Okay, let’s talk about Ziad Ahmed, that Yale Desi kid whose dad is some Citibank Exec.

I know tons of kids like that.

I...kinda *am* a kid like that.

A lot of Desi kids in the US are the kids of parents who came stateside with graduate degrees and made MAD STACKS.

And these parents, coming into a country with no context for systemic racism, tell their kids that if you work hard and make those accolades, you can Win Respect From The Whites.

Never never NEVER understanding how that doesn’t work for So Many People.

So then you get these Desi kids who grew up in Lexington McMansions by parents who refuse to respect any activity that can’t show up on a resume.

This kid got into Yale because he was fucking GROOMED for it since fifth grade

Twitter’s dunking on this guy super hard, but lemme tell you, if one of the conservative Desi parents in the subdivision complex down the road from my house found the dude’s website, they’d be shoving it down their high-schooler kids’ throats.

YOU SHOULD BE LIKE HIM.

This is the Desi kid experience—at least in Massachusetts.

Their parents got here by being social climbers—by being the exact thing capitalism likes and NOTHING MORE. And they got RICH off it.

And they’ve taught their kids to do the same.

And that was me! I wanted to go to MIT when I was in middle school! I applied to five Ivy League schools! I took it really personally when I wasn’t accepted!

But before you dunk on Kid Citibank, understand where he’s coming from.

Ziad Ahmed isn’t here to tear down *anything*. He’s here for the accolades. And as young as he is, he’s been brown-nosing to authority figures for at *least* a decade.

He’s a sharp kid. I can see his playbook. But he’s playing for authority figures.

For himself.