Better, Brighter, Whiter Part 1

Emefa sat in her parent’s house in tears, sifting over and over again through one rejection letter after another. She’d claimed to her family that she had taken the semester off to enjoy herself before college, but that wasn’t the truth at all. In reality, the 400 pound black girl had been trying and failing to get into a reasonably good college for months, and after her first and second rounds of choices had all denied her for no obvious reason, she had begun to lose hope. After the third round of applications had all failed her, she’d become upset and suspicious, wondering if the problem wasn’t actually her grades or extracurricular activities, but nothing more than her name.

(1)

After receiving her 16th rejection letter in just 2 months, she decided on impulse to conduct an experiment. She created a new email address and without so much as running a spell check on her application letter, she changed her name from Emefa Kikelomo to “Emily Knight” and resubmitted them to every school that had turned her down. Within three days time, 12 of the 16 schools that she had applied to had sent back an acceptance letter. She felt hot tears well up in her eyes as she read each one, checking for any dissimilarity in the text outside of the ethnic tone of her name. One by one, she read them back to back.

Stanford University: “Emefa, we’re sorry to inform you…”

“Dear Ms. Knight, we are pleased to congratulate you on…”

USC: “Emefa, unfortunately we are not accepting any more students at this time. We hope that…”

“Congratulations Ms. Knight on your successful entry into….”

MIT: “Emefa, we regret that we are unable to accept your enrollment at this time….”

“Ms. Knight, we are happy to inform you that your application for enrollment has been approved….”

As Emefa clicked back and forth between the two accounts, was all she could do to resist throwing her phone through the wall. The only reason she wasn’t accepted, she realized was because her name sounded African as hell, and these uptight rich schools for the affluently caucasian simply could not let their image be marred by the presence of a dark skinned woman. She scoffed as she thought about how they would react if they saw her in person. In all likelihood, any school that DID try to use her as some sort of diversity representation would have taken one look at her facebook profile and realized that she was not only dark skinned, but also extremely fat, thus eliminating her from the pool of other light-skinned cocoa girls to plop their marshmallows into. She sighed and leaned back in her extra wide, reinforced gaming chair and refreshed her inbox only to find new, bold letters on top of the feed. She opened the email and felt her heart sink and her throat run dry.

“Dear Ms. Kikelomo,

we have been made aware of your academic prowess and would like to extend an offer for a full-ride scholarship to our main campus at the prestigious Bright University. We understand that times are tough and that ethnic groups and minorities struggle most during these modern times, but after being informed of your high GPA and progressive activities outside of school, we would like you to take part in our new B.B.W. initiative, designed to promote greater acceptance of self and others from within our very own halls. You would be required to keep a full-time schedule in addition to your duties on the counsel, but as such you will be offered priority enrollment and complete control of your schedule. If you are interested, simply come to the orientation meeting detailed below and we can get you started.

-Malcolm Dell, Bright U.

Emefa had spent the coming weeks in a blur of manic packing, partying, eating, studying, and doing all she could to prepare herself for her big college adventure. Bright University was a well known school, famous for producing successful doctors, lawyers, and businessmen of all kinds. Emefa spent almost every waking moment going over flashcards and reciting technological terms and physics formulas until they had been committed to memory whether it be laying in bed or at the dinner table with her family. Her mother was especially proud and had prepared extra huge meals, knowing that her baby girl would soon be leaving the nest. And before anyone could really come to terms with it, the awaited day had finally arrived. Emefa kissed every last member of her teary eyed family goodbye and headed off to her new life.

Bright University was more beautiful than she’d ever imagined. In fact, stepping onto the campus, Emefa was flooded with a sense of what felt like guilt just for being there. The weather was hot, and she waddled heavily over to a nearby bench to survey the area and catch her breath, pulling thick, frizzy, puffy curls away from her face. As she looked around at the towers and dorms and state of the art facilities, she couldn’t help but notice the number of rich trust fund kids strutting around campus. Bulging muscles and massive boobs adorned over 70% of the people she saw while the rest of the student body looked just as astonished and ashamed of their normal looking selves as she did. But that was exactly what she was here to remedy.

(2)

She read through the instructional letter and followed the map as best she could to the appointed meeting place. However, when she arrived at the spot on the map, she found herself outside of a pool flooded with bimbos and himbos and half-blossomed hotties.

“Ms. Kekelomo!” A man called from a cabana style table, looking uncharacteristically formal in his nice suit and nerdy glasses. Emefa approached carefully, a quizzical look on her face.

