We are all very privileged to live in a country where there is so much opportunity, no matter ones race. However many Americans waste the opportunities that are available to them. Take myself for instance, I was given a tremendous opportunity to go to college even though I did not have the financial capability to pay for it myself. The privilege that I had as a white American was being able to utilize grants and low interest loans that put my college education within reach. So I went to college and I signed the forms and received the grants and the loans. However, I did not study. I did not really apply myself and had to drop courses in order to avoid bad grades for classes I did not attend. Eventually my opportunities began to run out because I wasted them. Campus Reform recently published an article on White Privilege and Loyola University requiring a “identity and privilege” teaching being included in each academic unit. Likely this teaching will really be about White Privilege (white guilt) started me thinking about my classmates who were persons of color and the opportunities we had.
I had many African American friends in my college days and was always amazed at the opportunities and carve-outs that were reserved for them. My friend Reggie was attending college completely free, this included his room and board. I did not have the money to live on campus. All of his student aid were grants, some of those grants were for black students only. The university I attended preferred minority applications under their affirmative action policies which were created to give minority students even more of a leg-up. However both Reggie and I pissed away our American privilege. We both milked it for as long as we could, and lived a life of leisure for about 3 years when the money finally ran out. We both dropped out of college. This experience is very common in our nations universities and is one of the reasons that I often refer to the University System as an institution of false hopes and shattered dreams.
The point of this article is that today in 2021 the United States is NOT 1965 a America as the liberal elites would have us believe. I think back to my childhood. In elementary school one of my best friends was an African American named James. He and I were inseparable. We both worked together in the school cafeteria, both of us taking advantage of what then was the free lunch program. We were both privileged to both have the opportunity for a free education as well. In junior high school James drifted away from me because his friends did not think having white friends was cool. I lost track of James after that but I do know that through high school, during that period of time in my community, the dropout rate was large for all students and the largest rate was indeed among black students. So what we have going on now is a second and third generation of Americans pissing away their privilege. If the universities want to actually change things they need to teach hard work and dedication to its students. Help them to play the mental game for success and how to take advantage of their American privilege, instead of the political game for oppression.
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