Entitled to what, really?

There is a lot of finger pointing going on today.  People are accusing each other of wrongly thinking they are somehow “entitled” to one thing or another.  I hear complaints that students today think they are entitled to good grades for simply showing up to class and turning in an assignment, no matter how substandard the product.  I hear that white males think they are entitled to the best jobs over women and people of color without having to be exceptional at anything (Donald Trump).  I even hear that the elderly think they are entitled to Social Security benefits and Medicare when they retire.  But wait.  Didn’t these folks pay into Social Security and Medicare while they were working?  I would say that this is an earned entitlement.  I object to entitlements based solely on group identity and false assumptions.An entitlement is basically the belief that one has a right to certain benefits.  As a society, we determine what those benefits are going to be and who gets them. For years, Americans decided that white people were entitled to access to the best jobs, the best places to live, the best education, the best bank loans, the best legal  justice (meaning the benefit of the doubt or leniency), and basically the best of pretty much everything the country had to offer.  People of color were, and  if we are honest with ourselves, continue to be, denied many of these benefits.  Things were legally separate and effectively unequal until the Civil Rights Movement.  But sadly, many things remain separate and unequal if we consider which segments of our society continue to be entitled to the best education and a fair criminal justice system.   The continuing disparities in these two segments of our society perpetuate a cycle of poverty, a lack of opportunity, and blocked access.

Some who are ignorant of this nation’s history actually question why we have Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).  They fail to recognize that the melting pot never included people of color.  Too few people know that individual people of color from numerous nationalities actually sued repeatedly to be considered “white” as it brought with it the aforementioned entitlements.  In the 1920’s, a Japanese man (Ozawa) tried and failed in the Supreme Court to designate Japanese people as white.  The Southeast Asian Indian (Thind) also tried and failed in the Supreme Court.   Few people today realize that the Mexicans were granted the designation as “white” by the Supreme Court in 1954, just two weeks before Brown v. Board of Education.  It didn’t do them much good, however, as their brown skin still labeled them as “other” and their designation as white left them without legal recourse for the  discrimination they continued to encounter.  One good place to read more about this history is in a book called, “White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race” by Ian Haney Lopez.

I am grateful for the Civil Rights Movement and later for Affirmative Action that at  least opened the doors of opportunity and access.  Contrary to the belief of some, Affirmative Action was not an entitlement.  People of color had to be “qualified” for enrollment in that previously inaccessible college or hired for that previously “need not apply”  job.   The least prepared to take advantage of the program and most in need of it were African Americans, especially those who were the descendants of slavery and Jim Crow.  The greatest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action were white women (Sally Kohn, Time Magazine, 2013) and educated Asians (Alia Wong, The Atlantic, 2016).  Entitled white people, however, thought (and some still think) that their rights have been infringed upon by people of color and women for jobs and college admissions, calling it reverse discrimination, especially when a black or brown person is involved.  Could it be that they cannot believe that a black or brown person might possibly be as or more qualified than they are?  I can’t help but wonder if in the back of their entitled mind they might be thinking about the improbability that a black or brown person could rise to their level, given the systematic inferiority of their environmental inputs (failing schools, drug infested/violent neighborhoods, bad foods, lead paint and pipes, and their criminalization by the justice system).  A few people are smart enough, energetic enough, determined enough, and lucky enough to rise above their “unentitled” circumstances to compete.

But beliefs about who is entitled to what based on skin color persists.  There are moves in place to limit the admission of high performing Asians to elite colleges (Alia Wong, The Atlantic, 2016).  This isn’t a new response, as similar tactics were used to limit the admission of high performing Jewish students in the past to elite colleges. The desire to protect or return to the historical entitlements of whites paved the way for the election of Donald Trump.  There was an older man who called into C-span the other day proclaiming that America went wrong when it put a black man in the White House and that we would do well to put blacks and Mexicans back in their place.  I’ve repeated the contents of that call several times because I am still amazed and disappointed by this kind of thinking in 2017.  However, given that Trump is now in the White House, I am not surprised by it.

At this point in our nation’s history, our political leaders are trying to decide if healthcare is a right (entitlement) or a privilege.   I’ve heard some conservatives say that we don’t want to create another entitlement.  They state that we just need to give everyone “access”, meaning if you can afford it, you can purchase it.  Meaning some will go without because they can’t afford it.   I’ve heard liberals say that every western civilization, except us, provides its people with healthcare as a common good.  To me, that’s the key: the common good.  This nation determined that k-12 education is an entitlement as a common good.  But I’m pushing for the day when all Americans enjoy access to the best schools, meaning that the school in every neighborhood is “the best school”.  We’ve decided that a fair justice system is an entitlement as a common good.  Here again, I’m fighting for the day when black and brown citizens are treated fairly by it.

Entitlements aren’t bad, just so long as every citizen gets to enjoy them without regard to skin color, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.