It's possible to escape without role models - but it's a lot harder. And quite frankly, I'm still privileged. I'm white. I'm male. If I'd been black, I don't th

It's possible to escape without role models - but it's a lot harder. And quite frankly, I'm still privileged. I'm white. I'm male. If I'd been black, I don't think I would have escaped. The fact that I'm a white male means that, once I've melted into the new System, no one notices me as different. One of my best friends, who is far more professionally successful than me, is black. It still trips him up all the time. If he drives through the wrong town, cops don't see a doctor who shifted careers to finance. They see a big dark-skinned black dude driving a car way too nice for him. White male engineers, working careers surrounded by white males, socializing mostly with successful white professionals, typically have no clue how everyone else lives. Their advice is mostly useless. Or, as a female friend recently put it, it's like someone whose entire experience with horses is owning a stuffed unicorn giving advice on how to ride to people struggling with actual horses.