Or my former coworker who let his gardening hobby get out of hand… to donate to families in need.
The implicit level of privilege here should not go unacknowledged. It’s a hint at the full story. That’s a fundamental part of the problem regardless of how the individual feels about it or reacts.
Perhaps more importantly these are extremely niche/cherry-picked versions of succeeding. In USA it almost always means the same evil bullshit.
You’re not wrong, the guy did have a lot of privilege in his life. He’s well educated, has a demeanor people trust and enough money to have a backyard garden in a house in a not ideal part of town. He opted to use that privilege to get his neighbors to join their backyards together to have a community garden, and then used a city/state program to use their pooled money to buy an empty lot and an unoccupied house to finish the block. Instead of selling the house for profit, they opted to give it to someone in need.
I’m not sure what full story you’re looking for. Dudes a community college astronomy professor who spent some time maintaining billing software.
My point isn’t "oh my God, everyone in the US is a saint!” it’s that the notion that “because the US has fundamental structural problems, anyone who isn’t a miserable failure is inherently evil” is just profoundly misguided.
Either your definition of success is setup such that it says more about you than other people, or you just fundamentally haven’t encountered many people.
What’s your definition of “success”? How many Americans do you think are engaged in “evil bullshit”?
The implicit level of privilege here should not go unacknowledged. It’s a hint at the full story. That’s a fundamental part of the problem regardless of how the individual feels about it or reacts.
Perhaps more importantly these are extremely niche/cherry-picked versions of succeeding. In USA it almost always means the same evil bullshit.
You’re not wrong, the guy did have a lot of privilege in his life. He’s well educated, has a demeanor people trust and enough money to have a backyard garden in a house in a not ideal part of town. He opted to use that privilege to get his neighbors to join their backyards together to have a community garden, and then used a city/state program to use their pooled money to buy an empty lot and an unoccupied house to finish the block. Instead of selling the house for profit, they opted to give it to someone in need.
I’m not sure what full story you’re looking for. Dudes a community college astronomy professor who spent some time maintaining billing software.
My point isn’t "oh my God, everyone in the US is a saint!” it’s that the notion that “because the US has fundamental structural problems, anyone who isn’t a miserable failure is inherently evil” is just profoundly misguided.
Either your definition of success is setup such that it says more about you than other people, or you just fundamentally haven’t encountered many people.
What’s your definition of “success”? How many Americans do you think are engaged in “evil bullshit”?