Alexa, I was really shocked and disappointed when I read what you had written over at XXXXX, the post that was supposed to be to Penni but was accidentally posted to me instead. I don't know you very well, but seem to remember that you are part Native American, and adopted as well. I would think that the Native American factor might help you understand that people do not always control their destiny--that whole groups of people are systematically oppressed all over the world, and that being poor or disadvantaged does not mean that you are a lesser person, but someone who must struggle harder to overcome an uneven playing field. I would think being adopted would have made you sensitive to the the fact that the educational background and relative success in the material world of the people who rear us determines to a large degree whether we go on to college--that the college educated are not as a group more more worthy of respect, but simply luckier and more ready to take advantage of the hand up the ladder that comes with the silver spoon.
Your elitist, disparaging remarks remind me of the whole Bill Clinton/Paula Jones situation, where because Paula Jones was a poor uneducated woman who held a menial job, she was ridiculed by many and her accusation was not taken seriously. The fact that James Carville could come flying out of the Clinton administration and viciously attack her, with the comment that if you drag $100 through a trailer park it's amazing what you might find, or something like that, and actually sway public opinion more towards the President, made me sick and reminds me again of the arrogance of the ruling class.
Your comments reflect exactly the attitude I was talking about in my argument that it might be character building to be exposed to people from other social strata. They reflect a narrow, snobby attitude and are similar to the way I hear groups of educated people talking everywhere. There are as many decent, hard-working people among the working poor who love and nurture their children as in any other group. They simply have to concentrate on basic survival, so the luxuries of plenty of things to read, and the time to do it, music lessons, orthodontia and the other refinements which make the educated classes more "developed", more interesting, and more pleasant to be around are sometimes beyond their grasp.
I would add that our system is stacked against them and in favor of the privileged. Two examples of this would be that the penalties for crack cocaine are, I believe, 10 times as severe as those for powder, which is a middle class drug, and that people convicted of white collar crimes like embezzlement and bank fraud serve their short sentences in relative luxury. I have personally seen so many examples of total lack of character and humanity among the educated that I am quite sure background and social class have nothing to do with character development.
I wonder if you know that a few of the very brightest and nicest people at SI are essentially self-educated, voracious readers, curious people with native intelligence who simply love knowledge. If you took a taxi, or visited a construction site or somehow rubbed your pristine elbows with working people, and kept an open mind, you would find a diverse and fascinating group with all sorts of things to teach you. |
