The Privilege of Public Service: What It Means to “Sell-Out”
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the 2008 Republican Convention, when Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani mocked Barack Obama’s background as a community organizer. I remember my confusion, wondering how people can make fun of someone for choosing public service. For turning down high-paying law firms to engage the disenfranchised and disenchanted in the democratic process. Yet as I and other students begin to make decisions regarding our future careers, I now sense a glimmer of the absurdity in celebrating Obama’s choice. When some say public service is a privilege, perhaps what they really mean is that it is reserved for the privileged.
It appears to me many of those who have dedicated themselves to public service are just as eager to mock those who have “sold out.” Yet I personally know when I chose not to in the past, and continue to resist the idea now, that decision affects more than myself. I know my choice will continue to doom my own mother to get up at 5 AM every day, to work in a factory making lampshades by hand. A job she has held since my childhood, where I got used to eating dinner at 4 or 5 PM because that is when she would come home to scarf down a meal before heading off to second or third jobs. After she gave up her promising nursing career in China, and the English lessons needed to pursue her dreams in the U.S. to raise me, how have I repaid that debt? I ponder that question literally.
I wonder how many choosing public service have never gone hungry, or seen their parents go hungry. How many have never wondered if they would be homeless? How many are secure in the knowledge that their families will be able to bail them out? What is public service, if you don’t really have to sacrifice?
And those that do understand that struggle, who look down on those who “got out” and made the different choice to “sell out,” how many never got that opportunity themselves? It’s easy to have integrity when you’ve never been tempted. It’s easy to turn down an offer that will never be made. Are you really morally superior, or just jealous?
I can’t claim that moral high ground. If we are dedicated to serving the people, aren’t our families part of “the people” as well? People love to quote (well, misquote) that line from Lord Acton’s letter: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Yet it’s the next line that has always haunted me, starting with “Great men are almost always bad men….” What are you willing to sacrifice to be great? Perhaps more terrifying, who are you willing to sacrifice to be good? If I ever receive a lucrative offer and turn it down to stay in public service, it is not because of my moral superiority. It is because I have a higher appetite for risk, and self-confidence to the point of arrogance. It is because I am stubborn to a fault. It is because I am after a currency other than money.
And I make that choice knowing my mother’s heart troubles are why we now travel by bus, for she is scared of what may happen during a long-distance drive. I make that choice knowing she is eager to sell the house that she only bought a few years ago with my father’s life insurance payout, the stress of upkeep already too much for her to handle. How morally superior am I for refusing to “sell out?” How dare I look down on those who do? How dare you?
When one makes the financially responsible decision for themselves and for their family, is that worthy of derision from our end? Are we really better than those who mocked Obama for his choice? I wonder how many in that audience in 2008, how many of us today, are literally able to afford to make that same decision. Your empathy should be at staggeringly high levels before you inflict your moral judgments on others. I know mine isn’t. On the other hand, it still doesn’t mean we’re wrong….
It is the system that undervalues and devalues public service that we must rail against, not those who are forced to participate in that process. The system today that cuts funding for social services such as mental health, leaving it to police officers and prison workers to deal with the consequences without the funding and training to do so. That cuts salaries for teachers and investments in public schools, in favor of unproven charters that help entrench segregation and inequality. That replaces dedicated civil servants with unscrupulous contractors lacking in accountability, who end up costing taxpayers even more in dollars and services. A system where we mock those fighting for job programs, a cleaner environment, and registering people to vote. That is what we must fight, both from without and within. Of course, systems cannot stand without the collaboration of people. But remember, you are not “better” just because you can join the fight today, rather than tomorrow. Just privileged, in some sense or another.
