The rEvolutionaries Project

Essential Question: Does your Social Class greatly affect how other people treat you or
think of you?
By: Miles McCartney
High Tech High
Mona, Lisa, Bernardo
Semester 1, 2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

3-4 Personal Narrative Essay: Identity Markers and Privilege

5-6 Interview: Privilege Interview
7-8 Project Proposal
9-19 - Experiment
20-21 Analysis and Implications of experiment
22-25 Experiment Reflection/Write Up
26 Research Process and Source Summaries
27 Interview Highlights Reflection
28 Latin American Compare/Contrast Paper

Identity Privilege Essay

I was born on December 27, 1999 in San Diego California. Our family has been living in
the same house for seventeen years. When I was young I didnt know a lot about my
identity or the great privileges that I have. Most of my life I feel that I have overlooked
my privilege and have taken it for granted. Looking back now I have the best
2

understanding of my identity and the privilege that I have. I am privileged in having both
my parents in a happy marriage. Along with them I have a younger sister and an older
brother making us a happy family of five. I am privileged to have the family that I have
and to live in a great community. Once I realised that some families dont have it as
good as ours, I gained a lot more respect for them and became more humble of what I
have. In a way I wish that I grew up less privileged so I could have been more humble
and understanding of those not as privileged as I am.
I remember being very young when I first found out what my race was. I never
saw a difference between people besides looks and how they spoke, so when I was
introduced to what racism was, I was baffled. I was with my friend Ethan when I first
found out about the disrespectful word used to discriminate blacks. When I first heard
the word I immediately asked if there was a word for white people, after being told no I
was very confused on why that was. After some thought on it and some asking around, I
found out that blacks were discriminated. This only raised more questions rather than
answer them. I never understood it when I was young and I still dont understand why
there is racism.
Like my race I feel that I am very privileged when it comes to my family's social
class, my mom used to work as a Nutritionist, and my dad is the head of IT at his work.
My dad makes a healthy amount of income but in no way means that we live the high
life. I am grateful for everything that I have and am happy that our family has never had
financial problems. I dont like seeing other people struggle with finances and I wish that
I could help people out more. When I was young and played with a variety of different
toys, I noticed that one of my friends was always the last to keep up with the trend, it
would always be a while before he got them and when he did he never had as many as
everyone else. When I asked about it he said that his family couldnt afford to keep up
with all the new toys.
When my brother and I were very young, too young to remember, we got tested
for ADHD, I was lucky and tested negative, my brother wasnt as fortunate, when we got
our eyes tested I scored a perfect 20/20, my brother wasnt as fortunate. When it came
to physical ableness, we were both great athletes, but my brother was better off. He
was used to having ADHD, of being made fun of for having glasses and he used all of
that to push himself to be the best he could be. He pushed himself to get the body he
wanted, he pushed himself to get straight As and climb to the top rank in his ROTC
class. In some way I wish that i had some kind of disability so I could have the drive that
my brother has.
Unlike my privilege of ableness over my brother he was a big role
model for forming my gender and sexual orientation. Growing up my brother loved
dump trucks, seeing him play with them made me want to play with them, I have gotten
a lot of what I like today from my brother. My brother grew up doing everything that a
boy does and I gladly followed along. I think that if I didnt have him I would have
played with different toys, and done things that boys arent suppose to do. Because of
him I grew up playing with Legos and Transformers and I enjoyed playing with them. I
3

first understood my sexual orientation when I was on the playground with my best friend
Ben, he was VERY popular among the girls and they would always try and be around
him. I saw him as a role model and saw it as the cool thing to have girls like you and for
you to like them back.
It is helpful to see my identity and privilege like this to see that I have it better that
a lot of people, this will also help me find out what am I going to do to help others with
the privilege that I have, Im not sure yet but I will use my resources to help others not
as fortunate as me. I feel that people that arent as privileged as me are in a way more
privileged because they will have the drive to become who they want to be, to inspire
others that you can start at nothing and get anything, then thats not a privilege, its an
opportunity to strive for greatness.

