When I woke up this Friday the 13th, I expected a day spent avoiding walking under ladders, crossing paths with black cats, and saying the names of beloved brunch cocktails thrice in the mirror so as not to incur the wrath of the Universe on this unluckiest of days. Little did I know that my cosmic undoing would arrive in the form of a seemingly innocuous GoFundMe link; a campaign posing as a bastion of hope in a wayward and racist world when in fact it is a glaring and offensive example of just how insidious racism can be.

Allie Dowdle, a self-identified contestant on America’s Most Oppressed, is apparently an exemplary student at her prestigious and expensive private school in Memphis, Tennessee. She’s a willing volunteer, hardworking intern, and, until just this week, well on her way to all the storybook endings her gender expression, race, and wealth could afford her. However, due to a cruel and unprecedented twist of fate, it simply was not meant to be. You see, Allie’s parents are racists. And, upon learning that Allie had been secretly dating a Clemson University soccer player who happened to be black, they “cut her off” by removing access to her savings account, taking away her car, and turning off her phone – all while they continue to let her live under their roof, eat their food, and pay for her final year of high school with their money.

This recently impoverished Southern Belle has turned to what is apparently the only avenue she has for continuing her higher education; she’s started a fundraising effort online to, in her words, “Say No to Racism,” by following in the time-honored anti-racist tradition of — sending a privileged white girl to college?

Now, if this is the part in the story where your head, like mine, is threatening to implode with the pressure of all the fuckery it is being forced to comprehend, let us take a pause to reflect: A wealthy white female from the south United States is seeking public praise and donations in excess of $10,000 for willingly dating a successful black athlete behind the back of her racist parents.

We could start with the obvious fact that there are many bright and gifted students in this country who will suffocate for decades under mounds of exponentially increasing debt in their attempts to access a college education. We could map out a walking route to all the places in greater Memphis that an able-bodied teenager could amble back-and-forth to for part-time and summer employment. We could innumerate all the ways in which Allie herself has already benefited from her privilege well beyond what many middle class, non-white students will ever experience. But, let’s table all of that and head straight to the heart of why this particular example of persistent and willful ignorance has me on edge: As soon as Allie suffered the indignation of having some of the privileges she had not earned taken from her, her first course of action was to profit off the body of the closest black person in her proximity. While her boyfriend is the primary target of racism not only in this instance but, we can safely assume, in numerous arenas of his life. Allie feels entitled to ask for money from strangers because she had the terrible misfortune of falling-in-like with someone 10 shades darker that she is. And it hurts.

After all that Black people have suffered at the hands of White Supremacy, globally and in this country alone, I am shocked to have learned today that it is often white women who are the biggest victims of anti-Black racism in the form of parental disapproval.

Unlike the swiftly-unfriended black woman who brought this fundraising effort to my attention this morning, I am not swelling with pride that yet another white person is exploiting black pain for personal gain. I don’t hope she raises enough money to fund the entire education her parents were likely to pay for once she and her boyfriend split up this summer. And I pray that neither Ellen nor Oprah uses their platform to amplify this atrocious attempt at defrauding the American people. My simple wish is that Allie Dowdle, like her compatriot in Basic Beckery, Abigail Fisher, finally gets one of the only things her privilege has not afforded her thus far – a goddamn seat.

Allie Dowdle

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