To your second paragraph: in the middle of this I was challenged by an elderly woman pulling weeds in a garden I was photographing who said something like “everyone one of those people [again with the other/those people] would jump at the chance to move here. They all want to live here.” It’s an odd and disturbing sentiment, one I think enmeshed within our national identity, alas.

Thanks for this; well said. I hope you get around to posting the “second strike.” I’m astounded and saddened. We all have sh*t to overcome, but the fact that I/we/he overcame sh*t through a lot of hard work does not a level playing field make. It’s hard to believe that people fail to perceive that at least at some deep level.

What’s equally boggling, though embedded further within the lefty discourse as well, is the assumption that “they” would jump at the chance to make it to whatever “third base” we were born on—or that they ought to jump at the chance. Your acquaintance’s question, “What the hell is wrong with them…” not only presumes that “they” have had the opportunity to make it “like us,” but that they should have taken it. This problematic opens up into a minefield, one which I’m sure you are well aware of. It’s painfully difficult to open up opportunities for people who are currently excluded from the game without simply inviting them to join our game and play by our rules.

If it comes to a naked choice between two options, I’m all for erring on the side of welfare-ism rather than the myth of the trickle down, but I’m coming to realize that this entails owning the narrative that I’m “aiding” people into. Unless you know a clean way through this dilemma…?