After some readings that increased my awareness about race, I started to question the reasons behind my life path, career, opportunity, friends, you know, life.

Considering I live in a third-world country and my country has been almost continually in a political and economic crisis, I’m a lucky guy. I noticed that each step in my ascendance journey also meant more white people and fewer black people around me. From my youth neighborhood to my actual one, or from my primary school to my college course. Places change, but the glass wall is there, so tick you can touch it.

Then, another question comes to my mind. Why people that are from places where I came from are not here?

Here: is an abstract place representing where I can transit, but in a given moment in my life, I was not: college, some neighborhood, a fancy restaurant, etc.

Do you remember the part of the sentence where I said, “I am a lucky guy”? The answer is there. For some years, I used to believe the “lucky” in the sentence was the main part. Now I see it as a mix of “lucky” + “guy” + “white” + “heterosexual” in the sentence. Still unsure about the percentages, but it’s basically that.

That is what is most of the time, the profile allowed to ascend. And I think it’s cruel. The system creates the illusion that if someone does what I did, he/she is very likely to have a similar output. But it is only valid if the person has the same attributes I have. And guess what, I’m not talking about good luck or preparation.

(some day I should add a note about meritocracy, but not today)

Anyway, just sending thoughts to the void may help people be better, or at least make them reason about what they believe…

So long and thanks for all the fish!