FLIing* along the YBR. Whose yellow bricks are they anyway?

*FLI – First generation low-income (refers to a particular college demographic.)

I refrain from using my blog to comment on current items in the news, but I wish to use my “pass”card and offer a reflection on a segment on 60 Minutes (Sunday, April 29, 2018)…a show I’ve been watching for almost as long as its been on the air.

While the episode gave proper credit to Bill and Melinda Gates for all they’ve done to make college a possibility for so many deserving students, the aspect of the show I want to focus on had to do with that part of the segment on the efforts Princeton University has been making on widening the definition of a diverse student body by including FLIs.

Princeton on 60 Minutes

Princeton’s President Christopher L. Eisgruber did not hesitate to agree with 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley that Princeton has earned what might be called an elitist identity.  For most of its existence Princeton (founded in 1746) educated young men who were white, wealthy and well-connected. But of late (at least for the last 20 or so years) Eisgruber believes it is important to offer a quality Princeton education to a more diverse group of students, with a new emphasis on low-income students.

I say “good for you Princeton because many students who have the grades and desire to walk on your yellow brick road can’t because they lack the money and the necessary connections to be admitted.”

I was cheered by the comments made by the FLI students represented on the 60 Minutes segment.  But as cheered as I was by that, I was confused when Eisgruber admitted that included in the 97% of the students who applied but weren’t “accepted,” were students that deserved to be accepted but weren’t so there could be room for the equally deserving FLI students.

That makes sense…but then again it doesn’t. At the risk of saying something that might be considered politically incorrect, the logic smacks of discrimination. (Can you discriminate against the wealthy class?)

It seems to me we are now closing the yellow brick road to people just because they aren’t “deserving.”

For argument’s sake let’s say that the FLI students at Princeton graduate with honors and have successful careers…and that as many of them want to, they become very wealthy.  And then let’s imagine they have children who want to go to Princeton.  Funny, but they would not be the FLI students that their parents were.  It is very possible that despite their stellar high school grades and accomplishments they would not be admitted to Princeton.

Very possibly the children of this generations FLI students would have to make room on Princeton’s YBR for another generation of FLI students.

That America has not always lived up to its belief it is a land of opportunity cannot be challenged.  We have more often than not been a land of opportunity for a very limited and exclusive group of people. But, in our effort to make up for lost time, I believe we are either consciously or unconsciously keeping people off the YBR just because they fit a certain category that we have labeled as “privileged.”

We are a nation of stereotypes and in an effort to turn things around I have this feeling we are penalizing people just because…just because they are like Lain Hardy a contestant on American Idol (2018) who was sent packing in Hollywood.

Laine Hardy might have been justifiably booted, but I believe because he had the boyish looks and charm of what we think as an American Idol he was handicapped.  In our effort to break the mold of who is deserving and who is not, we might be going too far.  Laine “looks” like a kid who never faced a single adversity in his life.  His story doesn’t include a chapter marked with struggle.  And lately that seems to be what is selling on reality/talent shows.

Hey, I give kudos to anyone who has turned diversity on its head, but…are we keeping some people off the YBR…just because?

 

 

 

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Trimming the hedges on the YBR.

The house my family and I have been living in since 1983 was built in 1967, so I imagine that the hedge that separates my property from that of my neighbor was planted some 50 years ago.

Let me cut to the chase.  The hedge has become an evil monster. It is about 12 to 14 feet high and wider than hell.  Early on I did my best to trim it, but despite my best of intentions, the hedge took over.

This winter, with one heavy snow after another, the branches of the hedge collapsed under the weight of the fluffy white stuff, so much so that something had to be done before the hedges swallowed up what was left of that part of my property.

I have no one to blame for the overgrown hedges but myself.  I can’t blame Mother Nature because I let the hedges get out of hand. That’s why I’ve spent a good number of hours trimming the hedges that I’ve grown to hate.

I believe hedges are those parts of our personality that we ignore thinking they either won’t be noticed or they’ll take care of themselves.  It doesn’t happen. Hedges like those cloying aspects of our personalities need to be trimmed.  Attention has to be paid to them or they will take over.

How can you follow the Yellow Brick Road if it is overgrown with untrimmed hedges? You can’t.

With every clip I take and with every thick branch I saw off, I feel a weight being lifted.  Progress is being made. I believe that when the job is done I will be more than pleased.

Now all I have to do is not allow those damn hedges to take over. I need to be in charge.

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Those Damn Blind Spots on the YBR.

Have blind spots gone the way of rotary dial phones, cursive writing, and handwritten notes?  While many of those things that were part of our lives are no longer in use or no longer necessary…despite our fondness for things we once held near and dear, we have not eliminated blind spots.

That doesn’t mean we try to live our lives as if blind spots don’t exist because that’s far from the truth. In truth, we try to live our lives by denying that blind spots ever existed.

We don’t want to face the fact that we are all blind to certain things in our lives on the YBR.  We only want to get to the Emerald City. We don’t want to be mindful that there are things in our blind spot that impact the way we drive.

If you’ve ever tried to move over the left land on a highway and either hear a horn blasting you from behind or in the last second you finally see that car in your blind spot, you realize how it can scare the shit out of you.

When your heart stops racing you wonder how you forgot to take into account that there might have been a vehicle in your blind spot.

Many of us try to step on the accelerator to get ahead of those pesky shortcomings in our blind spot. We fail to realize that no matter how fast we drive ourselves those shortcomings will always be there unless we face them.

Sometimes getting spooked by something in our blind spot helps us face reality…something we often don’t want to face. It takes a lot of courage to do that.

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