place where we don't consider race, because never was there a time in our history when we actually confronted our racial demons to resist, repair, and rebuild this framework.

Convenient racism is the only tool that can perpetuate this sense of entitlement. It was gratifying when this case was unsuccessful once, but significant when it was struck down on appeal.

There is a lot that I would want to say in this post, but given my attempts to get a job soon, I'll let the #staymadabby and #beckywiththebadgrades hashtags speak for my snarky and sarcastic voice.

Let this decision remind those who believe their Whiteness enough to "earn" them a spot in a competitive university that "race is a factor because racism is a factor". Race-based policies will no longer be necessary when your sense of entitlement simultaneously dissipates.

Bih.