The world is filled with hypocrites, racism, Donald Trump tweets, and double standards.
There are a bunch of double standards in different areas of life but, guess what I’ll be focusing on?
*Ding, Ding, Ding*
The dating world!
More specifically, the first date.
Yup, a perfect follow up to my Valentine’s Day special.
“Oh my god, how can he talk about double standards in the dating world if he isn’t in a relationship? Oh no. He’s generalizing.”
First of all, hush.
Not the case, whatsoever.
I decided that I would interview a few people and see where they stand on the topic.
I made a conscious effort to search for and include singles, couples, gay, straight, brown, white, purple, Donald Trump supporters.
I think I’m going to stop dropping his name now, every time I type it I hear “Dun, Dun, DUN”.
It’s weird.
So, after the Valentine’s Day article was published, my good friend Lamar a.k.a. Big Money Mar planted the seed in my head to write an article addressing the “Double Standard”.
I ran with it.
Actually, it gives me a great excuse to talk to all the pretty girls around campus and other universities in the area.
So, why not?
The question was “In regards to the first date, should men be expected to pick up the bill?”
Society, custom, tradition, status quo, what ever you wish to call it has deemed it a requirement for the man to pay for the first date.
It is what it is.
No way to get around it.
The man has always been expected to be chivalrous due to some old fashioned courting technique established when Shakespeare was shaking it for a shilling.
When I asked Habon, a senior at the University of Baltimore, if the man should pay for the first date?
She succinctly replied, “The man should always pay.”
What ever the first date looks like to you, the man must pay according to the rules of society unless it is communicated otherwise; which a few young ladies agreed with.
You know he just paid for dinner, right? Photo Credit: Iselin/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
Sydney, a Towson University sophomore agreed.
“Yes, I believe that clear and understanding conversations can eliminate the double standard. I don’t think there’s a big problem with going half on the first date.”
“All depends on who asked who out” says Siobhan, a graduate student at The University of Baltimore. “I personally would pay for the first date if I asked the man out. If he asked me out, then I would expect him to pay.”
While Taylor, a senior at The University of Baltimore, strongly believes the man has to pay to have her heart. “If the man is truly interested in pursuing, he should pay on the first date. If not, I categorize him as a friend. Paying for the first meal is an act of providing for a potential lover. If he doesn’t pay, that’s not a good sign in my opinion.”
If some women believe that paying for the first date equates to showing interest, how do men discern whether a woman is interested in a relationship or interested in getting a free meal?
Think about that one.
In a society where women compete with men in all aspects of life whether it be the workplace, weight room, court room, and even the battlefield it seems hypocritical for a woman to bow out when the bill hits the table, don’t you think?
Some will avoid the conversation and brush it off with the usual rebuttal “It’s just how it is.”
But, if I’m not mistaken, not too long ago women weren’t allowed to hold the same position as a man in society and that was brushed off with “It’s just how it is.”
So how is it O.K. to want to break down walls but be selective of which bricks remain?
If you’re reading this and think to yourself “He’s making this a big issue because he’s broke”, that’s definitely not the case either and congratulations, you played yourself.
Honestly, this is a conversation that needs to be had.
Some women are holding onto this outdated custom which essentially places them in an inferior position but are steady marching around the world hoisting “Respect my Existence or Expect my Resistance” signs above their head.
I say inferior position very loosely because I am not implying that women can’t pay for the bill but, in my eyes women are surrendering their power just for an expected meal.
It’s mind-boggling to me.
I asked Jennifer R. for her position on the matter, a woman with more experience than the college girls I had interviewed.
She said: “Our society has always put pressure on a man to pay, especially with the first date. It’s expected. When I go on dates I always make sure I have money to cover the bill. I have paid for dates in the past, I want to pay for dates but the first one is the ice breaker. Let a man be a man from time to time but also give him the respect he deserves and pay.”
“It isn’t necessarily the man’s fault for the existence of the double standard” said Lamar a.k.a. Big Money Mar.
Which is true.
It isn’t our fault (or at least the Millennials)!
So where do we go from here?
How do we progress as a society if women hold onto outdated customs?
Ladies, some of y’all earn more than the male counterpart but are still expecting dinner on the first date.
Don’t allow old traditions to erase the historical and monumental progress that has been made over the years.
