My family has always built me up to be a brilliant person since I was an infant. My mother credits the first few moments where my intelligence was recognized back when I was a toddler. At one year old, I was already speaking rather well. At two years old, my words were actually words rather than just baby blabber. At three, my mother read to me every night, so much so that I accumulated plenty of knowledge from the books she read to me. This eventually led to my ability to read rather fluently for my age, which urged my parents to send me to preschool, where I was learning to add and subtract by four years old. I grew up in an area where I’m already at a disadvantage because the side of town that I grew up on didn’t get the most funding, the most supplies, or the most attention unless something tragic happened. The only good publicity the north side of Tyler, Texas got was when someone scored multiple touchdowns at a football game. Other than that, North Tyler was only in the news for tragedies or criminal activity, when the crime rates are similar on both sides of town. Due to this unfortunate fact, I always wanted to be the person to make this change. I wanted to be the person in the news from North Tyler that was accomplishing academic achievements no one had ever heard of before. I wanted to be the best at math because no one assumes that “people like me” can even do simple math. I wanted to be the best speaker because I came from a family of eloquent speakers who weren’t ashamed to tell it how it is. I wanted to be the best because I am the best, no matter what people may assume. My plans in education include going to one of my dream colleges, majoring in Pre-Law/Law, learning more about the legal system, and utilizing my education to change the law field forever. My dream college now is Baylor University. It is frequently regarded as one of the best schools in Texas for those wishing to go into the legal field. Due to my career goal being to become a lawyer, this is the best option for me. I’ve had an interest in being a lawyer since I was a freshman in high school, even joining the debate team to heighten my skills and doing so well that I became one of the captains in only my second year. I’m intrigued by the intricacies of the legal system and I wish to participate in one of the most integral parts of it in the future. I would utilize my education in law to inform myself on what can be done to use the legal system in a completely unbiased way. Black women are unrepresented in the field of law. It would be even better to diversify the legal field because more variety is always a good thing. The legal system is infamous for affecting people of color at a rate far worse than white people, and I believe that becoming a lawyer will still make a distinct impact on the world, even if they are just baby steps. With my career, I want to open the door for more Black women in the legal field. I aspire to be the woman people look at and think "if she can do it, so can I."

It’s been drilled in my mind since I was a little girl that education would get someone farther than anything else. There is nothing more valuable for someone's future than their knowledge. Since I was a kid, I always assumed this was just some mundane statement to me so I could get up and go to school rather than slacking off all day at home. Now that I’m older and closer to my dreams than ever, I truly understand how crucial it is to continue to educate myself. I’m still young so I still have the chance to take advantage of all the knowledge I can accumulate and that’s precisely what I plan on doing. My plans in education include going to one of my dream colleges, majoring in Pre-Law/Law, learning more about the legal system, and utilizing my education to change the law field forever. My dream college now is Baylor University. It is frequently regarded as one of the best schools in Texas for those wishing to go into the legal field. Due to my career goal being to become a lawyer, this is the best option for me. I’ve had an interest in being a lawyer since I was a freshman in high school, even joining the debate team to heighten my skills and doing so well that I became one of the captains in only my second year. I’m intrigued by the intricacies of the legal system and wish to participate in one of the most integral parts of it in the future.

To me, feminism is allowing women to be women without any unnecessary criticism. Being a young black woman, I witness just how much work the world needs to confront gender disparity. There are multiple discrepancies I already face for being a woman but once you combine my being black, there’s even more thrown onto your plate before you can understand the concepts of gender roles and stereotypes. Since I was a little kid, if I didn’t appear visibly happy, even if I were in a good mood, people would assume I was angry or something was wrong with me. People associate black women with being strong so whenever something was wrong with me, I was expected to get over it faster than a non-black woman would. The basic terminology for this concept is misogynoir. Misogynoir is defined by The Guardian as “where racism and sexism meet.” The world has an issue with this as well as basic gender disparity as well. Because I’ve experienced sexism from a standard and a racial standpoint, I’ve been more open to confronting gender disparity in the state when I see it. The confrontation doesn’t just stop with black women though; we also have to confront the gender disparities that trans folk, black or otherwise, face for simply existing. Not identifying as cisgender is still a novel concept to some, so much so that in Texas parents of trans minors can receive charges of child abuse for even acknowledging them as trans. Trans folks' existence as a whole is threatening to those who don’t understand it, and the entire community experiences disparities that I can’t pretend to understand, but do stand against along with them. The simple fact that trans people have an extremely high mortality rate that hasn’t gone down since the 70s according to HCPLive is enough motivation for me to want to confront gender disparities. Many people have changed the trajectory of how I view feminism, but none like the iconic Marsha P. Johnson. Marsha was an LGBTQ+ activist who stopped at nothing to ensure everyone in the community was treated equally to people not in the community. I specifically note her as a feminist icon because she stood for feminism in all forms. Ugly or beautiful, cisgender or otherwise, queer or not, she believed women had to fight for their rights, not just as women but as people. She died with this mentality but her perception of feminism has been spread beyond her years and it is one I hold dear to my heart.

