In response to one of her friends asking whether she was going back to school, she retorted: "What's the point - I ain't going to get a job, am I?" The young person in question was a young woman of Caribbean origin; I guess she might call herself black British. I found the remark both sad and horribly defeatist. Before she had even started out in the world, she had absorbed the possibility of a life thwarted.
It turned out that this young woman (let's call her Lisa) actually wanted to work in banking because she thought she could do something about the unfairness in that industry and help people manage their money better (and, yes, she thought it probably paid pretty well too). Lisa had a sense that a university education might be a requirement, but already had a sense that she was unlikely to get there. In the space of 10 minutes of speaking to her, I understood that Lisa was intelligent, interesting and interested.
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