It’s 2017!
Out with the old, in with the new.
Pick up the bill ladies, turn the tables, and keep making history.
And always remember that this D ain’t free.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Eve Ma/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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DOGG: Snoop Dogg Launches Own Line Of Marijuana Based Products
Snoop Dogg, the well known rapper and lover of marijuana has launched his own line of weed called Leafs By Snoop.
The line is available for purchase at 10 Colorado marijuana stores and has a flashy website.
Snoop Dogg launched the line at a party last night at what Rolling Stone Magazine described as a “surreal suburban house party” in Denver.
“It’s a true blessing that I can share the products I love so much with y’all today,” Snoop Dogg said in a statement obtained by CNN. “From the flower, to the concentrates, and edibles – it’s all hand-picked by yours truly so you know it’s the hottest product out there. It’s the real deal and you gotta get out to Colorado to try it first!”
The line includes 8 types of flowers and multiple edible choices from peanut butter gems, fruit chews and gummies.
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Here’s How Trump’s Gaslighting Reminds Me A Lot Of My Abusive Ex
Originally published on Everyday Feminism.
This election was triggering for a lot of abuse survivors. Calls to RAINN’s sexual assault hotlinesurged after Trump’s Access Hollywood tape leaked, and many have pointed out that he used verbally abusive tactics in the debates.
As a survivor of emotional abuse, one tactic of Trump’s in particular reminded me of my manipulative ex partner: gaslighting. This is when someone tells you that your thoughts aren’t based in reality, to the point that you start to distrust your perceptions.
In my case, when I tried to discuss my partner’s habit of borrowing money from me and not giving it back, he’d tell me I was being too negative. When I got upset with him, he told me that life was too short to get angry. If I felt hurt by a word he used, he’d say that nobody can “make” you feel anything without your consent, so it was my problem.
This led me to feel that I was too unreasonable to trust my feelings. I internalized his arguments and believed that if I was unhappy about anything he’d done, I just needed to put it out of my mind because life was too short, nobody can make you feel anything, and it was all my fault anyway.
Since I’ve learned about gaslighting, I’ve understood that all the things my partner blamed on me weren’t actually my fault. Looking at Trump’s words can also help us understand our own relationships, as well as the ways gaslighting can shape our political climate.
While people in relationships may gaslight to discredit and manipulate their partners, Trump does it to discredit his critics and manipulate public opinion.
Here are some phrases he’s used that either were used by my abusive partner or remind me of him – because they’re clear examples of gaslighting.
1. ‘I Never Said I’m a Perfect Person’
After Trump was caught on tape saying that if you’re famous, you can just do whatever you want with women, including “grabbing them” by their genitals as your heart desires, he released a video attempting to mitigate the seriousness of his comments.
“I’ve never said I’m a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone that I’m not,” he said.
My ex has told me something similar: “Nobody’s perfect. What do you expect?”
If anybody ever responds to your concerns about them by saying that they never claimed to be perfect or that nobody’s perfect, be very, very skeptical.
If “I’m not perfect” were a real defense against criticism, nobody would ever be justified in criticizing anyone’s behavior. But obviously, things don’t work that way. If they did, people could just avert jail time by pleading imperfection.
The “nobody’s perfect” defense isn’t just irrational, though; it’s also malicious. Its goal is to imply that by criticizing someone, you’re being so demanding and unreasonable that you expect perfection, and that if you truly understood that humans are flawed, you would’ve kept your mouth shut.
Photo Credit: Oli Goldsmith/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
Of course, people’s issue with Trump isn’t that he’s imperfect; it’s that he’s promoted misogyny, racism, ableism, and a whole lot of other negativity and oppression.
By reducing all these nuanced problems to mere imperfection, he’s distracting people from the real issues and painting people as overly critical if they want to talk about them.
Similarly, if your partner is toxic or abusive, you deserve to be treated better – and that’s not an unreasonable request at all. Asking for better isn’t asking for perfection.
2. ‘This Is Nothing More Than a Distraction From the Important Issues We’re Facing Today’
Trump also said this in the “apology” video regarding his Access Hollywood tape.
Similarly, he said in the second presidential debate that we need to forget about the tape so that “we can get onto much more important things and much bigger things,” like defeating ISIS.
He also tweeted, “I’m not proud of my locker room talk. But this world has serious problems.”
