Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, September 28, 2016

MICHELLE SHENG | CONTACT MICHELLE AT SHENGMI@UMICH.EDU

The truth about class

LAUREN SCHANDEVEL | OP-ED

B

ear with me for this 
metaphor.

Imagine you have two 

seeds. You plant one seed in a 
sunny patch of nutrient-rich soil 
and water it every day. You plant 
the other seed in a dark shed 
and neglect it for months. Not 
surprisingly, the first seed grows 
tall and healthy while the other 
does not.

Can you attribute the success 

of the first seed or the failure 
of the second to any inherent 
quality? Of course not; you 
provided the conditions, which 
produced the results.

Now imagine two children. 

One child grows up in a safe, 
affluent 
neighborhood 
and 

attends 
an 
excellent 
school, 

where they are encouraged to 
pursue their interests and given 
the resources necessary to do 
so. The other child grows up in a 
poverty-stricken 
neighborhood 

and 
attends 
a 
school 
with 

crumbling infrastructure, a poor 
student-to-teacher ratio and a 
shortage of even the most basic 
resources. The first child goes 
on to graduate from a renowned 
university and pursue a lucrative 
career that allows them to raise 
their children in an area similar 
to the one in which they grew up. 
The second child, on the other 
hand, does not graduate from 
high school and instead works 
a low-wage job and remains in 
their neighborhood, where they 
raise their children in precisely 
the same conditions.

Can we attribute the success 

of the first child or the perceived 
failure of the second to any 
inherent quality? Of course not; 
as with the seeds, we provided 
the conditions, which produced 
the results.

If the rationale of our metaphor 

holds, then why do we still 
operate under the assumption 
that one’s socioeconomic status 
is the product of one’s character? 
More specifically, why do we act 

as though poverty and wealth 
are deliberate choices, rather 
than phenomena created and 
perpetuated by a rigidly stratified 
class system?

For decades, we have blissfully 

and collectively operated under 
the assumption that America 
is a fruitful meritocracy where 
all dreams, no matter how 
ambitious, can be achieved with 
just the right amount of hard 
work and determination. This 
is the foundation on which our 
country was built, and its blind 
optimism resonates today with 
the same magnitude that it did 
more than 200 years ago. Our 
country’s elite are lauded for 
their 
competence 
while 
our 

poor are degraded for their 
deficiencies, all while those of us 
making the observations remain 
grossly unaware of how exactly 
our system works to maintain 
these inequalities.

Here is a bitter pill to swallow: 

America is an oligarchy in which 
a handful of (primarily wealthy 
and 
white) 
citizens 
inherit 

automatic and unlimited access 
to elite academic institutions, 
political influence and positions 
of power. Poor people and people 
of color are not left out because 
they do not have what it takes to 
thrive — they are left out because 
we never intended for them to 
thrive in the first place.

Now you may be asking 

yourself: “What about all of 
those inspiring stories I’ve heard 
in which someone who comes 
from next to nothing manages to 
succeed despite all odds?”

The answer lies within the 

question. These individuals are 
exceptions — not in the sense that 
they did not earn their success 
(if anything, they are especially 
deserving of it), but rather that 
their 
systemic 
disadvantage 

made the probability of their 
success far lesser than their more 
affluent counterparts.

Nevertheless, the myth of the 

American Dream demands a 
sacrifice, and these individuals 
are 
subsequently 
tokenized 

and heralded as examples of 
the culmination of hard work 
and “pulling oneself up by the 
bootstraps.” We parade them 
in front of their communities 
as if to say: “You could achieve 
the same results, you just didn’t 
work hard enough.”

So I’ll revisit the metaphor: 

If a seed grows in a dark room, 
is it viewed as a miracle or an 
expectation?

Think about it.
We are conditioned to believe 

that our every accomplishment 
is the product of our character 
alone rather than a combination 
of character and circumstance, 
of the resources we are given 
and the ways in which we 
utilize them. Not only does this 
mentality perpetuate the notion 
that the wealthy are inherently 
superior; it allows us to live 
comfortably in the presence of 
extreme poverty by blaming the 
poor for their own misfortunes.

If 
we 
can 
confront 
our 

perceptions of class head-on, 
work diligently to undo our 
inherited 
biases 
and 
unite 

to 
strengthen 
and 
elevate 

one another in a way that is 
productive and decent, then 
we can successfully develop 
solutions to the flaws in our 
system that threaten to divide us.