Social Class Interview:

By: Ashleigh Olds and Miles McCartney
Date of Interview: October 11th 2015
Background Info:
Growing up my dad worked real estate which is like a land developer. My mom was a
stay at home mom, so our family only had one source of income coming in. I had 2
older brothers and a older sister and one younger sister. I am 37 years old and I grew
up in Westminster, South Carolina. I went to public schools growing up. 2 elementary
schools, 1 middle and 1 junior high. At 6 years old our house burned down which
caused my family to move very sudden.

Why we chose Social Class:

My Partner and I have grown up privileged when it has come to our Social Class.
So we decided to base our interview on Social Class. We have decided to interview
someone who was less fortunate in their childhood. During the interview we both were
hoping to get a better understanding of what life was like in their shoes. My partner and
I both came up with a few questions for the interview to help us understand what it was
like for her.
Questions:
1- Growing up were you ever made fun of because you couldnt afford a certain brand
of clothes etc.?
No. Living in a small town I didn't know any different. They didn't really have name
brands we had our local Walmart or Kmart and that's where we got our clothes. During
high school and college was more of the time that I cared about name brands and my
parents didn't buy them for me I had to buy them myself. So when I turned 16 I got a job
and started earning money.
2- Did you ever feel discouraged because you couldnt afford college?
No. I worked throughout high school and I knew that I could save the money I earned,
and go to a community college which would be much cheaper. I wasn't to worried
because I knew if I tried my best and applied myself I could get a grant or a scholarship.
3- Did growing up and having less money to spend for college encourage you to work
harder and to try harder?
Absolutely. I worked a full time job throughout college and went to college full time. I
was practically living out of my car. I knew that at this point in my life nothing was just
going to be given to me. I had to apply myself and work harder than I ever had in my
entire life. I got promotions in work and made a B average in school. I didn't want my
children to ever go without food or a home I knew I had to get a education and get a job
while I still could. So when I did have kids and a family of my own I could provide for
them.
4- When did you first realize you were tight on money"?
Growing up I thought I was rich. Our church would bring us food to our door and I
thought that we were just so special because we had people bring food to our house,
while other people had to go shopping at stores. I remember being in middle school and
our carpet floors were all ripped up and my parents didn't replace it. I was wondering
why they didn't replace it but they told me that they didn't have enough money that year
to replace something as silly as carpet. They told me that they could use that money to
put food on the table instead of carpet that would get ruined by the flooding. Flooding
happened at least once year and my parents couldn't afford to replace it every year.
5- Did others around you ever tell you that you weren't as smart as others because of
your Social Class? If not is there any other things you could enlighten us on your
situation and how you felt?

No. I was athletic and I made friends really easily. No one really payed attention to my
social class or my parents. They cared more about how I could throw a ball or how fast I
could run the mile. I felt in high school like if I didn't have what everyone else had they
would ridicule me. Which is what the world wants us to think but I was very fortunate to
not have to go through that. Although I did see those around me get ridiculed for their
appearances. I am ashamed to say that I didn't say anything because I didn't want them
to turn the ridiculing onto me.

Interview Reflection:
My interview experience was phenomenal. It was phenomenal because I learned a lot
about what its like to be not as privileged as I am when it comes to Social Class. When
we first started the interview, we were all uncomfortable asking about such a personal
topic, during the middle of the interview we all became more comfortable and the
conversation began to flow naturally. I was surprised by the fact that the shortage of
money only made her a better and more successful person to this day. I found this
interview to be very interesting and inspiring in the fact that you dont have to have
everything to be happy.

James Aquino
Alex Ramirez
Miles McCartney
Fernando Rivera
Arno (David) Ruiz Hernandez

