Not A Level Playing Field

Yesterday, dozens of wealthy parents were charged in a pay-to-play scheme.

To get their kids into choice colleges, prominent lawyers, business people, and Hollywood stars paid millions of dollars for bribes, bogus exam scores, and fake athletic achievements. 

Uh, let's give Bobby just a little extra advantage and he'll do just fine...

But while some people pretend to be so shocked that this is going on, the truth is that we all know that it's definitely not a level playing field.

All I have to do is drive by the local Mansions in Potomac, Bethesda or Chevy Chase, Maryland or in Northern Virginia and see the extravagant homes, schools, shopping, and neighborhoods, and you know there are the forever haves and the have nots. 

As the old adage goes, "Money makes money!"

If you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth in the U.S., the chances are you will stay that way. 

Having the assets, information, connections, and opportunities seems to bode quite well for those who leverage it.

The worst part is that those who have these things often really believe that they are better or more deserving than others.

Can you see the nose elevated and those snooty eyes staring down on you? 

Wealthy parents cheating the system and paying off others to get their kids into the best schools--a surprise?  

Not a chance.

What the real surprise here is...that this time, they got caught.  ;-) 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Not A Level Playing Field

Success Is Not A Silver Spoon

So there is a disappointing editorial in the Sunday New York Times Review Section today. 

It is by Christopher Chabris and Joshua Hart in "How Not To Explain Success."

They attempt to dispel the explanation of 2 Yale law professors Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld that various ethnic and religious minorities (e.g. Cubans, Jews, Indians, etc.) "had achieved disproportionate success in America" because of three things:

1) "A belief that their group was inherently superior to others"

2) "A sense of personal insecurity"

3) "A high degree of impulse control"

But Chabris and Hart claim this is falsehood and instead attribute the success to the people's innate higher intelligence and superior socioeconomic background.

In other words, Chabris and Hart would have us believe that the ethnic and religious minorities they speak of were somehow "born with a silver spoon in their mouths"-- which is complete NONSENSE.

While Chabris and Hart (of Union College) themselves claim vastly superior empirical evidence from their survey of a whopping 1,258 adults, they dismiss others' arguments such as Yale University professors, Chua and Rubenfeld, as mere "circumstantial evidence."

Well I and many of my family and friends that I grew up with must be part of that silly circumstantial evidence, called PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

You see, we are part of the generation of Holocaust Survivors and Children Of Holocaust Survivors, who came to America, as my grandmother said "without a chair to sit on" or a dime in their pockets. 

My father worked long, hard hours in a factory eventually becoming its manager and he and my mom provided for our family. Both my parents lost most of their education due to the War and the need to "go out and earn a living."

Similarly, one of my best friends grew up also the child of survivors. His father came from the Holocaust and ended up working blue collar work as an electrician, eventually owning his business.  

Neither family started with much--I ended up managing technology in some awesome agencies for the Federal government and my friend as an executive in the cruise industry.  

Virtually, the entire generation of Jews who fled to America as refugees from the Holocaust came with nothing...yet the people and their children worked hard, very hard, and they were blessed, and become successful. 

So, I have no surveys to back me up, but I do have my life and that of almost an entire generation of real life facts from people's lives--not made up of speculative survey questions and their interpretation of results.

So from my perspective, it is Chabris and Hart that are 100% WRONG!

You see they don't know from where we came and under what horrible conditions and how we arrived here as immigrants with nothing but our faith in G-d Almighty and the love of our families and community. 

And for the record, Chua and Rubenfeld are right:

Point #1, we were clearly taught a sense of superiority--but not what people mistakenly think--it is not based on intelligence, looks, or on physical strength, but rather based on that we were Biblically expected to behave differently as Jews and live more stringently. 

And that goes clearly to point #3, which is impulse control...the Jewish religion is based on 613 commandments--we are expected to eat a certain way, dress a certain way, keep Shabbat and holidays a certain way, raise a family a certain way...there is a huge amount of impulse control involved and in fact, not all of us are successful meeting all those stringent requirements--but it is a precondition upon which many of us grow up. 

Finally, in terms of point #2--personal insecurity, I am not sure how much more insecure you can be when your people just got slaughtered in the Holocaust, the world's worst genocide ever known, and you are one of the survivors who has to rebuild--Yes, that is an incredible motivator!

If Chabris and Hart believe that we made it here based on pure intellect or positive socioeconomic factors--they are either complete idiots or sickly delusional.

While people's personal success is highly subjective for them, as a whole group though, I most certainly believe that G-d blessed the Jewish people after the horrors and unbelievable suffering of the Holocaust. 

No level of intelligence or falsely perceived socioeconomics can explain what only G-d's infinite mercy can endow. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Success Is Not A Silver Spoon

On Every Corner, Real Hope

There is a guy who stands on the corner in the 90+ degree heat here every day trying to sell his book. 

Calling out to passer-bys, he repeats, "This is a motivational book. It has my autograph."

Again and again, the people pass him by without even a second look.

I see him in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening--whenever I go down this street--and he is still standing there trying, trying, trying to sell his book.

The feeling I got was, not only didn't I want his "motivational book," but also (not to be mean), it was completely de-motivating watching him trying to sell it.

Usually with marketing, I would imagine that people want self-help books from other people that have clearly demonstrated success.

Those who have a compelling story to tell can tell us about a dragon they have slain--where we can transfer the feelings of success, the challenges overcome, and the lessons learned from the author to ourselves.

But because this guy is standing on the street corner, no one wants to purchase his book or give him a chance.

The guy standing on the corner is not the person in the "corner office."

Yet, I have a feeling his story would be an interesting story to hear.

Perhaps, his story is even more compelling, because it's from "the streets" and not from someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

But he is a stranger, selling a book on the corner, and I don't go up to him to ask.

Standing on the corner, in the heat, peddling a book for a few bucks, could be you or I--it's too easy to forget that.

I pray that G-d has mercy to help us all earn a fair days pay for a decent days work--not everyone is so blessed.

On every street corner, there can be real hope. 

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Hanne)

On Every Corner, Real Hope