What are the consequences 

of allowing all of our seeds to 
grow in ideal conditions? Are 
we afraid some will crowd 
out others, that there is not 
enough sunlight and water to go 
around? Do we feel threatened 
by 
the 
prospect 
of 
equal 

opportunity? What will become 
of our garden?

I’ll tell you what will happen: 

It will grow bigger and more 
beautiful than ever before.

LAURA SCHINAGLE

Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

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SHOHAM GEVA

Editor in Chief

CLAIRE BRYAN 

and REGAN DETWILER 

Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

Carolyn Ayaub
Claire Bryan

Regan Detwiler
Caitlin Heenan
Jeremy Kaplan

Ben Keller

Minsoo Kim

Payton Luokkala

Kit Maher

Madeline Nowicki
Anna Polumbo-Levy 

Jason Rowland

Lauren Schandevel

Kevin Sweitzer

Rebecca Tarnopol

Ashley Tjhung

Stephanie Trierweiler

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Lauren Schandevel is an 

LSA sophomore.

E

arlier this year, George 
Will, the championed 
conservative columnist, 

announced he was leaving the 
Republican Party. “The long 
and the short of it is, as Ronald 
Reagan said when he changed 
his registration, I did not leave 
the 
Democratic 
Party, 
the 

Democratic Party left me,” Will 
responded to a shocked press. 
Reduced to an outsider within 
his own political family, Will 
evoked the father of modern 
conservatism to try and explain 
away his position.

We, 
too, 
are 
distraught 

Republicans, and have both 
served on the executive board 
for the University of Michigan’s 
chapter of College Republicans 
in the past.

But for us, supporting Donald 

Trump 
means 
abandoning 

our core principles of limited 
government, individual freedom 
and 
strong 
international 

leadership. Trump’s candidacy 
has left us and many other 
life-long Republicans with the 
vexing choice of voting for a 
candidate who is clearly unfit 
for the office or defying years 
of party loyalty. We believe in 
putting our nation over party 
identity.

Nevertheless, not all of our 

Republican-minded friends feel 
the same way we do. Two weeks 
ago, UMCR officially endorsed 
Mr. Trump and announced 
its intention to partner with 
Trump’s national campaign.

We respect UMCR’s decision 

to support Trump and its 
right to make that decision. If 
anything, the 2016 campaign 
has lacked the basic decency 
that should exist in any election 
— for the most part, voters’ 
opinions must be respected and 
left open for discussion. After 
all, if we expect any societal 
shift toward healthy debate to 
occur, then we must begin to 
ease the tense disapproval we 
place on those who oppose our 
personal viewpoints.

But while we respect the 

decision, we cannot support 
it. As former UMCR members, 
we are writing this column to 
other students who may find 
themselves similarly caught in 
the awkward position between 
loyalty and voting according to 
what their conscience tells them. 
We urge you to do the latter.

UMCR 
President 
Enrique 

Zalamea’s 
comment 
to 
the 

Michigan Review that “any 
Republican 
is 
better 
than 

Hillary 
Clinton” 
seems 
to 

exemplify many Republicans’ 
attitudes 
this 
election. 
But 

to us, it is far from clear that 
Mr. Trump can accurately be 

described as “Republican” in 
any way but nominally. His 
nomination was secured with 
about 56 percent of the popular 
vote in the primaries when just 
14.8 percent of eligible voters 
participated — numbers that 
hardly imply the blessing of the 
party’s constituents. Trump has 
never held office as a Republican 
and has, in the past, actually 
donated to Clinton’s campaigns. 

And while we take issue 

with many of Clinton’s policy 
proposals 
and 
high-profile 

episodes of impropriety, we 
have major concerns about the 
long-term impact of a Trump 
presidency on the United States. 
Trump has spent months trying 
to convince voters to let him 
“make America great again,” 
but his policies would likely 
produce the opposite outcome.

Trump blames both free trade 

agreements and low interest rates 
for the state of the economy — a 
state he seems to believe is much 
worse than it actually is. But 
dismantling 
the 
international 

trade laws that have governed 
peaceful global commerce since 
the end of World War II or raising 
interest rates prematurely risk 
throwing the U.S. economy into 
another recession.

And despite an emphasis 

on national security, Trump 
threatens 
our 
country’s 

safety 
through 
incendiary 

remarks and feckless “policy” 
proposals 
that 
scapegoat 

entire ethnicities, nationalities 
and religions for failures of 
international governance and 
unintended 
consequences 
of 

war. Trump demonstrates an 
alarming misunderstanding of 
foreign affairs and heaps praise 
on dictators while admonishing 
prisoners of war. In August, 
50 
former 
senior 
security 

officials 
publicly 
declared 

their unwillingness to support 
Trump, a candidate who, in their 
view, put the entire country’s 
security “at risk.” 

