Our World is Fucked Up and Full of Inequality

They say that if you work hard enough you’ll be successful. They say it doesn’t matter if you come from a poor family. They tell us stories about those who triumphed despite the odds.

I feel like I am one of those stories. I’ve “made it” despite growing up with so little. Despite experiencing the life I have.

But what does it mean to “make it?”

My trip to South Africa has been funded by a scholarship and I am surrounded by people who have been given everything in life. They don’t understand what it means to struggle. They don’t understand my perspective.

In my university, that has been funded by a scholarship, I am surrounded by people who have also been given everything in life. When you’re rich, you don’t ever have to worry. Your problems are only complaints about inconveniences. Your problems are irrelevant compared to the majority of the world.

And yet, I still feel guilty for the position I take in the world. I feel guilty for the privileges I’ve been granted in life. I feel guilty because not everyone can be treated equally and given the same opportunities.

People who were born with wealthy families didn’t have to work hard for the position they’re in, but they expect others to work hard to escape poverty and hundreds of years of racial discrimination.

It’s not easy to escape from the systems of inequality. A lot of it is merely based on luck.

Even though I am in another country, I don’t feel culture shock because I am surrounded by South Africans. I feel culture shock because I am surrounded by rich Americans. I can’t afford to spend $40 on dinner casually. I can’t afford to spend money at all without thinking about how much is left in my bank account.

I struggle because I’ve “made it,” but I don’t understand what it means to be surrounded by wealthy people. I struggle because I hear their complaints, but cannot relate because I am grateful to be here in the first place. I can’t relate to their struggles and don’t know how to fit in.

I can’t contribute to conversations that complain about minor inconveniences because these are nothing to me. This isn’t struggle. This is privilege.

I struggle because I feel a need to make these same opportunities available to everyone in the world. There is no reason why some can experience privilege, while others are forced to live with so little.

I wonder why I can “make it,” while others cannot. I wonder why our world grants different privileges to different people. I wonder why we can’t see each other as equals.

But equality hasn’t been achieved because those who have everything can’t bear to give up anything at all. It hasn’t been achieved because people think they deserve what they have despite the fact that they haven’t done anything to get to the place they’re at.

It doesn’t matter if I’ve “made it” or if anyone who has struggled has “made it” because there is still this mentality that exists that says you have to work insanely hard to acheive this level of privilege that others have been born into. We shouldn’t have been born into privilege at all. We shouldn’t say that rich people are better than poor people or that the color of your skin should determine your place in the world.

And it doesn’t matter if you conciously say these things because the mindset exists regardless. If the mindset didn’t exist, we would live in a perfectly equal world. But, we don’t.

We live in a world where some people live in tin shacks for 60 years, receive little to no education and then die, while there are others who are raised in mansions with the best education in the country, never have to worry about anything significant at all and complain when the water in the shower is cold.

Fuck this world we live in. The janitor should not be treated any differently than the CEO. We are all human beings. We all deserve love and respect. We all deserve to live happy lives.

But I don’t know what to do to fix the problems that are so obviously apparent around me. I don’t know how to fix hundreds of years of discrimination. I don’t know how to appreicate “making it” without thinking about those who haven’t or never will.