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Student’s Resignation Letter to Harvard Pre-Med Program Cites ‘Molecules of White Supremacy’ Seeping From Her Computer

Student’s Resignation Letter to Harvard Pre-Med Program Cites ‘Molecules of White Supremacy’ Seeping From Her Computer

“They entered my bloodstream and catalyzed a metabolism that would allow for the invasion of my body by a violently infectious life form.”

This student claims her turning point was when a grand jury failed to charge two police officers with the murder of Breonna Taylor. Do med students get credit for creative writing?

From the Harvard Crimson:

A Pre-Med Letter of Resignation, With (Self) Love & Liberation

To students, teachers, peers, and the Harvard community: This is my official farewell to the pre-medical track here at Harvard. I hope it finds you well.

While this isn’t just another story about the toxicity of pre-med culture, getting weeded out, or leaving my academic path for some earth-shattering love of another aspiration, it is a story of how white supremacy lives and breathes in each of our bodies, spreading between each of us — body to body — like contagion. It is a story of trying to mitigate chronic pain to create the possibility for genuine healing and recovery. A story of a great act of resistance: a Black woman choosing herself.

I took an inorganic chemistry exam the same day that a grand jury failed to charge two police officers with the murder of Breonna Taylor. That day, my body inhaled molecules of white supremacy as they seeped out of my computer from that proctored Zoom room. They entered my bloodstream and catalyzed a metabolism that would allow for the invasion of my body by a violently infectious life form. A chronic pain, caused by the perpetuation of lethally unjust practices and compounded by the silence and avoidance between myself and my educators when it comes to Black women’s lives, would make its way through and onto neighboring cells within my physical being. The presence of the germ of white supremacy would cause a steric hindrance within me, slowing down and even preventing the reactions of learning and healing that I desperately needed for myself and from others in that moment. The exam began, and I haven’t been able to show up mentally or emotionally in a science class since.

When white supremacy invades the bodies of those of us who dare to be Black, female, and breathing, it reproduces as a crippling affliction that accompanies us everywhere — physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

Hat tip to Noam Blum:

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Comments

Inorganic is Chem 101/102. I would say she likely was flunking out and blamed something something else other than her lack of studying.

This doesn’t sound like creative writing. Nor does it sound like someone making lame excuses.

It sounds like paranoid delusions. This person needs help.

    MajorWood in reply to irv. | October 28, 2021 at 10:52 am

    Someone needs to start holding these student publications responsible for the harm that they cause students who choose to syndicate their mental illness. You just know that future of the Oberlin plumber-hater got a bit darker with the national exposure of their “world view.” Getting stuff off of the internet is about as hard as getting pee out of a swimming pool, so each submission should include answering the following questions.

    Do you want this published?
    Seriously, do you want this published?
    If we publish this, are you ready to accept years of ridicule?
    What does your therapist think?
    Who is this “whitey” person and why are they to blame?

Her Op Ed fails to list even one fact that shows Harvard’s alleged racism .

If the prosecution couldn’t get an indictment from a grand jury, they sure as hell couldn’t get a jury to convict. White supremacy had nothing to do with it. There was no case.

surfcitylawyer | October 27, 2021 at 1:53 pm

In 1963-1964 my University (UC RIverside) called it Chemistry 1A and 1B. You take it you freshman year. I took Chemistry 4 (1A & 1B in one semester) instead along with Physics, Calculus, Geology, and PE.
I would not want this person making medical decisions for anyone.
I have had clients in mental health conservatorships who sound saner than this person.

So Gen. Chem 1 and 2 killed her pre-med aspirations? Sorry honey, as with all professional schools, you have to want it bad enough to do the work. Who knows maybe there is a place for you on the VOICE or Masked Singer.

Thank God that someone with such a poor understanding of basic biology will not be in charge of anyone’s health.

Certainly she can name a non-white country in which she would be much, much happier. Why isn’t she there?

Maybe she could send an email to well known Yale gynochiatrist Bandy Lee and get some help with a transfer to Yale.

The Friendly Grizzly | October 28, 2021 at 7:51 am

White supremacy seeping from her computer. -sigh- She reminds me of this dingbat of a wife a former work associate of mine had. She read some ad somewhere that certain damaging waves emanated from computers that affected the mind, but with the purchase of [some brand] device, these emanations could be stopped. $39.85 or some other crazy price.

She ordered them, and installed them on the three computers in their home. They were just little plastic discs with a peel-and-stick adhesive strip and some make-weight metal or something inside. They did absolutely nothing, but she felt FAR better once these were installed.

Another funny story about her: someone gave her husband one of the then-new consumer-grade clocks that pick up time signals from NIST in Fort Collins. She took one look at it, saw the word “atomic” on it, and went into a panic. I was given the clock because of this.

This is junk science at its worst. She wasn’t prepared and decided to walk out rather than seek an alternate date for the exam under a mental health pretext to mourn the death of someone who aided and abetted a major drug dealer.

Ol' Jim hisself | October 28, 2021 at 10:42 am

So, Affirmative Action did not work for her?

Maybe, just maybe, she was too stupid to be in a field with real requirements. Although, based upon the medical field’s reaction to Covid, she probably would have fit right in.

    Many affirmative action admits miss out on the opportunity to pursue a good major at an easier school. That’s why HBCU’s excel in producing black STEM grads. Because it’s a STEM degree that more succeed in. Also, state schools, although many of them have a weed-out culture in STEM classes and could be harder than Harvard in that respect.

    Does a premed grad from Howard do better or worse than a grievance studies grad from Harvard? The answer isn’t obvious.