As if sexual assault weren’t serious or important.
These comments aim to convey to Trump’s critics that they’re blowing something out of proportion.
This type of gaslighting comes up a lot in conversations about social justice: “How could you talk about eating disorders when some people can’t even afford food?” “Who cares if queer people can get married when in some places, they’re killed?”
It also came up in my own relationship.
If I was angry with my significant other, he implied I was being myopic for focusing on supposedly small issues. He invoked lofty notions of love and forgiveness for the same reason Trump invoked ISIS: to illustrate the necessity of looking past the problem for a worthier cause.
Beware people who tell you your problems are small. They don’t get to singlehandedly decide what’s important. And if they claim to be the authorities on the topic, it’s often to serve themselves.
More often than not, the “small” problems are the ones they’ve contributed to – and the “small” problems can add up to something much bigger.
This type of gaslighting functions to dismiss people’s very real problems on the grounds that they’re not serious enough. And when it’s used as self-defense, it has another insidious effect: It makes the person who brings up the issue look petty.
When Trump said we need to focus on more important things, he was trying to dismiss people concerned about sexual harassment and assault – many of them survivors themselves – as uncaring, self-centered people who just can’t see the big picture.
That not only detracts from the real problem, but also penalizes people for speaking out about injustice.
3. ‘This Was Locker Room Banter’
Dismissing something that hurt another person as a joke or otherwise not serious is textbook gaslighting.
And it showed up when Trump called his Access Hollywood comments “locker room banter” ina statement following their release. He also referred to it as “locker room talk” in the debate.
This defense only worked because “locker room talk” serves a very specific function in our society. Without the connotation of “not serious” or “not a problem,” it wouldn’t even be a defense. It would just mean something unacceptable that’s said in a locker room.
But in our culture, we have phrases designated for the purpose of gaslighting – specifically for men to gaslight women. “Locker room talk” is one. “Boys will be boys” is another.
Both imply that certain misogynistic behaviors are forgivable and even inevitable, so if we take issue with them, we’re just being too demanding.
We’re essentially being told that we’re asking for too much when we say that sexual assault and entitlement should not be acceptable casual conversation.
My ex-partner didn’t use these phrases, but he did, for example, defend using the word “silly” to describe an observation of mine, arguing that “silly” isn’t a serious or hurtful word.
This language serves the same purpose: invalidation and belittling, by claiming someone else’s concerns aren’t serious – which is a huge component of gaslighting.
4. ‘She’s Playing That Woman’s Card’
Trump accused Clinton multiple times of “playing the women’s card on me,” or, alternately, “playing that woman’s card left and right.”
Accusing someone of playing a card, like the “woman card” or the “race card,” is also an example of gaslighting because it implies that someone’s trying to find a problem because the problem they’re seeing isn’t real.
In Trump’s view, if Hillary Clinton tried to talk about gender, she was just doing it because she wanted to win the election – as if being a woman or speaking out about sexism gave you an advantage.
Similarly, I and many other feminists have been accused of discussing the struggles marginalized people face just so that people will feel bad for us and we’ll gain special treatment.
It wasn’t always in these words with my ex-partner, but I knew what he was getting at. Once, when I pointed out a nudity double standard in a movie, he said I may be interpreting it as sexist because I thought about sexism a lot.
Another partner told me to stop “playing the woman card” after I suggested a hiring decision at his friend’s company could’ve been influenced by sexism.
Both of these instances made me feel like I had to stay silent if I ever had an opinion related to gender again – even if it was my own lived experience.
Once again, this form of gaslighting is more than a defense. The person using it is also on the offense, attacking the other person for supposedly making up injustice for personal gain.
Whether it’s used in politics or in the context of a relationship, “woman card” accuses the other person of being not only wrong, but also dishonest and opportunistic.
5. ‘I Think It’s Pure Political Correctness’
One gaslighting technique used by many politicians and everyday people discussing politics is accusing people of trying to limit free speech through political correctness.
Trump called putting Harriet Tubman on the twenty-follar bill and moving Andrew Jackson to the back “pure political correctness.” His former campaign manager said it was “political correctness run amok” when people criticized an anti-Semitic tweet by Trump.
“We can’t afford to be politically correct anymore,” Trump said in a statement to defend his view of Muslims as terrorists.