Project Proposal: SOCIAL CLASS

Essential Question: Does your social class greatly affect how other people treat you or
think of you?
Justification:
Our topic is about social class.
We want to see other peoples perspectives on social class, and how they view their
own, as well as any others.
This addresses an area of privilege of all Social groups, for example some people that
are in a higher Social class think that people of a lower class are more privileged and
some people of a lower Social class think that people in a higher Social group are more
privileged.
Our essential question is Does your social class greatly affect how other people treat
you or think of you? We all know that most of society sees people in respective social
classes. Lots of people see lower class people as less educated, and a lower person
compared to middle and upper class people.
We are doing a mixed method study, where we split our group to focus on their own
method. One method would be a survey that asks questions. One of the surveys would
simply be a quantitative survey with multiple yes or no answers. The other survey will be
a qualitative survey where the answers would be more in depth with reasoning and
explanations. We are also going to try a What Would You Do type of experiment. We will
do something similar to what another kid do, who walked around a 7 11 and would see if
he would be checked on because of his skin color. We will have someone who is
dressed poorly, and overall sketchy and have him walk around a 7 11. We will do the
same thing, but with a nicely dressed and professional person walking around.
Social classes affect everyone. They can define you based on your financial standpoint.
The social classes are made up of three classes lower, middle, and upper. Therefore
social classes affects everyone who is currently living in the U.S. and has a steady
income. Weather or not your salary is small or large, you do fit into some type of class.
On a global scale, around the world different nations have their own social classes that
are very similar to the U.S

Some sub questions we have for our surveys are:

Have you ever been judged or made fun of because of your class?

What do you think about the different levels of social class? (Lower, Middle,upper)
Where would you put yourself in a social class scale?
Have you ever made fun of someone for not having money or maybe by the way they
look?
Can social class lead to the end of the human race? Will the greed get to people and
get overwhelmed by the money?
These answers could help the community to let them see and really think about how
people are getting discriminated on their social class that could lead to discrimination to
race, gender, and personality.
For skills that everyone brings to the table, James is a good video editor and brought
good ideas for us to use. Fernando is going to be the spokesman for our group. Miles is
going to go through all the data and sort it out. David is going to be the actor for our
experiment at 7-11. Alex is going to bring a camera and is going to edit the video.
We think that this group has a good mixture of communication, as well as working. We
all make sure we know whats going on, and what to work on. We also communicate
with each other so no one else is left in the blue.

Please answer the following questions honestly. Make sure not to put your name, since
this is an anonymous survey.
By social class, were talking about what your familys income is. Think back to
moments in your life where you believe your social class has affected the outcome of a
certain situation. (Ex: if you wanted to buy a toy as a kid, but couldnt because your
parents didnt have enough money.)
1. What is your gender?

Male

or

Non Male

2. Where do you think you rank on the social scale?

Lower

Middle

Upper

3. Do you have any examples of you or someone you know getting made fun for
being a certain Social class?

4. Has your social class ever prevented you from doing/getting something you
wanted?

Yes

No

If you answered yes, please list examples of this happening. How did it happen?
Why do you think it happened? Has it affected you in any way?

5. Have you ever been discriminated against based on your social class? (ex.
going into a store and getting looked at in a negative way based on appearance.)

Yes

or

No

If you answered yes, please explain what happened.

6. Has your social class ever prevented you from making friends or keeping
friends?

Yes

or

No

If you have selected yes, then please leave examples below.

5. Have you ever been made fun of because of how much money you have or your
possessions?
SOCIAL CLASS

Upper

Middle

Yes

No

3/10, .30,
30%

3/23, .13, 13%

7/77,.09, 9%

16

61

16/77, .21, 21%

Total

7/10, .70, 70%

4/13, .31, 31%

10

61/77, .79, 79%

16/23, .70, 70%

Lower

Total

77

61/77, .79, 79%

9/13, .69, 69%

4/23, .17, 17%

9/77, .12, 12%

23

77

13

100

6. Has your income level ever prevented you from doing/getting something you wanted?
Have you ever struggled or felt awkward about your ability to pay for a school's activities
expense?
10

