Born on Third Base Post
I truly admire Chuck Collins' honest and upfront approach to talking about wealth disparity in Born on Third Base. I think one of the most powerful things he said early on in the book when talking about giving away his half a million dollar trust is, "I gave away the money, but a lot of my privilege was hardwired". One of the biggest issues I face when reading or hearing about stories of people of the one percent being seemingly perfectly altruistic people by giving away large sums of money is that those people are simultaneously unaware of the other ways in which they are the beneficiaries of simply being born into the one percent. Collins avoids this by recognizing that he is still very much a part of the one percent, trust fund or not.
In addition, I find Collins' perspective on exactly why the relationship that Americans have with the one percent is so complicated extremely interesting. Especially in the political climate of today, millennials particularly are faced with deciding what the new American Dream is. While at once the American Dream was the sweet synergy of financial success and family values, the fear of becoming divided from our community with too much or too little money in our hands is all too real. Collins puts it beautifully. "I don't hate the 1 percent. But I deeply hate the ways extreme inequality wounds people's lives, fuels racial divides, rips our communities apart, and destroys our ecological home".
From my own experience in growing up, despite not being the recipient of the Oscar Meyer fortune by any stretch of the imagination, I definitely experienced and continue to experience privilege to an extent as I believe many of my peers at USC do. For me it is comforting to know that I, too, am permitted to feel a resentment for the way that your family's financial privilege or lack thereof affects your relationships with others. Overall, I've been really enjoying Born on Third Base. I think that I do actually prefer it to Growing a Farmer, but we'll see how I feel by the time I finish it.
In addition, I find Collins' perspective on exactly why the relationship that Americans have with the one percent is so complicated extremely interesting. Especially in the political climate of today, millennials particularly are faced with deciding what the new American Dream is. While at once the American Dream was the sweet synergy of financial success and family values, the fear of becoming divided from our community with too much or too little money in our hands is all too real. Collins puts it beautifully. "I don't hate the 1 percent. But I deeply hate the ways extreme inequality wounds people's lives, fuels racial divides, rips our communities apart, and destroys our ecological home".
From my own experience in growing up, despite not being the recipient of the Oscar Meyer fortune by any stretch of the imagination, I definitely experienced and continue to experience privilege to an extent as I believe many of my peers at USC do. For me it is comforting to know that I, too, am permitted to feel a resentment for the way that your family's financial privilege or lack thereof affects your relationships with others. Overall, I've been really enjoying Born on Third Base. I think that I do actually prefer it to Growing a Farmer, but we'll see how I feel by the time I finish it.
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