Obtaining the American “dream”

Last semester, when I saw the title of Michelle Alexander's book, "The New Jim Crow," and heard that she was scheduled to be on campus, I immediately took a trip to Amazon.com to purchase it. I also went to discussion groups and watched YouTube videos featuring her.

The theme, a mass number of people (the majority were African-American men) being jailed, was so unbelievable, to have such injustices happening in the United States. Although her book focused on African-American men, I would like to interject that poor white men, women and other men of color seemed to be prime candidates and victims of a system that governs and promotes the affairs and prosperity of the wealthy. Why can't we all obtain the America "Dream"?

To answer that question, let's examine the idea of the American "Dream" and the road to reaching it. I define the American Dream as a goal to get from a poor state or a less desirable state of socioeconomic conditions to the highest state of socioeconomic conditions.

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a good example of the road to reaching, acquiring and maintaining the American Dream. The strongest individual survives and thus accumulates the wealth of the losers or the weakest. In this "game," the strongest individual has an advantage called the rulebook and the power to change the rules at any point.

In the American Dream game, those without the advantage of a rulebook are enslaved servants. I say "enslaved servants" because there appears to be no way out once you are in the system. The system can be as innocent-looking as welfare or as cruel as being a felon.

In 1865, slavery was abolished, correct? Yet, the Thirteenth Amendment reads, "Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

The wealthy men in the government had the rulebook. Blacks and poor whites were sent to jail, charged and taken to work camps to pay their debts to society, but debts were never fully paid, thus causing slavery by another name. These facts and stories can be found by viewing the documentary "Slavery by Another Name."

Maybe it was never intended for blacks to have access to the American Dream, at least not literally. Capital keeps the owners of the rulebook ahead — the money system — and the rest of us do not have it or do not have enough of it. Thus, the illusion of the American Dream is passed to us from the wealthy. As long as we compete with each other for the trickled-down portion, the wealthy are happy.

While a small portion of people with low socioeconomic status actually acquire upward mobility, it is not without a price, because to be in the middle- to upper middle class, one has to smell, act, look and think differently. You no longer can associate with "those" people. Because competition has been embedded into this culture and internalized into each of us, we see each other as competitors, and in some twisted way the enemy, which may be one reason why inequalities continue to this day. It is not all about race, because research shows that race is a construct based on the maintaining of wealth.

What the American Dream illusion has produced is the systems and attitudes we have today. We look down our noses when people fall on hard times and use clichés like all they need is to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps."

What is your definition of the American "dream," and does it include helping someone else to achieve and become his or her best? Or does your definition exclude others by way of racism, classism, sexism, ageism, ableism and so forth? The most important question to answer as individuals is, at the end of your journey to your American Dream, would you be able to face yourself without vomiting?