Gene Marks writing for Forbes has laid out a plan for how Poor Black Kids of the Inner City can end up going to an Ivy League College. It is simple and elegant: They merely need to prioritize.
But there are some problems with this idea, only a few of which I touch on here.
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Of course the poor malnourished black kids in violent neighborhoods can get into the Ivy League like any wealthy privileged white kid - why would anyone think otherwise?
I was a poor white kid who got into a pseudo- ivy league school in Massachusetts. I was offered full tuition and (as icing on the insult cake) free books. The big insult was that I was required to live on campus, and that living on that campus was valued at over 20 thousand a year in the early nineties. Thanks for the books thing, though, assholes.
If I had been even a mildly affluent kid of whatever color, I could have gone. I was not mildly affluent. More affluent than an inner city poor kid in many ways, yes. But not nearly enough to prioritize myself into a new reality. So, obviously, that was that. These pieces of Forbes filth can go prioritize their rectal spelunking till they effing choke. Reality keeps limping on undeterred.
This bullshit is like The Secret for rich assholes. Anyone who's worth a shit can get what they want if they just do it right. Didn't get it? You aren't worth a shit, and you didn't do it right. And these last two phrases are, obviously, equivalent.
If Horatio Algier weren't dead, someone would need to shoot the bastard. That myth not only allows the rich to absolve themselves of responsibility, and saddles the poor with self-doubt and self-hatred (and causes them to in turn vote against the very policies that might help them), but the very idea is abhorrent. Horatio making good does not diminish the pain of his brothers who didn't.
What would the world look like if we worried more about making sure everyone was fed and sheltered and had basic medical care BEFORE we worried about making it possible for one person in a thousand to afford a penthouse suite and a private jet?
Does everyone here know how Horatio Alger lost his first job? (as a minister ... in a church)
This may or may not related to his fourth children's book, "Ragged Dick"
... Just sayin'