“You Mr. Dell?” She called out to the man who enthusiastically nodded and waved her over.

Seeing immediately that the table stools were far too small for a 400 pound girl to sit down at, he had another, larger chair wheeled out from the office. Emefa was confident and secure about her body, but not so much that having to have an extra large office chair brought out for her fat ass to sit on was embarrassing.

“So glad you could make it! Say, it’s awful hot out here, don’t you think a sexy gal like you would fare better in a swimsuit? We ARE by the pool after all! I’m sure no one will mind if you take a dip.!”

Emefa was caught at a crossroads. She didn’t know whether to feel outraged by the fact that her school liaison had just tried to get her to strip for him or to be embarrassed at all the thin, gorgeous, and clearly spoiled white folks staring in either disgust or dismissal, clearly telling her not to try and join their party.

“Uhh, I’ll pass. Thanks. If you think that I would ever strip down to my swimsuit in front of a school official, you trippin.” Emefa said, her eyes wide in disbelief. Her thoughts ran rampant with thoughts of “What am I doing here?” or “What have I gotten myself into?”

“Well, no worries then! So, congratulations on your acceptance! After our meeting, you’ll be escorted to your new home, but first I’d love to talk to you about our new inclusion initiative!” Malcolm said, his big teeth sparkling nerdily as he smiled.

“Yes. As you can see, I am definitely a BBW, and I appreciate the inclusion opportunity, but this won’t just be some sort of doomed fat acceptance mandate club will it?” She inquired.

“Oh no! We actually work on acceptance of size, ethnicity, augmentation or lack thereof, and have a strong focus on keeping everyone happy, healthy, and part of the group!”

Emefa raised her eyebrow at that last part.

“Part of the group? You mean you want us to…what, assimilate? You created a group project called BBW and  now you’re telling us to lose weight so we fit in?”

Malcom laughed casually, as if the gravity of his statement was lost on him along with her deadly serious tone.

“Well, I think you’re a little mixed up. See, we are aware that B.B. W stands for big, beautiful woman, but we wanted to take this initiative in a direction that steers away from inclusivity issues that are strictly limited to weight. We want our students to be accepting of THEMSELVES. That way, everyone can learn together just how much in common you ALL have! Take look for yourself!” Malcolm explained, cheerily motioning to an envelope in front of the incredibly skeptical woman.

“Student Inclusion Initiative: Better, Brighter, Whiter. What in the everloving fuck do you mean by that?” Emefa said, fighting through a crippling wave of nausea and and the horrific stomach cramps that came with them. She felt incredibly overheated and lifted her shirt up over her waist where her dark waterbed of a belly sat tucked halfway into a pair of 6XL pants an began fanning herself.

“Well I’m glad you asked.” Malcolm said. We here at Bright U have a special dream where we want to build a better, brighter future for all. White doesn’t have any meaning outside of connotations of purity and goodness. Holiness even for the religious among us. I myself am Jewish.”

“You realize…” Emefa huffed, still panting from the heat and trying to power through her nausea to finish the orientation and possibly even negotiate the terms. “That it can be seen as problematic to be having a black woman tell everyone that she believes in a better, whiter future, right?”

“Oh dear! I suppose you COULD look at it that way. I don’t see a reason to politicize the name right out of the gate, but honestly, that’s what we need you for! I have only been listening to the opinions of straight, white men for years! Maybe what we need is to hear the fresh voice of a strong , independent black woman who don’t need no man!” Malcolm chuckled, sassily wagging his finger at an unamused Emefa by the end.

Still, she smiled and rolled her eyes as a gesture of politeness, but not lacking in anger. Still, they were literally paying her entire tuition with a weekly spending allowance just for her to teach them how NOT to do the thing that they were pissing her off by doing.

She looked over at the full-white partygoers as they continued to grimace and stare at her. She grinned, her nausea forgotten.

“That sounds good to me, Mr. Dell. In fact, if you don’t mind, I think I would enjoy a dip in the pool. Do you have somewhere I can change?” She said turning back to him, twirling a curled end of her sleek, glossy wig.

He directed her to a changing room where she’d changed into a new bikini, courtesy of a supersized and very nervous looking red head was minding the counter shyly.

(3)

As Emefa waddled out in all her fat, flabby glory, she heard the grumbles and whining of the other students as one by one, they exited the pool. Emefa didn’t even grace them with a look their way as she confidently strode towards the stairs.

“That’s right, bitches. This is MINE now. And when you try to come back, I’mma be doin EXACTLY what you was just doin. So fuck y’all.”

(4)