When equality and justice become mere “political correctness” and political correctness is portrayed as a threat to free speech, every social movement becomes subject to attack.
And that’s what makes Trump so popular. His supporters have been dying for an outlet for their hateful opinions. They’re sick of being politically correct – so much so that he’s been elected into office.
By deeming efforts to not be oppressive mere “political correctness,” Trump gives people permission to let out all the thoughts they’ve felt pressured to suppress. He’s brought sexism, racism, and classism back in style.
In reality, “political correctness” is just being considerate. And telling people not to be hateful isn’t limiting their free speech. They can still legally say what they want.
Gaslighters like Trump are themselves trying to silence people by painting their standards as unreasonable and oppressive.
That’s the effect my ex had on me. He often accused me of trying to be the PC police if I pointed out a gender stereotype or racist joke he made. I started to feel ashamed and think that maybe I was just being a killjoy.
Trump wants people who care about social justice to feel like killjoys who are just out to rain on everyone’s parade – rather than people with legitimate concerns.
***
Gaslighting can happen on both macro and micro levels and takes many forms. But its message usually boils down to this: “If you have a problem with something I’ve done, the problem is actually with you.”
The same way this reasoning teaches people to suck it up when their partners hurt them, it teaches them to stay silent about injustice.
If they speak up, they fear they’ll be accused of expecting perfection, ignoring important issues, being unable to take a joke, playing a card, or limiting free speech.
It’s this kind of intimidation that actually does all these things. Trump criticizes people unfairly, discourages them from discussing issues that are in fact important, expresses extreme defensiveness, takes advantage of his privilege, and suppresses people’s opinions.
And no matter what he’d have us believe, we’re not irrational for observing this.
Trump has put gaslighting on a very public stage. Perhaps recognizing this abuse tactic in this context will help more people build the tools to recognize when it’s happening on a personal level, too.
Suzannah Weiss is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism. She is a New York-based writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Salon, Seventeen, Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post, Bustle, and more. She holds degrees in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Modern Culture and Media, and Cognitive Neuroscience from Brown University. You can follow her on Twitter @suzannahweiss.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Kanesue/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Black-Listed: How Discrimination Forces Transgender People Of Color Into Poverty And Prostitution
It only took seconds for Kenya Inge to ruin the face full of make-up that her best friend had spent hours applying.
The tears came in heavy waves, sending streaks of mascara and eyeliner cascading through the layers of highlights and contours powdered onto her skin. Even though she was already in her 20’s at the time she had only ever seen herself dolled up this way in her imagination.
“I looked at myself in the mirror and I said ‘that’s her,’” Inge recalled. “That’s who I’m supposed to be.’”
Fresh out of the closet and eager to show the world what she was made of, she knew that she was no longer going to be William Inge, that confused and depressed little boy who had tried to kill himself when he was 14 years old.
No, Inge was finally free to be herself and she was going to be fabulous, honey- all six feet and seven inches of her.
Her battle was hard-won. When she was still in high school, Inge’s mother had plans for her son to become a minister, or maybe a pianist. She and her husband were alarmed at their son’s feminine tendencies but, nonetheless, they thought they had time to nip it in the bud before it was too late.
When their son started sneaking female clothing into the house and dying his hair blonde in order to look like T-Boz, the fashion-forward lead singer of TLC, they decided he was going through a phase. Even after Inge attempted suicide, her parents remained in denial.
Read More: Fresh Faces of Feminism- Why You Should Listen To The Teen Women Of Color
To this day, Inge’s family holds firmly to the belief that she will someday change her mind, get married and become a minister.
More than two decades have passed since she left her home in Eutaw, Alabama. She’s worked as a fast food worker, a custodian, a stripper, a drag performer and, more often than not, as a prostitute. Unlike the drag queens she performed with when she was younger, Inge doesn’t transform back into a boy during the day. The last time Inge went to an official job interview the employer stared at her and demanded to know which bathroom she would use.
Now 42 years old and living in a cramped efficiency apartment just two blocks from the only gay bar in Tuscaloosa, Inge has paid a heavy price for choosing to be herself.
Her tiny room is like a jail cell. Each wall is lined with cooking dishes and piles of clothes, leaving just enough room for Inge to sleep on a small air mattress, using only a single tattered blanket to fight off the cold draft that creeps in through the thin walls.
