I may get some flack for this article but it is part of my ongoing argument for why we need to stop grouping people together and painting them all with the same brush. Yes, some people have been born with distinct advantages and some are complete assholes because of it, but not everyone acts this way and should the rest of society hate those who were born with privilege as if they ever really had a choice in what family they were born into. I find all to often we lump people together and generalize that “they” must all be terrible because they belong to a group you have had bad experiences with. A good example would be the police. Don’t get me wrong, I have had terrible experiences with the police harassing my extended family and making me feel like a second class citizen while blatantly abusing power, as I am sure everyone has experienced or heard of on at least some level. But is it fair to start hating all police officers because one Johnny rotten has left a bad taste in your mouth? What about all of the officers who put their lives on the line to stop psychopaths and who genuinely want to maintain law and order? It’s really more of a systemic problem not unlike the many other systemic problems that are all around us. I do believe the system needs an overhaul and in some areas the top brass needs to get the axe, but its not like this can happen overnight. In the meantime we need to reflect for a moment and stop hating on entire groups of people because we have had bad experiences with a few within that group.
One of the ways I have benefited over others is by coming from a well-known and reputable middle-upper class family with a father who is a doctor. All of my five uncles are also professionals and leaders in their fields of medicine, law, and education. This has helped me by generally giving people a good impression when they say “oh now, what Beck are you?” They usually know my father or someone from my family and will have some story of how they knew them and sometimes assume from that I must be a good person too – which I am for the most part. I am also glad to report that it is mostly positive things I hear, my father always treats his patients with respect and I am glad to hear through the grapevine that he is a good person and not an asshole like some other robotic doctors who have all of the credentials on papers, but not a lick of social skill or charisma. As an aside, it seems there are far too many of these types of docs being churned out by the med school business model these days.
On the contrary though, there are people who assume that I am a spoiled brat or that my family is uppity and snobbish without knowing any of us. I did have an extremely fortunate life, but hard work was something instilled in me from an early age. We were raised to make it on our own after we had left the house and I have worked hard to get to where I am at today. I do realize that I had a very stable life that would be foreign to many people and even though it might bother me if people make stereotypical comments about being a doctor’s son, the truth is that I did have it much better then the majority of people, and I have seen this first hand working with students who come from broken homes and abject poverty.
I am lucky that my family usually put me on the right path and I know that I did not always make it easy for them to do so as I wanted to experience things (read: get in trouble). I don’t feel like my parents controlled my life. I was always allowed to make my own decisions and mistakes, but it never hurt to feel pressure from positive influences around me like my uncles and parents to want to be like them personally and professionally. Really, society should be helping to pressure people in this right direction but as we all know we are a far cry from that point at the moment. If I were to be born into another family perhaps my only positive role model would be my mother who stayed home to collect E.I. cheques every month only to spend them on cigarettes and booze putting money for food low on the priority list. I have seen families like this, and I have seen children from these families go on to do the exact same thing. It can be a vicious circle.
I won’t lie I did get my first job through connections of my parents. My first job at 14 washing dishes was at a family friend’s restaurant. It helped me when I had no work experience, and I know how it can be difficult for someone with no experience to get a first job, as I am currently a career councilor for disabled youth at the non-profit where I work. So that is certainly a time when my position put me at an advantage over others. But to me using connections to meet people and networking is a fundamental part of being human. People have been doing this in every society not just today.You cant deny that people have more social systems put in place for them today than ever before. The problem is that these safety nets are often being abused or people are being forced to them (myself included by times) because of economic factors that are beyond their control.
Some people today would just like to live in a dreamlike utopia where they put in a minimum amount of work and still get to live comfortable indolent lifestyles. And some people today do live this way, particularly in Atlantic Canada! The problem with our social systems is that they get exploited and become less effective for the percentage of the population they were intended for. Why should a young healthy adult be able to work hard for 14 weeks and then take the rest of the year off when they could just as easily be contributing to the work force? This is the first time in history when people have been able to do this and maintain an incredibly high standard of living.
I suppose what I am getting at here is that people should have to work and put in hard hours to get to a higher position in society and I think that is a fundamental part of meritocracy. And why should they not be rewarded for their efforts? I’m not saying it’s a fair race at the moment, some people start with huge advantages and others are held back, but my hope for the future is that people will be able to be upwardly socially mobile if they truly want to put in the work. There is not caste system here in Canada and if a farmer from the country wants to go on to become a lawyer then there are no laws in place stopping him from doing that. It may be a lot harder for someone with a different language or culture to make it in our western society, but then what should we do differently – appease their complaints and change to be like the culture they come from? Many people are happy to arrive in Canada because they are escaping oppression in a different part of the world. It can be easy to point out the flaws in our social system and say that we are being oppressed by the hegemonic values of our society, but this devalues the society we are fortunate enough to have and offers no solutions or alternatives for change.
I have seen growing up the massive amount of work my father put into get to where he is and I know my uncles have done the same to get to where they are. It takes hard work to be successful whether you are a man, woman, rich, poor, gay, straight, or from a different culture. Right now it is clearly an impossible task for some to make it but my hope is that this will evolve. In reality it is a competitive world and people are going to get excluded from opportunities. The problem now is that other competitors don’t always deserve to be there because of cronyism or unfair opportunities they are born into. In an ideal world the successful people will go on to find new opportunity because the merit it. Right now I know it is not a perfect world out there and I will always keep this in the front of my mind. But I also think it is important to let go of some of the guilt of where you are born and to try to do what you can in the present moment to strive for a better tomorrow. Guilt and hating yourself is not constructive and it is easy to slip into a cycle of beating yourself up,
As I write this I hope not to sound arrogant, unappreciative or ignorant of others. I know that I come from a position of privilege and power and that this has afforded me with many great opportunities in my life. I do not have to look far to see how fortunate I am to be where I am. Every time I use electricity, go to the grocery store, use fresh water from the tap, drive a vehicle, or heat my house with oil I am reminded that I come from a society that has more than its fair share of wealth. I do realize that there is inequity in the world and that we live in a “have” and “ have not” society, but I can’t foresee a cataclysmic change curing this overnight as much as I might wish for something miraculous to happen. It is going to take small steps to create systemic change, and fortunately one of the ways I can help is to shed light on social injustices to my students. Hopefully, this will help them become catalysts’ for change who not only recognize and highlight problems of our world, but also offer solutions.