Upper

Middle

Yes

No

1/10, .01, 10%

Total

9/10, .9, 90%

1/31, .04, 4%

9/69, .13, 13%

1919/77, .25,

58

19/31, . 61, 61%

58/69, .84, 84%

11 11/13, .85,

25%

Lower

Total

58/77, .75,
75%

85%

2/13, .15,
15%

11/31, .35, 35%

2/69, .03, 3%

31

69

10

77

13

100

7. Have you or someone you know ever been discriminated against based on your social
class?

Upper

Middle

Yes

No

Total

1/10, .1,
10%

10

1/17, .06, 6%

9/83, .11, 11%

14 14/77, .18,

63 63/77, .82,

14/17, .82, 82%

63/83, .76, 76%

11 11/13, .85,

18%

Lower

2/13, .15,
15%

9/10, .9,
90%

82%

77

13

85%

11

Total

2/17, .12, 12%

11/83, .13, 13%

17

83

100

8. Has your social class ever prevented you from making friends or keeping friends?

12

Upper

Middle

Yes

No

Total

2/10, .2,
20%

10

2/10, .2, 20%

8/90, .09, 9%

70 70/77, .91,

7/77,.09,

9%

Lower

Total

8/10, .8,
80%

91%

7/10, .7, 70%

70/90, .78, 78%

12 12/13, .92,

1/13, .08,

8%

92%

1/10, .1, 10%

12/90, .13, 13%

10

90

77

13

100

13

k that this group has a good mixture of communication, as well as working. We all make

14

15

16

17

Privilege Project
Privilege: Social Class
Topic: Social Class
Essential Question: Does the social class of the students of HTH greatly affect how other
people treat them or think of them?
Sample Size: 100 Students
Lower Class: 13 Students
Middle Class: 77 Students
Upper Class: 10 Students
Sample Population: Students from High Tech High

Probability Scenarios
5. Have you ever been made fun of because of how much money you have or your
possessions?
P(Were Made Fun Of | Middle Class)
16/77 = 21%
P(Were Made Fun Of | Upper Class)
3/10 = 30%
P(Were Made Fun Of | Lower Class)
4/13 = 31%
P(Lower and Were Not Made Fun Of)
13/100 * 23/100 = 299/100 = 2.9%
P(Middle Class and Were Not Made Fun Of)
13/100 + 77/100 = 90/100 = 90%
P(Lower Class and Were Not Made Fun Of)
7/100 x 1/100 = 7/10000 = 7%
6. Has your income level ever prevented you from doing/getting something you wanted?
Have you ever struggled or felt awkward about your ability to pay for a school's activities
expense?
P(Upper Class and Was Not Prevented)
18

1/100 * 10/100 = 1/100 =1%

P(Middle Class and Was Not Prevented)
77/100 * 58/100 = 4466/10000 = 4.47%
P(Lower Class or Was Not Prevented)
77/100 + 19/100 = 96/100 = 96%
P(Was Prevented | Upper Class)
0/10 = 0%
P(Was Prevented | Middle Class)
19/77 = 25%
P(Was Prevented | Lower Class)
11/13 = 85%
7. Have you or someone you know ever been discriminated against based on your social
class?
P(Has Been Discriminated | Upper Class)
1/10 = 10%
P(Has Been Discriminated | Middle Class)
14/77 = 18%
P(Has Been Discriminated | Lower Class)
2/13 = 15%
P(Was Not Discriminated and Upper Class)
10/100 = 10%
P(Was Not Discriminated and Middle Class)
63/100 = 63%
P(Was Not Discriminated and Lower Class)
11/100 = 11%
8. Has your social class ever prevented you from making friends or keeping friends?
P(Said Yes | Upper Class)
2/100 = 2%
19

P(Upper and Said No)

8/100 = 8%
P(Said Yes | Middle Class)
7/100 = 7%
P(Middle and Said No)
70/100 = 70%
P(Said Yes | Lower Class)
1/100 = 1%
P(Lower and Said No)
12/100 = 12%

Analysis and Implications

Throughout the project, we had came up with the essential question of Does the social class of
the students of HTH greatly affect how other people treat them or think of them? Throughout
the project our class had covered the topic of experimental probability and theoretical
probability.
Question 5 (James Aquino)
When our group was looking through the data in our survey, it was easy to see that for all
questions, the majority of the three classes selected No. Most of them have were not made fun of
because of how much money they had, or how costly their possessions are. According to our