“Aren’t you Riley’s son?,” the woman asked. “I knew that was you!”
She can’t stand to sit idly for too long. Since the cute new mailman still hadn’t delivered the new EBT card she’d applied for, she decided to walk over to a local church that offers a food pantry. Usually, she doesn’t have to venture far from her front door to hear people howl in laughter at the sight of her.
“What is that!” people shout according to Inge’s telling, aghast at the sight of man so tall and bone-thin with the nerve to walk out of the house in a mini-skirt. “Is it a man or a woman?”
Things were different this morning, though. If someone stared or snickered, Inge just brushed it off and kept on moving. She even found a six-pack of beers someone had abandoned on the sidewalk. When she arrived at the church she was surprised at how accepting everyone was of her. No one stared or asked her to explain herself. Then she ran into an old family friend from her father’s church. Inge’s heart skipped a beat as the woman spotted her and waved her over.
“Aren’t you Riley’s son?,” the woman asked. “I knew that was you!”
Inge stewed over this for a while, sure that the woman had only been trying to humiliate her. She gathered her groceries and walked back to her room.
“She’s too tall to be a woman,” Starr said in a retelling of what others tell her. “She’ll blow your cover.”
Normally, Inge isn’t concerned with what other people think of her. She’s used to hearing other queens mock her cheap outfits. Others are sometimes annoyed if she asks them for money. She doesn’t talk openly about her prostitution, but people are used to seeing her pace the streets near her apartment.
“Everyone has their way of doing things,” Inge said. “Others girls do the same thing I do, they let a man take care of them and pay their bills. They just don’t have to walk the street for it.”
Inge’s closest friend lives in the building across from her, in a room roughly the same size.
Montasia Starr is what Inge must have been like when she was a few years younger- louder, freer and less apologetic about her lifestyle.
The two are like sisters, they both say. One borrows money from the other, they get angry if the other doesn’t pay back on time, and then they quickly get over it. People tell Starr not to hang out with Inge, though.
Read More: Could Sexism Be Behind The Success Of John Green’s Books?
“She’s too tall to be a woman,” Starr said in a retelling of what others tell her. “She’ll blow your cover.”
Starr doesn’t mind, though. Her mind is usually occupied with her dreams of moving away to New York City. She speaks of it as if it’s a Wonderful World of Oz for trans girls. There, she could get all sorts of benefits like housing and food assistance. That would help her to get on her feet, and she could finally finish her transition.
Kenya Inge poses for a picture one recent night in Tuscaloosa, AL. Photo Credit: Judah Martin
“That’s when I’m going to be real fish,” she said, the word “fish” meaning she would be like a real woman. “I’m gonna have boobs, body, everything. I can just wake up in the morning and put on my clothes without having to pad my body… real fish, honey.”
But Starr’s journey to New York City is anything but a certainty.
Until then, she makes her money the same way that Inge does. For Starr, prostitution is a chance for adventure, it’s a distraction from the boredom of sitting around in the same apartment each day, making small talk with the same neighbors. While Inge said she does her best to “mentally check out” when she’s working, Starr is determined to make the best of it.
Every bit the 21st century entrepreneur, Starr made herself a Craigslist ad under the headline “Sexy Black Girl From the South” and she has plans to take her brand a step further by building a website so that men can pay for her to fly out to see them. She got the idea from a friend of hers who works as an escort.
“She goes everywhere, from New York to… to… she goes everywhere,” Starr said of herself in the third person. “The men pay for your hotel fee and everything. That’s what I want to do, I want to travel.”
Harper Jean Tobin is all too familiar with the struggles of trans women like Inge and Starr. Tobin serves as director of policy for the National Center for Transgender Equality, a social justice advocacy organization founded by transgender activists in 2003. Tobin has spent the last eight years advocating for public policy changes that will end the discrimination that forces so many trans Americans into poverty.
“Most folks are doing sex work because it is the best economic opportunity available to them right now,” Tobin said. “How do we increase their economic opportunity and help them protect their health? Not by arresting them. We change it by providing social services that don’t discriminate and that help them meet their real needs around safety, housing, health care, addiction, and barriers to other jobs. We change it by ensuring Medicaid pays for their hormone medications, and that there’s a clinic in their neighborhood that provides hormones and HIV care and where they’re not stigmatized for being trans or doing sex work. We change it by ensuring they don’t get stopped for ‘walking while trans.’”
