Opportunity is there, race is no excuse 
November 17, 2008 by Matthew Jarzen
Rags-to-riches American dream didn’t start with Obama victory
With the historic election of America’s first black president (more like first half-black, half-white president), Americans across the country are filled with hope and optimism. Supposedly, because America has elected its first half-black, half-white president, opportunity will finally open up to the minority population.
As one of my minority acquaintances put it, “The opportunity is there now for everyone.”
I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade, but I’m going to say this anyway. I suppose it’s a good thing that minorities have found somebody to model their lives after, but this schlock about there finally being opportunity for minorities is exactly that-schlock.
The United States has come a long way since slavery, segregation and the artificial barriers put up to put down minority advancement. America has since gone to great lengths to right those wrongs, yet for some reason everyone acts as if nothing has changed.
However, the fact remains that (especially in this day and age) opportunity is there for minorities-you just have to want to go out and get it.
The U.S. is characterized by opportunity. Our country is a place where anyone can be anything he or she wants to be. It’s a place where anyone can go from rags to riches. The fact is, as ABC’s John Stossel pointed out in a 20/20 special about poverty, opportunity abounds and the success of immigrants proves it.
Case-in-point, a student here at UNLV, Victoria Areerob commented on her experiences as the daughter of immigrants.
“My parents were poor farmers who came from Thailand. It took them seven years to come to this country where after living in several places, they finally settled here in Las Vegas,” she stated. “When I was born, they were still extremely poor. There were times when my younger brother and I didn’t have any food.”
“Both my parents worked low-paying jobs to support us. They sacrificed luxuries for themselves and saved money to send my brother and I to a private school. Thanks to the hard work of my parents, I got the best education I could. They taught me to be frugal and save money for the important things in life.”
Areerob feels that she owes her personal success to her parents. She graduated from high school with a 3.8 grade point average and was the first in her family to attend college, which she funds herself. She is also part of the Army ROTC program.
When asked about how she got to where she is now, she responded, “I’m here because I never let anything get in my way to stop me. I did not put up any barriers. I never said anything was hard when it wasn’t. I didn’t use my race or gender as a handicap.”
Areerob’s story is literally just one of millions. The opportunity was there for her and she worked to attain it.
When people are simply too lazy to seek out the opportunities they are presented with, as far as I’m concerned, it’s their fault. Frankly, I’m tired of hearing excuses as to why people didn’t get a fair break in life.
Due to whining about equal opportunity and fair breaks, we create things like welfare and affirmative action to give the less fortunate among us a shot at life. But at what expense?
These policies cloud the opportunity that is there and create a false reality. In reality, taking risks is hard and succeeding is even harder. Yet, in the end, it’s doing what is hard that allows one to succeed.
The idea that a person’s race is reason for one to be in his or her particular situation is another farce. Race, nowadays, has nothing to do with anything and the people who use race as an excuse for why they didn’t get an education or a good job are simply making excuses for themselves. They’re putting up barriers to their own success.
Let’s use the example of a test. The opportunity is there to receive an A. One student decides to read the books, study, do the homework and attend the lectures. He takes the test and gets an A.
However, another student doesn’t read the books, doesn’t study, doesn’t do the homework and doesn’t attend the lectures. As a result, this student gets an F. Whose fault is it that the latter student failed? The professor? The book? The test? The student’s particular ethnic background?
None of those things. The opportunity was there to begin with, the student just had to work hard to attain it.
Everyone has the potential to become a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a police officer, a firefighter, a soldier, a governor, a senator or even the president of the United States.
If the opportunity wasn’t there, then we probably wouldn’t have had black Supreme Court justices Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas; Hispanic Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; the first black Joint Chief of Staff and Secretary of State Colin Powell; the first black, female Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or the first half-black, half-white president.
The only obstacles to opportunity are the ones we put up for ourselves. Real opportunity involves thinking and planning for the future, not being selfish in the present.
If you are poor, then the opportunity is there for you to get out of poverty; if not you, then maybe your children. Real opportunity does not come from making excuses, but from working hard and doing what is necessary for you to succeed in life.
Opportunity has been there for a long time and it’s time that all Americans realize that.
Carpe diem!
I think in a perfect world a merit-based society would be fabulous. However, we don’t live in a perfect world. Our society has come along way in regard to racial issues, but to imply there isn’t any racial issues left to deal with is naive. I think the bigger issue is classism. I don’t think it’s fair that some people have to work so much harder to achieve the “American dream” than others. There are people poor people, and rich people, in this world who are lazy.
As for affirmative action. I think it is absolutely necessary in the case of schooling. If you are a poor kid going to a school with honors classes, or extracurricular activies, or college-credit classes, how are you supposed to compete with a more well-off child who has access to all those things? It can’t simply be about merit and who is more “qualified.”
And welfare: There are people who have used welfare the way it was meant to be. Our society is full of greedy people who find the loophole in something and milk it dry. I don’t believe in punishing the people who are using it correctly because jerks are taking advantage. A friend of mine was a teacher who got divorced and needed help financially to get on her feet with her children. After a year or two, she didn’t need the assistance anymore. Not everyone on welfare is abusing it.
…and that’s my comment. Thanks!
Wow, you really missed the point.
When you say “Race, nowadays, has nothing to do with anything” you show that you obviously don’t have a clue. If you have ever had a racial slur used against you, you would know.
Perhaps when your “minority acquaintance” said: “The opportunity is there now for everyone,” they misspoke. Few rational people would deny the fact that opportunities are out there for everyone, no matter their heritage.
But, before Barack Obama was elected president it was hard for a person who belonged to a minority to say to their child that “they could become president some day.” Obama’s election is symbolic of the shattering of the racial glass ceiling.
You say “America has since gone to great lengths to right those wrongs, yet for some reason everyone acts as if nothing has changed.” But the Civil rights protests of 1968 were not that long ago. I would say a large percentage of Americans were alive during a time when African Americans were not equal.
It’s not that nothing has changed, it’s that people still remember a time when African Americans were persecuted, just as holocaust survivors remember when their race was persecuted.
I wholeheartedly agree with the author of this piece. I am also a minority whose parents worked so hard to come to this country and made better lives for themselves and for their family. Race has nothing to do with anything. It is completely irrelevant. My parents never used the color of their skin as a handicap. They sincerely believed that if they worked hard enough as everybody else; it would get them somewhere. It paid off.
People, like LJ, are absolutely ignorant to actually think that race has to do with something with you as a person or your capabilities to become a better, stronger person. America HAS gone to great lengths to right the wrongs of the past. There are so many laws and acts, like the Equal Employment Opp., enacted, so people of “minority status” to have the same chance as everybody else.
The Real and True definition of discrimination is when an employer or a learning institution denies someone a chance due to the color of their skin. There is something called an “Affirmative Action”. LJ, when’s the last time you asked someone of ‘color’ that they were denied of their chance to learn or to work because of their skin color? Never, right? You and I would both know that would end up in a civil lawsuit, and that’s bad news to the institution or employer.
People nowadays are so scared to be called racist, insensitive, clueless, and blah, blah, blah. Give me a break! Again, what does one being called a racial slur have to do with being discriminated against? I have been called so many racial slurs, it dates back to 1st grade. If you seriously think being called names affects you as a person, you are weak and touchy like a liberal. Of course we can’t forget what we have done in the past, that’s why we learn from our mistakes.
If people stop being sensitive and just get on with their lives and not act like bunch of high school idiots, just maybe the world be a better place.
Man-Up People!