We've all head of the American dream - if you work hard in the land of opportunity, you will be rewarded with wealth and prosperity. But have you ever stopped to think about the flip side of this ethos? If successful Americans are hardworking and deserving, does that mean that the poor are failures who deserve their lot? The author doesn't think so. In fact, she believes that society - not the poor - is often to blame and that it often forces people to live impoverished or chaotic lives.
During her childhood, the author's stepfather, Alton, walked out on her mother and siblings. While many people would be quick to blame Alton for deserting his family, the author believes that economic and societal forces were also responsible.
Alton had worked as a mechanic at a local General Motors plant, but then the factory closed down. He lost his job and, with it, the chance of making a living wage, his employee health-insurance plan and the ability to support himself or his family with dignity. Following the loss of the only job he'd ever really known, Alton could only find low-paying work below his ability level. The author believes that the shame and pressure he felt in this terrible situation made him feel that he had no other choice but to leave. After all, what good was a father who couldn't afford to feed his family?
When the author was growing up, job losses like Alton's destabilized far more Black families that white ones. Indeed, during the 1980s, Black Americans experienced unemployment levels that were nearly three times higher than those of their white counterparts.
The author also feels that society does not take enough responsibility for its drug addicts.
Khan-Cullors' biological father was a drug addict, and she would often accompany him to his 12-step drug-recovery program. As she became older, she began to see that both the 12-step program and society at large, encouraged drug addicts to should the responsibility for their addiction. Why, she wondered, did society never ask why people like her father had become addicts in the first place?
Drug-recovery programs rarely account for all the external factors include growing up in a community without adequate resources allocated for youth development, such as creative outlets or mentorship programs for young people. Such social vacuums during childhood often contribute to an individual's susceptibility to substance addiction. And, unfortunately, rather than fixing these things, society prefers to blame those affected.
