Public Comment

I’ve been thinking about my cohort and me: old American white guys. We have had all the breaks. Being born male gave us a leg up on the rest of the world’s population. Being born white gave us a further boost. And being born in America was the final step in making us the chosen few. All of this was simply a matter of good fortune. We didn’t actually do anything to get such an enormous advantage over everyone else. 

As Evan Osnos points out in a Profile of Joe Biden in The New Yorker some time back,  

“Because of the Depression and the war, the generation was exceptionally small —the first in American history to be smaller than the one before it. Its members enjoyed more attention, and resources from their parents, smaller class sizes, and high rates of college admission.” 

It is true; we were all expected to go to college, and we did. Few of the previous generation spent so many years in school. Some — like my father — didn’t make it into high school at all. And it was easy for us to get into colleges and universities. Any of us American white guys who wanted to go got in, and the cost of a higher education was unbelievably low by contemporary standards.  

When school was over we went out and got jobs. There were plenty of them out there, and they paid well. We all expected to make more money than our fathers. And we did. Instead of wearing denim and khaki and carrying a lunch pail we wore jackets and neckties and ate lunch out. We made up a big part of the growing middle class. We had all the breaks. 

It was all so easy. You simply get born male, white, American in the period between the Depression and World War II and the world was your oyster.  

It still is. The generations that have followed us have not had it so good. Adult children live with their parents and are kept on the parents health insurance not because they are lazy, but because they can’t find work. So ours has been the golden generation, lucky beyond our dreams. We are still in control of things. The two most recent presidential candidates are the two oldest white guys to ever run for the office.  

* * * 

Such observations beg the question, why are we such a nasty lot? Why are we so fearful? We buy more guns than we will ever use. Why are we so angry? Why do we rage against a government that protects us and advances our interests? Why are we so rude and unforgiving? Why do we undercut the DACA Dreamers, whose only wish is to work for and earn the status that we have assumed all along, unearned? Why are the wealthiest among us the most uncharitable? The enormous wealth disparity in this country happened on our watch. Why did most of us vote for Donald Trump last year?  

With all of our advantages we could have looked out for those less fortunate than us. We could have worked at making the world a better place. We could have used our education to look at long term goals. We could have cared. 

Why haven’t we? 

I don’t get it.