There is not a single long-running system in this country that does not have imperfections; The legal system is just one that has done a significant amount of damage. Anyone who has to deal with the legal system will certainly have an issue with being affected by it- assuming their relations will not favor them- but these feelings of disparity are even more apparent when considering the racial discrepancy that comes with being at the back-hand side of the legal system. According to Vera Institute, one in three Black men is expected to be incarcerated at least once in their lives, compared to one in seventeen white men. One in eighteen Black women is expected to be confined in their lifetime, compared to one in 111 white women. Black people are incarcerated at a rate 5.1 times greater than that of white people. Black people make up 13% of the United States population, yet they make up 35% of male prison populations and 44% of female prison populations. These issues are not an accident either. They’re rooted in years of oppression and discrimination that specifically target Black people and have since created an inaccurate depiction of Black people that associates them with danger. These policies and practices have been in place since the Reconstruction Era including Black Codes, vagrancy laws, and convict leasing, all of which were used to continue post-slavery control over newly-freed Black people. In modern times, bias by decision-makers at all stages of the justice process disadvantages black people. Studies have found that Black people are more likely to be stopped by the police, detained pretrial, charged with more serious crimes, and sentenced more harshly than white people. I acknowledge that there’s not much to be done to remove biases from the individual considering that people with such biases will not change their opinions just because someone offered a convincing point of contention, but what can be done is the induction of more people without these biases to make a change against them. Most laws that were the foundation of racial disparity are either no longer in place or are now revised versions of those laws to fit modern times. This means that the legal system shall not continue to function with these apparent biases and shall go on to empower those who will uplift the loud voices that were once heard as mumbles in the legal system. The main change we can make to this issue is to enact people who wish to reverse such harmful issues. I would utilize my education in law to inform myself on what can be done to use the legal system in a completely unbiased way. Black women are unrepresented in the field of law this is an issue for various reasons, but I would like to focus on the one I previously mentioned. According to the American Bar Association’s 2020 Profile of the Legal Profession, 86% of lawyers are Non-Hispanic Whites in the past decade, and only 5% of lawyers are Black/African-American. This issue is even more controversial considering the information provided earlier. It would be baby steps for me to utilize my education in law to make an effort to change such a discrepancy, however, we must start somewhere. With an outstanding degree in law, I wish to represent Black people in the legal system and do better for the Black people affected by it.

I had to go through a lot of strife throughout my existence, starting in the womb. When my mother was pregnant with me, my family discovered that I would have a birth defect called talipes equinovarus, or clubbed foot; a condition that causes your legs and feet to turn inwards and if not medically treated could have caused me to be physically disabled for the rest of my life. I began having surgery on my feet, starting when I was two months old with a tendon lengthening procedure. Every week I had my feet stretched out in order to straighten them up more and I had to wear full-body casts for the first couple of years of my life. I was three when I had my next surgery to completely reconstruct my feet and from then on I've had a total of nine surgeries on my feet, and a final surgery on my spine when I was 12 after discovering I had scoliosis. During the recovery process, I missed a little over a month of the first semester of my 7th-grade year in school. This was the year I started to take more advanced classes and unfortunately, I didn’t get to properly experience the paramount years of my academics and instead had to spend that time in a lot of pain. I grew up in an area where I’m already at a disadvantage because the side of town that I grew up on didn’t get the most funding, the most supplies, or the most positive media attention. The only good publicity the north side of Tyler, Texas got was when someone scored multiple touchdowns at a football game. Other than that, North Tyler was only in the news for tragedies or criminal activity, when the crime rates were similar on both sides of town. Due to this unfortunate fact, I always wanted to be the person to make this change. I learned to see my life as a chance to do my best because I can never expect what may prevent me from achieving my goals. I wanted to be the person in the news from North Tyler that was accomplishing academic achievements no one had ever heard of before. I wanted to be the best at math because no one assumes that “people like me” can even do simple math. I wanted to be the best speaker because I came from a family of eloquent speakers who weren’t ashamed to tell it how it is. I wanted to be the best because I am the best, no matter what people may assume. I had to learn to disregard preconceived misconceptions people would have about me because I am confident enough in my strengths to know they outweigh all of the malarky. As a result, I've always been in the top 10% of my class since I've been in high school, I joined the debate team and had great success in that, and I've been recognized as a community leader in my city for other Black youth. Even though I've accomplished so much I still have more to do. My goals from here are to attend a spectacular college to get a degree in the Legal field so I can make even more changes to my community and other communities. I want to achieve more than what's possible. The sky isn't even the limit because there's so much beyond the sky that needs to be discovered, and I want to be the person to unleash it all.

Being a young black woman from East Texas, I witness just how much work Texas needs on confronting gender disparity. There are multiple discrepancies I already face for being a woman but once you combine me being black, there’s even more thrown onto your plate before you can even understand the concepts of gender roles and stereotypes. Since I was a little kid, if I didn’t appear visibly happy, even if I was in a good mood, people would assume I was angry or something was wrong with me. People associate black women with being strong so whenever something was wrong with me, I was expected to get over it faster than a non-black woman would. The basic terminology for this concept is misogynoir. Misogynoir is defined by The Guardian as “where racism and sexism meet.” Texas has an issue with this as well as basic gender disparity as well. Because I’ve experienced sexism from a standard standpoint and from a racial standpoint, I’ve been more open to confronting gender disparity in the state when I see it. I have to experience gender disparity from so many different points of view that I have no choice but to confront it. The confrontation doesn’t just stop with black women though; we also have to confront the gender disparities that trans folk, black or otherwise, face for simply existing. Not identifying as cisgender is still a novel concept to some, so much so that in Texas parents of trans minors can receive charges of child abuse for even acknowledging them as trans. Trans folks' existence as a whole is threatening to those who don’t understand it, and the entire community experiences disparities that I can’t pretend to understand, but do stand against along with them. The simple fact that trans people have an extremely high mortality rate that hasn’t gone down since the 70s according to HCPLive is enough motivation for me to want to confront gender disparities in Texas. I plan on getting a degree in pre-law in college and I want to use this degree to represent women and non-men like me on a professional level. It has been entirely too long for women and non-men to have seen themselves represented in the field of law and with this degree, I wish to change that. I want my impact to be recognized as a turning point for women, black women, black LGBTQ+ women, and non-men, and even more beyond that if my influence is that strong. I want my career to break barriers of what is expected.