As is so often the case with prejudice, her defeat was the slow, unspoken kind. There was no threat of violence or imprisonment, no conspiracy or scandal, just a status quo that revealed its presence through the passive-aggressive remarks of teachers and administrators, politely but firmly discouraging her, even at her academic peak, from applying to the best schools. Their dismissal, ever-present and stifling, was a malaise that hung over her teenage and young adult years, compounding my grandfather’s sense of aggrievement into a now generational burden for her to carry as well. And it
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Mother
