An Incomplete Thought

The other day I saw a quote that a friend had posted on the FB.

I glanced at it right before I got in the shower, so I had some time to think about it. It's not that I disagree with the sentiment - actually, I think it's important that people take responsibility for their actions. That a lot of where you end up in life just depends on how hard you work and the decisions that you make.

But that's not entirely true. The essence of the American Dream is for someone to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. To take themselves from poverty to millionaire, or at least to a point where they own their own house with a two-car garage and the cars to fill it.

After a few years of teaching in low income schools, and then my studies in both undergrad and at Korbel, I know that hard work is often not enough. In so many places, like where I taught in the Bronx, education is hard to come by. The fact that in many schools, the valedictorian still has to go through remedial classes when they get to community college or university is ridiculous. That in no way reflects poorly on that student - no matter where you are, if you are valedictorian, you worked hard and probably have a decent amount of intelligence. It reflects poorly on the system. The whole system - the education system the socioeconomic system, the justice system.

With a multitude of my students, education was not necessarily important in their family or culture. Just the other day, my dad was talking with an older hispanic woman he works with. She had been born in Mexico and only received a basic education. She has two teenage sons, and the one who is turning 18 had never thought about college. What he does think about is working with horses, something he realized he will have a lot better chance of doing if he goes to college. My dad told the woman about all of the scholarships her son would be eligible for - first generation to go to college, 'minority' scholarships, etc. He told her to get her son to go the counselor and find out more about them, to go online and apply for as many as he could.

She was very grateful and asked him to tell her more about this stuff - she had little to no knowledge about any of it. It's not that she doesn't want the best for her kids, it's just that she never had anyone to teach her about this stuff. When I think about how much my parents helped me - excuse me, help me - I can't imagine doing it without them. From pushing me in school to helping me apply for scholarships or FASFA or taxes, my parents have always been there. Even just the family norm that college was something we were going to do, there was never a question about it, helped to make me the person I am today.

Then I think about the luck that it took for me to be born in the developed world at all. In Cameroon, where I'll be going for the Peace Corps, half the population is under 18, the life expectancy is only mid-50s, a third of the population is illiterate, and 1 in 20 people have HIV/AIDS. At my research assistant job I've been reading weekly situation updates from the height of the Sri Lankan civil war, about how many tens of thousands of people were displaced. My gigantic Sisk paper is on Cote d'Ivoire's civil war, in a country that has been in periodic conflict since 1999.

At the African Community Center I've been working with refugees, mostly from Burma. The chances of them going from where they start in America - a few thousand in debt to the International Organization for Migration - to their own house with a couple of cars, is incredibly low. Are they less intelligent or less hard-working? I doubt it. I can't imagine the courage and tenacity it must take to not only leave your own country to live in a refugee camp, but then fly across the world to a country that has a different language and different culture.

Sure, a lot of where you end up in life depends on you - your work ethic, your decisions, the directions you take - but a lot also depends on where you started and the people around you. Even people who own huge companies and make tons of money can't say they've done it by themselves. No matter how independent they are those companies would not exist without the roads and electricity, the workers and the schools that they were taught in. I don't understand fighting for lower taxes then there are already, what's wrong with giving back to the community, country, and world that has given those who are successful so much? To me the American Dream is of a country where everyone is given the opportunity to succeed, where those who have become successful strive to help others have the opportunity to do the same.

While I agree with part of what Dr. Ellis said, that it is important to take responsibility for where you are in life, I think it should be continued. Maybe an addendum: "And no matter what that destiny is, help your fellow human and make sure that the world is better for your having lived in it." Or something like that, I don't quite have the style to articulate my thoughts as well as Al.