3 ms·
If you're talking to the people in the professional class already, your points are valid. If you're talking to someone in OP's situation back then, your points
by rossdavidh 6y ago
If you're talking to the people in the professional class already, your points are valid. If you're talking to someone in OP's situation back then, your points are dispiriting. I know you didn't mean it that way, but it is important to a person who is in a disadvantaged situation to not hear well-meaning members of the professional class saying what sounds like, "you can't make your situation better until the whole system is changed". I think OP's statement of "I made it and you can too" was clearly aimed, not at you or me probably, but a person in the same situation that OP was in years ago.
- jrochkind1 6y agoyou make a good point. The trick is separating "Don't give up" from "it's your fault if you haven't escpaed poverty." Cause it's also dispiriting to have worked your ass off for 10+ years and still be poor and have someone telling you if you were trying hard enough you would be in a different position.
- rossdavidh 6y agoI agree with that as well.
- jrochkind1 6y agoAs I come back to this again I guess here's what I think it's really about: The implication that there's some correlation between how hard you work and poverty. But most poor people I know work way harder than most "professional" people I know. If there's a correlation, it seems to me to be the reverse, poor people are, by neccessity to survive, as a general rule hustling a lot harder than wealthier people. As the OP actually kind of outlines.