Tobin, who is also a transgender woman, has watched numerous friends endure countless forms of discrimination.
“Things are getting a lot better for a lot of people, if you’re lucky enough to be someone who lives in a family that is accepting and you go to a school where people are accepting,” Tobin said. “However, we still see extraordinary levels of discrimination, and that is impacted by factors like your race and where you live.”
Montasia Starr. Photo Credit: Montasia Starr/ Facebook
Even as transgender Americans gain more visibility in popular culture, employers and landlords alike are free to discriminate against them, and there’s not much anyone can do about it yet.
Read More: Beyond Viral: The Actually Touching Story Behind The Drunk Guy In The Barney Costume
Technically, this can be classified as gender discrimination. Still, only 19 states, along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have passed laws that specifically address employment discrimination against LGBTQ workers. Only 17 states, along with D.C., protect against discrimination in public accommodations. Without laws that prohibit LGBTQ discrimination specifically, employers can easily find loopholes.
“In some cases, employment discrimination, lower wages, and lack of legal protections make it harder for transgender people to cover basic necessities like rent, food, clothing, and healthcare, let alone save for the future,” Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center said. “In other instances, legal inequalities mean that transgender people are forced to pay higher costs for needs like housing, healthcare, and education.”
This discrimination has had devastating impacts on the quality of life for transgender people.
According to data from the Movement Advancement Project, an independent organization that researches inequality levels among LGBT people, trans people report unemployment at twice the rate of the general population and are four times as likely to have a household income of less than $10,000.
“Now that I’m back on the scene I’m not going to take it for granted,” Inge said. “I always say that Genesis is my angel. She looks out for me.”
According to Tobin, this lack of economic stability means that many trans people are deprived of adequate health care. For trans people of color like Inge and Starr, these inequalities are compounded by additional racial inequalities.
Inge still believes in a sort of optimistic cosmic fate. After all, the stars and galaxies above can’t judge.
Inge said that she believes that if one puts positivity out into the universe, the universe will eventually return the favor. She believes that despite all of the ugly statistics, despite everything that she has been through, things will eventually turn out okay.
Kenya Inge poses for a picture one recent night in Tuscaloosa, AL. Photo Credit: Judah Martin
Early in August, Inge was still reeling from her last break-up. She was looking for a little luck but she knew it wouldn’t come to her if she continued to lay in bed moping. Racking her brain for some way to busy herself, she had an urge to fix her room up a bit. Even the smallest efforts toward improvement can lead to big rewards she reckons.
“Something told me to turn the bed around,” she said. “As soon as I finished moving the bed, that’s when Genesis called me.”
Genesis Hughes is sort of the head honcho of the drag shows at Icon, Tuscaloosa’s one and only bar that caters to the LGBTQ crowd. She’s the club’s main event just about every weekend, and it is up to her to decide which queens get booked. It just so happened that Hughes was going to be out of town a few weeks later, and she wanted Inge and Starr to perform in her absence. Inge was taken aback by the request. She hadn’t performed at a club in at least 12 years. She would have to find a way to scrounge up the money for an outfit, but was excited.
“Now that I’m back on the scene I’m not going to take it for granted,” Inge said. “I always say that Genesis is my angel. She looks out for me.”
The night of the performance fell on a weekend when the Alabama Crimson Tide football team was playing an away game.
With Icon’s main performer absent and most locals out of town for the game, the club was nearly empty.
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Inge and Starr were like two little girls left home alone to prance around in their mother’s high heels. The crowd mostly consisted of a few regulars and a few of their friends who came out to support them.
Inge went on stage first. She spent about $10 on her first outfit, a short flower print skirt and matching tank top. While she couldn’t afford to dress like the usual queens who take the stage, she could out-dance just about any of them. She knew there were people in the crowd who were staring her down, expressing dismay at how tall she was or judging her clothes, but she danced on anyway.
“People are always focused on what you have and what you don’t have,” Inge said. “They think if I have less than them then somehow that makes me irrelevant. I tell them if you can put on Miss Kenya’s size 12 sandals and walk in them better than me then you can tell the story.”
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