
Poor Can’t Afford Not to Wear Nice Clothes - perfmode
https://medium.com/s/story/the-poor-cant-afford-not-to-wear-nice-clothes-b015f6a79561
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tcj_phx
It's easy for people to make assumptions about others -- pattern matching is a
survival skill. When people have assumptions made about them, sometimes they
become self-fulfilling prophecies.

The author of this essay, a black woman, learned from her family how to run
pattern interrupts on people so she doesn't get stuck in the pattern.

    
    
      [...] I was miffed, as only an 
      only child could be, about 
      sharing my mother’s time with 
      the neighbor girl. I must have 
      said something about why we had 
      to do this. The Vivian, as I 
      called my mother, fixed me with 
      a stare as she was slipping on 
      her pearl earrings and told me 
      that people who can do must do.
    

"people who can do must do" \- this is a constructive philosophy for getting
through life, a local version of 'a rising tide lifts all boats'.

    
    
      I learned, watching my mother, that 
      there was a price we had to pay to 
      signal to gatekeepers that we were 
      worthy of engaging. It meant 
      dressing well and speaking well. It 
      might not work. It likely wouldn’t 
      work, but on the off chance that it 
      would, you had to try.
    

I'm dealing with gatekeepers at the moment, except the ones I'm trying to
convince to do their job are rather inaccessible. Maybe I am learning the
value of persistence.