20

data, the percent of the students from a lower class family have been made fun of, 12% of the
students from a middle class family have been made fun of, and 7% of the students from an
upper class family have been made fun of.
Question 6 (David Ruiz)
When it came to question 6( Has your income level ever prevented you from doing/getting
something you wanted? Have you ever struggled or felt awkward about your ability to pay for a
school's activities expense?) the results that we received were not surprising(for middle and
upper), but yes I was shocked that lower class students has been prevented from doing/getting
something they wanted. In the lower class, 11/13(85%) were prevented from doing/getting what
the wanted. So this concludes that many students in HTH, that are in the lower class, cant
do/get what they want. If we compare students in HTH, students that are upper class only 1/10
of upper class students(10%) and only 19/77 middle class students(25%) prevents them from
doing/getting something. On the other hand, 11/13 students in HTH that are lower class(85%)
prevents them from doing/getting they want. So this means that many students dont have the
privilege to do/get what they want because in total of people that has been prevented from
doing something is 30/100(30%). This proves that many students in HTH dont have the ability
to receive what want to get/do.

Question 7 (Alex Ramirez)

Through our essential question we had developed several others deriving from the topic of social
class. When we surveyed using question seven, (Have you or someone you know ever been
discriminated against based on your social class?) we had realized that most of our sample
population had selected No. This, for us implies that social class doesn't seem to be as big of a
problem than we thought it would be. Using our data we can assume that majority of the kids at
High Tech High has not been discriminated against based on their social class. If you were to
look at the data you will see that out of all three social classes none suffer significantly more than
the others. With the scenario, P(Said Yes | Upper/Middle/Lower) shows us a miniscule number of
10%. That proves that social class isn't a huge problem in High Tech High.
Question 8 (Miles McCartney)
For question eight, the number of people that said that there social class has prevented them from
making or keeping friends was surprisingly low. The P(No | Upper/Middle/Lower) was an
astounding ninety percent with only ten percent of people having said yes. The data is perplexing
and in a way satisfying as social class seems to have little effect on your social life.

21

Alexander Ramirez
Miles McCartney
Fernando Rivera
David Ruiz Hernandez
James Aquino

Group Reflection
Privilege, the ownership of a right, a certain type of immunity, or even some type of
benefit that is usually enjoyed by people who have an advantage in some way, shape, or form.
There are several upon several aspects in life that include social class. Some examples are Race,
Body Image, Clothing, Where you live, and Social Class. The topic of Social Class includes the
subject of privilege, due to the fact that there are three different Social Classes, and each one of
them affect us differently. Based on our results from our surveys we can assume that some, or in
certain cases most of your life depends on where you and your family stands on the social scale.
There are three major classes lower, middle, and upper. The higher you are on a Social Scale, the
easier it gets, and the less problems families seem to have. This is known as a privilege.
Your privilege can affect your probability, for example, if you were born a white male in
a rich neighborhood then you would have a higher probability of a successful life than of
22

someone who was not born with the same privileges. While 79% of students born into the top
income quartile in the U.S. obtain bachelors degrees, only 11% of students from bottom-quartile
families graduate from four-year universities, according to Postsecondary Education
Opportunity. Put another way, about 55% of the bachelors degrees awarded in the U.S. went to
students from top-quartile families with 2010 income above $98,875; 9.4% of those degrees
went to students with family income below $33,000. Privilege can change someones
probability just because of the way they were born.
In conclusion a privilege is a benefit or advantage some one has. To truly understand a
privilege you have to do what we did in this project. We had to find a privilege we had in
common and we chose social class as our topic we wanted to explore. In math class we found out
a lot of diffrent things that help and hurt your probability when you're going to college. Some
examples where if you have taken calculus in high school you have a higher probability to go
into a high ranked collage then someone who didn't take calculus.Why is that? Probability is the
chance of something happening. When you mix probability and privilege together they well
eventually intersect and affect each other. When someone has a privilege in a certain area then it
will improve the probability of something happening to them. What we mean by intersect is that
for example there is two students both have same grades they both took the same classes and
they applied to the same collages and the only difference between them is there race and
background. One of them is going to have an advantage because of their privilege which in this
case would be there race. Let's say one of them is white and the other student is of color in the
past the white student would be accepted without question but now a day it's up to your
probability and so many other factors. Some factors would be the people going over the
application and if they have a biased. Probability can change someone's life greatly because it
can be the difference between a high school degree versus a college degree. In conclusion your
privileges can range from anything and it could affect you negatively or positively. Your
probability can be affected by you and by others around you.

