Social Mobility

As portrayed in just about every movie, book, article, or text: America is the land of dreams. I myself, believe that to be somewhat true. I have seen people come from rags to complete riches, in my family and others around me. Although sometimes that's not the case, I've seen the poor get poorer and the rich become richer. I think that is one problem we have here, and that there is no happy medium anymore. Either people want to be the top spot or they become the lowest of low. Why can't we be okay with just enough?

Now that racism is somewhat set aside, as is sexism, we have a new problem on the rise: social classism. I know I have personally felt affected by this. When I tell my friends (of a higher class) I can't come to dance saturday mornings because I have to work, I feel as if they don't understand. I think this goes along the lines of the aritlce we read titled "No Rich Child Left Behind", in the article it talks about how kids in families with more money, are more prone to be in extra curricluars. Maybe the reasoning behind this is because they have to work for their money, and that is a priority over sports or even education. One other part of the article that actually made me giggle a little was the section on social class rankings and college completion. If you are around the age of a college student, or are a parent of a college student, you know how ridiculousily expensive it is. "families who earn a bachelor's degree has increased by 18 percentage points over a 20-year period, while the completion rate of poor students has grown bt only 4 points." This sentence was obvious to me, of course this is true it's not only expensive to go to college but it's also miserable going through debt because of student loans. This takes it back to social mobility, how are the poor people going to become successful and earn enough money to be content, if they aren't even able to afford the proper education to do so?

Source D, an article written from the stand point of an immigrant, also touched base on the topic of social mobility. Some parts of it very much confused me, but he had really good and valid quotes that brings together todays world and social class. One quote from the article that made me think that social mobility is still possible today was the one about Oprah Winfrey, "Oprah grew up in abject poverty, only to become one of the richest women in the world". Even are current president didn't grow up with (by any means) the money that he has now. In the article he talked about how our climate is so pessimistic, and after all the attacks made on the U.S. that hatred for us is common. I think this was more of a valid text since it's seen through the eyes of someone who has experienced first hand, social mobility.

The article, "Economic Mobility is Determined by Personal Choice", really made me angry and made me realize how much I wish politics don't exist. It is an overgeneralization of "liberals" clearly told by someone who considers themselves conservative. I think that his opinion is unfair. Being a liberal myself, I believe that social mobility is not as prominent today because of people who feel they need all the money in the world. While reading this article all I could think about was the saying, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer".