My biggest problem in middle school was catty girls, cliques, and trying to figure out if I wanted to be a part of one of those, just figuring out who I was and all that.
You don't have to listen to those mean girls. They're just there to make you upset and make you feel bad about yourself. And you know, inside, they feel bad about themselves too. But they don't wanna admit it to anybody.
And what is needed to prevent them from joining gangs was ample recreation for boys as well as girls, jobs and internships for training and money, and assistance to allow their families to live in decent homes.
After I had been working as a cap maker for three years it began to dawn on me that we girls needed an organization. The men had organized already, and had gained some advantages, but the bosses had lost nothing, as they took it out on us.
Of course, we knew that this meant an attack on the union. The bosses intended gradually to get rid of us, employing in our place child labor and raw immigrant girls who would work for next to nothing.
Then came a big strike. About 100 girls went out. The result was a victory, which netted us - I mean the girls - $2 increase in our wages on the average.
I learned the business in about two months, and then made as much as the others, and was consequently doing quite well when the factory burned down, destroying all our machines - 150 of them. This was very hard on the girls who had paid for their machines.
But it is true that some magazines have a policy to show only a certain amount of black girls on their covers. Naomi is right. It's not fair, and I wish it would change.
I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty... you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.
I don't know, Y'know, I always wanted to be one of those cheerleader girls and I never was that, and I was never sort of cute and perky, and I always thought it was fun to be cute and perky, and those, I don't know what those girls are doing now.
