Cole — although you make some good points, your article is tone deaf in one significant way — it fails to recognize how privilege works. Theresa points out one area in which privilege expresses itself — people growing up in financially stable homes don’t worry about where their next meal comes from or whether they could be shot on their way to school. The impact of stress caused by poverty is part of what Theresa is referring to.
Similarly, you ignore the impact of systemic racism, food deserts, lack of access to mental health/addiction treatment, mass incarceration of generations of black people, often for crimes their wealthier white counterparts aren’t even arrested for, let alone prosecuted. Your article makes the flip side of the tone deaf argument made by Ben Carson recently when he said “Poverty is a state of mind.” Perhaps, if you’ve had every advantage in life but have squandered those advantages because of laziness or some other character flaw, that might be right. But for the millions of America born in poverty, that is a cruel lie.
To the extent that you are targeting a privileged audience, your advice seems sound. But we cannot continue to perpetuate the myth I hear all too often from privileged people that “everyone in this country has the same opportunity to succeed as everyone else.” Although your article doesn’t say that, exactly, it certainly perpetuates it. I’m not saying that every article about amassing wealth must talk about all the reasons why the advice might not work for millions of people. Although you reference people who are poor “through no fault of their own” as deserving of help, there is still the notion that the wealthy have the power to decide which poor person deserves help and which one doesn’t. It’s judgmental and, again, perpetuates a very dangerous myth about poverty and wealth in this country.
