It has come to my attention as we read in class the Fitzgerald classic, The Great Gatsby, that there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor in America. Fitzgerald's novel explores the high society of the rich versus lower social classes as a main theme and through this novel I have began to think about what factors determine your social class. The factors I personally believe have to do with you're social class are education, wealth of your family to begin with, neighborhood, race, and gender. Sadly, none of these factors include how hard you work, contrary to the typical American dream. Obama asserts as quoted on the Pew Research Center website that this growing gap between social classes undermines, "America's basic bargain--if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead." This "bargain" is the American dream I mentioned before, but unfortunately it seems to be just that, a dream in our modern day society. There are so many various problems that are stopping the gap from closing between the rich and the poor in our systems in America, including the fact that the better schools are in the better neighborhoods, so where you live automatically determines your level of education and therefore your future job. That leaves little room for movement if you are born into a neighborhood with a high school dropout rate of 1 in 2, which sadly is very common.
However, despite the cold hard facts that hard work just simply doesn't grant access to high society, there are many of us who are still holding on to that American dream. In a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, "35% of Americans agreed that “hard work offers little guarantee of success” while 63% disagreed in our survey last year." Keep holding to that hope America, because maybe what is now pure imagination will become reality.
No comments:
Post a Comment