R is…
- 39 Years-Old
- Female, Cisgender
- White
- Upper Middle Class
- Straight
Author’s Note
R is a white woman from New York. She is heterosexual and is not religious. She attended an esteemed university in New York, and now lives in her hometown again. Right away, she talked about what the American Dream was to her. She explains how her life’s opportunities came to fruition and expands on why she thinks she wouldn’t have had those opportunities had she been born elsewhere or to different parents.
She explains how her background and upbringing created the luxury to pick her career path and find opportunities. She works at a non-profit organization, and she explains how she had the privilege to find a job that she personally enjoyed instead of hunting for a job to earn immediate money to survive after college. The choice to do that is a privilege that not many people get. She explains how her family being supportive and financially stable was her greatest privilege. And it’s probably true. Having a financially stable family that supports you consistently is like having a head start on a great amount of the population.
R helped me understand more about the huge role that privilege plays in the American Dream and in American Society as a whole. I think it is important to realize that the American Dream is really an idea of excess opportunity. But people with privileges like financial stability or smaller school size have a sizable advantage over those without them.