Opinion

ZOHORE | White Woman Tears

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White women are the embodiment of the ‘Damsel in Distress’ archetype, affording them one rather uncanny superpower: the power to garner sympathy. White women use their tears to advance themselves at the expense of people of color, a concept recently coined “white woman tears.”

“White woman tears” does not refer to all tears shed by white women; everyone has legitimate reasons to cry. It refers specifically to “crying and other expressions of distress by white women as a means of weaponizing the privilege inherent in whiteness and exerting the full power of white womanhood as a class historically designated as delicate, racially superior beings in need of protection,” according to Alexandria Bennett in “White Woman Tears: These Tears Taste Like Oppression.”

As early as playground days, I can remember white girls using their tears as a weapon against me and other people of color. Casual conversations would quickly escalate into waterworks, painting me as the aggressor. A friend had a white roommate who refused to clean up after herself.

Opinion

ZOHORE | Loteria, the Ivy League Stripper

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While most Cornell students were off exploring Collegetown annex parties from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. at the start of their college experience, Loteria* was learning the ins and outs of working as a stripper. Her first night on the job, she made $1,600 — the equivalent of working roughly 144 hours at a minimum wage job in New York state. Loteria came to Cornell under the pretense that her tuition costs would be covered entirely by financial aid. But after getting to campus, she realized that a “full-ride” could only get her so far. She found herself in thousands of dollars of debt within her first week at Cornell.