Jo should’ve made more little mistakes like I did

This morning, as is my usual routine, I woke up, pulled on a pair of tights and a weather-appropriate, comfy t-shirt, and took my dog for her morning walk. This is the t-shirt I grabbed.

This t-shirt reminds me of a story that’s been on my mind lately. I’ve been wanting to share it as a glaring example of the ways a lack of privilege sticks with you, even if you have already successfully navigated places beyond your station. But it’s also embarrassing, and I feel so stupid talking about how I did this thing. Which is exactly why it’s important to share it.

A couple of months into law school, probably around this time seven years ago, I got my first grade back in my legal writing class and, it was a B+. I’d only gotten three grades below A before, and they were in (1) a class I missed about a third of the time because it was the morning after late-night newspaper layout (oh the nostalgia!!); (2) the class where I subsequently dated the professor and he graded me extra-conservatively because everyone already knew we were into each other; and (3) calculus 2 (three times). So a B+ as my first grade in law school, and in writing, no less, the very thing I’m supposed to be naturally extra-talented at, hit me pretty hard. Around the same time, I saw an ad for a Saturday morning writing workshop to be held at a nearby law firm, hosted by the Black Women Lawyers’ Association of greater Chicago. Help with writing hosted by women of color? Shit yeah, sign me up.

On the Saturday morning of the workshop, I dragged myself out of bed (hung over), and put on my Saturday uniform – my favorite jeans and the very same t-shirt I put on today. I’d been to conferences and workshops before, of course, and I’d dressed for evening events or when I was a presenter, but a participant in a Saturday morning workshop? The presenters are happy if you manage to put on pants.

You see where this is going.

There was one other girl wearing jeans and I tried to relate to her, but it turned out she was the high school aged daughter of one of the presenters. Everyone else was in a suit. At 37, I was easily the oldest student in the room, and I was probably older than more than one of the presenters as well. I’d had a very successful 10-year career before going to law school, and here I was, woefully underdressed to the point of insult to this community.

Jo has had her run-ins with fitting in to a foreign dress code. There’s the cotillion in season two, and the dinner with the judge and the ambassador in season five. But by the time she has a job interview in season six (episode not yet recapped), she’s got her act together so well that she leverages it to get Blair to pay for her new sneakers.

I don’t believe it.

For a job interview, of course she wouldn’t make such a terrible mistake. I wouldn’t wear (and never have worn) my CU t-shirt to a job interview. There was the time, however, that I indeed “dressed up” for an interview and was told that they were very casual in the summer; so casual that I could “even” wear what I had on to work (I did get the job; luckily it was so entry-level that my clothes didn’t matter that much).

Blair is the one that went to law school; Jo ends up working in a community center where one can never be underdressed. She does have a brief stint as a teacher, and in that episode (not yet recapped), she gets some side-eye for her cartoon lunchbox. I’ll have to see how that’s presented. That strikes me as more of an eccentricity thing than a class thing, though. Kids like she was wish they had cartoon lunchboxes.

So, it’s a bit of a missed opportunity that we never had Jo making an error like I made after she already “made it,” but I remain grateful that the Jo character and her growth existed at all. Blue collar teens didn’t get much representation back then.

By the way, my biggest takeaway from that workshop, besides the shame, was the bathrooms at that law firm. In retrospect, it was the first time I’d really been *in* a fancy law firm, and I could not believe how extravagant the bathrooms were. All I could think was how much good the money that went into those fucking bathrooms could have done.