Personal Reflections
(David Hernandez)
Many people have a privilege or non-privilege in anyway. In this case my privilege that I
have, but many people (my race) dont all have is being a citizen in the U.S that could speak both
english and spanish without a problem. This helps me in many places especially places that only
speak english like a store, restaurant,etc. A non-privilege that hurts me the most is not being rich
because now in day many products (that include food, clothes, supplies, etc.) prices are raising
up high and so many thing that we want, sometimes, we cant afforded. One thing that I could
use my privilege for good is helping many people translate english to people that speak only
spanish. Also I could do the same thing to person that only speaks english, I could easily
translate spanish to english. Unfortunately I think in this new generation of people wont give up
23

their privilege/es, as for me if I had the choice to give up my privilege to make the world just, I
have to say no because what I think with the privilege that I have been gifted I think I could
change the world differently and make it better then it is now.
(Miles McCartney)
My privilege helps me because I wont have trouble financially when I go to College. It
has also helped me with always being able to get the resources I need for my education in high
school. A non-privilege that I have is being so privileged, I am a Caucasian male with non
divorced parents that make an above average income. I think this will hurt me in the long run
because those who are not as privileged as I am will learn more about the real world when they
are young and will be ready to go out on their own. I feel that I will be so used to the life I am
living now that when it comes time to go out on my own I wont be ready. I can use my privilege
to help others less fortunate than I by donating to those who need it more than I do. I personally
am ready to give up some of my privilege and my comforts to help others who need it more than
I do.
(James Aquino)
A privilege I have is how right now I live in a pretty nice house, and dont have any
financial problems within my family. It helps me because I dont have to worry about not having
food, or water. I can just live and not worry, because I know that I will be supplied with those
necessities. A non privilege that I have is how my dad left us at an early age, so lately I have to
grow up without him. Even though he call from time to time (He hasnt called for 5 years until
this Fathers Day), I never really had a father figure. No one really stood out to me as one. I dont
think that everybody is ready to sacrifice their own comforts in order to help others. There are
definitely lots of people who are willing to do that to help others, and I think that it is great. I
dont think I can thoughtfully answer this question just yet. There are probably some extents that
I know I wont be willing to go through. I may seem selfish for saying this, but I dont think I
would live in a poor neighborhood and experience what it is like to be those people. I think I
might be the type of person who would try to help, but go back to the areas where I have
privilege.
(Alex Ramirez)
One privilege that comes to my mind actually is where my family stands on the social
scale. I chose this group/topic because I feel as if I've been in every social class to an extent. I
say this because of my past, because my parents are divorced I was visiting my dad and living
with my mom. When I visited my dad I noticed that he would be so tired from working two jobs,
looking back on it he was barely scraping by. It's really interesting because my mom seemed to
have the opposite issue, in fact it seemed as if we had no problem with money. Now my family is
sort of in the middle region in the social classes, where we aren't living to extravagance and not
barely scraping by. This helps me by not having to worry about where my next meal comes from,
or weather or not the water is safe to drink, or even having to worry about a roof over my head.
24

One non-privilege I think I have is being in America, in the sense that Im not as in tuned with
my culture as I would want to be. My family is from the Philippines, and my generation seems to
be the first batch of kids actually born in the states. With that being said there also seems to be
this pressure to succeed in this country. If you were to look at it from their point of view. Theyve
been fighting all of their life for their kids future and future generations to come. I think that the
one way to solve my problem is to immerse myself in the culture, and really see where my
family has come from. I think that this generation in general isn't as educated as their
predecessors were. I think from my perspective and where I stand at this point in my life I would
lower my social class just to equal out the playing field. I also think that because of what my
family has fought for all these years, that it would be almost like a slap in the face or as if you
are throwing all of their hard work away. So if my opinion represented everyones, then I think
that we as a society are not ready to make the drastic switch from upper class living to lower
class living just to make society more just.
(Fernando Rivera)
A privilege I have is being mexican - american. This will help alot in my future because I
can have a conversation with someone in spanish and understand them. This will help for
example applying for a job if you can speak multiple languages to talk to people you are more
likely to be hired for that job. Some non- privileges I have is that my parents didn't get to finish
their high school years and get their diplomas because the had to work to support their family at
the time. I say this is a non - privilege for me because I could never really get help or support
from them much due to them not getting their diplomas. Honestly I don't think I can do much to
help them get their diplomas. To me I believe it's if they want to and if they do I could help them
the best I can. I do believe people will give up their privilege to change the world. An example is
people that go to war. The soldiers are risking their lives to protect others even though they don't
have too. To answer this truthfully I could say only some brave and caring people would be
willing to give up their privileges but me personally I dont think im ready for that yet.

