And yet, in America today, how many people start out as despised minorities and remain such all their lives, in spite of working their butts off?
I've known at least one person who was extremely proud of her parents and herself for achieving the American Dream and pulling themselves out of poverty to the point where her mom bought her a Lexus for her birthday. The other side to the coin was the feeling that since her family had done it, why couldn't everyone else? She said she'd never have any sympathy for someone on welfare for that reason. And she was appalled when I told her that my mat leave was paid for by the government through unemployment insurance.
I don't dispise the American Dream. It's a good dream and a good goal. I do intensely dispise this other side of it, and the idealization of entrepreneurship and capitalism that it engenders.
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Date: 2005-09-03 02:57 pm (UTC)I've known at least one person who was extremely proud of her parents and herself for achieving the American Dream and pulling themselves out of poverty to the point where her mom bought her a Lexus for her birthday. The other side to the coin was the feeling that since her family had done it, why couldn't everyone else? She said she'd never have any sympathy for someone on welfare for that reason. And she was appalled when I told her that my mat leave was paid for by the government through unemployment insurance.
I don't dispise the American Dream. It's a good dream and a good goal. I do intensely dispise this other side of it, and the idealization of entrepreneurship and capitalism that it engenders.