Above 
all, 
Trump 
has 

transformed our once cherished, 
civil, issues-focused process of 
selecting elected officials into a 
sideshow circus scene bent on 
increasing entertainment value 
and spreading fear and anxiety 
throughout the public.

The laundry list of concerns 

is 
seemingly 
unending: 
He 

poses a severe risk to global 
economic stability by way of 
his inexplicable comments on 
debt, trade, taxes and alliances; 
he exacerbates social tensions 
throughout the United States 
by pitting cultures and races 
against 
one 
another; 
his 

amateurish 
understanding 

of international conflicts and 

the rules of engagement are 
startling for a major presidential 
candidate; his overall vulgarity, 
crassness and egotism all affect 
his 
standing 
among 
world 

leaders and private American 
citizens alike, which hinders 
our ability to advance foreign 
and domestic interests.

Disregarding these obvious 

red 
flags, 
endorsements 
of 

Trump consistently paint him 
as a change agent who will be 
restrained by a powerful team of 
advisers and cabinet members. 
Unfortunately, this optimistic 
view is only a fool’s paradise.

If Mr. Trump chooses his 

cabinet as he has chosen his 
campaign team — which has 
included a former consultant 
to a Ukrainian autocrat and 
a man who was once charged 
with domestic violence — then 
the prospects for any sort of 
restraint are doomed. As for 
Trump’s role as a change agent, 
it is unfathomable to expect 
someone with zero political 
experience 
and 
a 
flagrant 

disregard for the truth or facts 
of any situation to bring about 
the type of change necessary to 
fix our country for the better.

We need someone who can 

bring opposite sides together. 
Donald Trump cannot do this. 
We need someone with the 
mental fortitude to stick by 
their core policy beliefs and 
compromise when necessary. 
Donald 
Trump 
cannot 
do 

this. We need someone who 
will represent peace to our 
neighbors and diplomacy to 
those who oppose us. Donald 
Trump cannot do this. We 
need a proven, level-headed, 
open-minded individual who 
recognizes the principles that 
built this nation from nothing 
into a superpower. Who we need 
is categorically the antithesis of 
Donald Trump.

The future looks considerably 

bleak 
for 
Republicans 
of 

our stripe. We still ascribe 
to the ideas that guided our 
party through the centuries, 
beginning with Lincoln, and 
we need candidates who will 
carry this tradition once again 
— Donald Trump will not. It is 
tough to be optimistic in such 
an uncertain and frustrating 
political climate. However, we 
cannot give up the efforts to ease 
the strangling tension within 
the country. Our goal now will 
be to move forward supporting 
responsible 
candidates 
with 

sensible policies, resisting the 
forces that seek to undo us.

Victoria Noble is a columnist and 

Ben Keller is a senior opinion editor at 

The Michigan Daily.

This November, vote nation over party

VICTORIA NOBLE AND BEN KELLER | OP-ED

A

s a 3-year-old, I had a 
polarizing incident of 
accidental racism.

We had been learning about 

Martin Luther King Jr. and the 
civil rights movement 
during Black History 
Month in preschool. 
So, when my dad ran 
into one of his close 
business 
colleagues 

(a longtime local civil 
rights 
leader) 
one 

day, I asked a poorly 
phrased albeit well-
intentioned question 
for which I still feel 
guilt: 
“Dad, 
we’re 

supposed to be nice to 
Black people, right?”

My parents believe firmly in 

racial equality, and my Jewish 
roots tie me in many ways to 
the civil rights movement (more 
on this later). My dad was so 
embarrassed. 
He 
apologized 

profusely to his friend and then 
made sure I understood that, 
of course, all people were to be 
treated with the same level of 
respect, regardless of their skin 
color. I shouldn’t have had to ask.

Children’s 
minds 
are 

malleable. It was that easy to 
change the way I spoke about and 
understood race.

***
Too often, I think, white 

people 
feel 
defensive 
when 

they’re called out for “white 
privilege.” Many feel they’re 
being guilted for something 
totally beyond their control. I get 
it. I’ve been there. “White” is such 
a broad word that doesn’t capture 
the wide swath of backgrounds 
it represents — the U.S. Census 
classifies “white” as “a person 
having origins in any of the 
original peoples of Europe, the 
Middle East, or North Africa.”