25

Research Process
Article:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/01/social_darwinism_an
d_class_essentialism_the_rich_think_they_are_superior.html
For my background research I read an article called Social Darwinism isnt Dead. It
was an article about how people in the top 1% of the social class scale think that they
are better than those who dont make as much as they do. Are top earners 200 times
as smart as the rest of the field? Doubtful. Do they have the capacity to work 200 times
more hours in the week? Even more doubtful. Many forces out of their control, including
sheer luck, are at play. I found this to be interesting and made me think of why top
earners think that they are better than everyone else.
But say youre in that top 0.01 percentor even the top 50 percent. Would you want to
admit happenstance as a benefactor? Wouldnt you rather believe that you earned your
wealth, that you truly deserve it? Wouldnt you like to think that any resources you
inherited are rightfully yours, as the descendant of fundamentally exceptional people?
Of course you would. New research indicates that in order to justify your lifestyle, you
might even adjust your ideas about the power of genes. The lower classes are not
merely unfortunate, according to the upper classes; they are genetically inferior. I found
this to be shocking as how people in the upper class think that just because theyre
better than everyone else when really most of them only have that wealth due to
inheritance.

26

Children of the future: Tom Owens

Tom Owens is a kind generous man at Children's International, a nonprofit organization
that is helping children in poverty worldwide to grow up healthy and educated and
prepared to succeed in todays society. Ever since his inspiration in high school Tom has
been working with nonprofit organizations to help children in poverty.
When describing what lead him to his career, Tom explained I was inspired to
do this when I was in high school. This surprised me that he would be so inspired in
high school and to follow through with it. This shows that he understood the severity of
the problem and decided he could make a change.
When asked what the most impactful moment of his career was, Tom answered
with The most impactful moment was when I watched a child pass away from
untreatable infection I was shocked by his answer and made me wonder why that is
happening in some parts of the world.

When asked what he thought a solution was to the problem of poverty he

responded with I think that it will be up to your generation to come together and
find a solution This made me realize how many problems our generation is going to
have and that we have to find a solution to.
Looking back on the interview I am surprised on how much time and effort Tom
has put into his career and how motivated he is to help others. Looking back I can tell
that Tom is proud of his work and wants high schoolers like us to go and change the
world for the better.

27

Latin America Assignment

Compare and Contrast:

These articles relate as it says that both countries have experienced racism in the past
and still have it to this day. They both have caused people to stand up for the problem.
Both of the leaders felt that racism was a problem and they felt that the changing of the
problem shouldnt start with someone else but with them. How these articles are
different, the Latin American article goes further into detail about racism and how it has
affected their country. In the U.S. article it talks about how it has affected one person in
particular. The difference is the U.S article focused on one person while the Latin
American article focused on thousands of people.
Summary Latin America Article:
In the article written in Mexico City the author went into detail about Mexicos past with
racism and how it has affected the community. According to the author, an estimated
200,000 to 500,000 enslaved Africans were brought to New Spain, and how Father
Miguel Hidalgo of the Catholic Church outlawed slavery in 1810, causing the African
slaves to be sent to New Spain. Also about how Mexico became a new country when
the slaves left. They learned to help each other out and work as a community.

Summary of United States Article:

The United States article explained an experience that happened to a man named
Andrew Sledd. He was formerly president of Emory University but he spoke out and
said that they needed to increase their numbers in faculty and student body with African
American students. A few days later he was fired. He was then hired at University of
Florida and became the first president of their university where he would help African
American students that were being discriminated. The University of Florida's African

28