The Payback

by Kashana Cauley

but she’d already taken a step or two away, into just-looking land, the territory of cowards and scoundrels.

I’d looked up who had student debt in this country. Black women ranked number one. First, we screwed up by not coming from money. Then we demanded the same education as everyone else. But when we finished our studies, they paid us the least, leaving us with higher balances to carry forward. Forever. So of course we’d be most of the victims. The debt cops could make an example of us.

their immaculately coiffed hair and turquoise uniforms, taking everything I owned while one of them put on Jimmy Buffett and they all did mushrooms. I always imagined them going in for some self-care after they ruined someone’s life.

I remembered sitting in the backseat of my car in the grocery store parking lot, where, even as a pessimist about how much other people cared about Black women, I was shocked when absolutely no one popped over to say something about how they agreed that it wasn’t polite to try to kill people in a grocery store entrance.

She sighed. “I thought someone would stand up for us,” Lanae said. “You mean us Black women?”

“I’ve seen us everywhere. At the mall. At Echo Park Lake. Trying to hide it on the beach, like it makes sense to walk around with a full face of makeup on sand. I thought maybe the Democrats…” “Would override the corrupt court system that keeps smacking their loan forgiveness bills down? They believe in following the rules, even when there are no rules,” I said. “Or the hard left, since it’s cop violence…”

“They would prefer us to be white. They get all fired up about the cops, and I get it! I hate the cops too! They put those Black Lives Matter signs up in their windows, and then, when they think nobody’s looking, they take them down. We’re in more of a Black lives don’t matter era.” “I can’t believe the universities don’t care either,” Lanae said. “Audrey actually wrote her college about this, and they wrote her back, saying that it’s not their place to get between borrowers and the terms of their loan agreements.” “Even though the debt police are beating us up.” “We made them money, and studen...