As someone who is both 

culturally 
and 
religiously 

Jewish, my life of privilege 
growing up stems directly from 
the struggle of my people. My 
great-grandparents 
left 
the 

hardship and pogroms of Poland 
and Russia shortly before the 
Holocaust, and my grandfather 
grew up poor in Staten Island to 
immigrant parents who spoke 
Yiddish and alongside more 
traditionally American “white 
people” who beat him up for 
being a “dirty Jew.”

Knowing my family story, 

and having awareness of the 
cyclical persecution of Jews 
over thousands of years, there 
was a time where I felt defensive 

about 
being 
called 

out 
for 
“white 

privilege” 
because 

I 
was 
reluctant 

to 
let 
my 
current 

societal 
standing 

supplant a much more 
complicated 
history 

that is such a big part 
of my identity.

Ultimately, though, 

it’s 
important 
to 

understand 
that 

there is a difference 

between 
generalizing 
white 

culture (and its numerous ethnic, 
socioeconomic, etc. backgrounds) 
and recognizing that the mere 
appearance of whiteness is a 
safeguard in and of itself.

We shouldn’t shy away from 

acknowledging “white privilege” 
— it exists. It is our responsibility, 
then, to be an ally to those whose 
voices aren’t as easily heard. We 
must employ our privilege to 
share their perspectives when 
they don’t have a platform to do 
so, until the time comes when 
that’s no longer necessary. This is 
admittedly easier said than done.

***
My only excuse for my 3-year-

old folly is innocent, accidental 
ignorance. 
However, 
that 

ignorance is something I was 
almost 
immediately 
coached 

out of, and it’s a mistake I revisit 
somewhat often, most recently 
after fliers that directly targeted 
people of color were posted in 
Mason Hall.

One sheet explained “Why 

White Women Shouldn’t Date 
Black Men,” and another called 
for “Euro-Americans” to stop 
“apologizing,” “living in fear” 
and “denying your heritage.” “BE 
WHITE,” the latter read.

There is no excuse for the fliers 

posted on our campus. There is 
no excuse for people who not only 
remain willfully and aggressively 
ignorant, but also encourage and 
espouse ignorance.

Very rarely, if ever, do children 

ask if it is OK to “be nice to” a 
white person. I can’t imagine how 
my dad’s friend must have felt to 
hear a 3-year-old kid ask that.

Very rarely, if ever, do white 

people sincerely fear for their 
lives when they get pulled over by 
a police officer. My parents don’t 
worry I’ll be killed if I’m caught 
running a stop sign.

Very rarely, if ever, based on 

Intergroup 
Relations 
training 

I’ve done as a student at this 
University, do white people get 
asked where they’re “from, from” 
as if their home state must not be 
their place of official origin.

If there’s one thing that I’d 

like people to learn from 3-year-
old me, it’s that ignorance 
and 
insensitivity 
to 
others’ 

experiences can be overcome. 
A lesson I’ve picked up from 
my peers in the last few years 
regarding issues of identity, from 
race to religion to gender, is that 
it’s OK to feel uncomfortable, 
and it’s OK if you don’t know 
someone else’s life experiences 
— provided that you make an 
effort to educate yourself.

Ask the questions you think 

might be stupid. Stumble upon a 
microaggression, but understand 
when someone reacts adversely 
and listen to them explain why 
what you’ve said is hurtful. Listen. 
Listen to others’ perspectives, 
and if you can’t empathize, 
sympathize. And when the time 
comes, spread your newfound 
knowledge to the people who 
stand where you once did.

I want to be optimistic.
My 
hypothesis 
is 

that 
ignorance 
sprouts 

from 
any 
combination 
of 

misunderstanding, 
resistance 

to change or even fear of that 
which 
seems 
unknown 
or 

different, and my hope is that 
we can help those with fear or 
even indifference in their hearts 
understand and acknowledge 
their unfounded biases in an 
effort to subvert even the most 
poisonous of thoughts.

At a time when racial disparities 

in this country are so much more 
complex and nuanced than 50 
years ago, yet simultaneously just 
as pronounced — and a time when 
racial and cultural division seems 
to be growing — it is important 
that people of all colors speak out 
and unite to work through our 
problems together. I believe in us.

MICHAEL SUGERMAN | COLUMN

Ignorance can be overcome

Michael Sugerman can be reached 

at mrsugs@umich.edu.

MICHAEL

SUGERMAN