CLASS OF '08; The Snare of Privilege - New York Times
This has been a popular topic in this years election primaries. There is something to be said that this comes up when a woman and a black man are running, as if that is the reason people have to find to do down their achievement
"Amid all this, some have noted that we have reached a curious moment in American history: an African-American candidate, born seven years after the Supreme Court repudiated segregation in public schools and four years before the Voting Rights Act was passed, finds himself struggling to overcome an aura of privilege.
'It really is a delicious irony that the first serious black candidate for president should suddenly be described as elite,'' said Tom Wolfe, the author of ''Bonfire of the Vanities'' and a longtime chronicler of the nation's fixation on status."
"Ivy League credentials aside, what matters in the end to most voters, when it comes to choosing a president, is not academic pedigree, but rather the candidates' ability to make an emotional connection and to win trust and confidence. The most famous aristocrat-presidents of the 20th century, John F. Kennedy and Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, all had that gift, and it outweighed the advantages -- and drawbacks -- of education, wealth and privilege."
This has been a popular topic in this years election primaries. There is something to be said that this comes up when a woman and a black man are running, as if that is the reason people have to find to do down their achievement
"Amid all this, some have noted that we have reached a curious moment in American history: an African-American candidate, born seven years after the Supreme Court repudiated segregation in public schools and four years before the Voting Rights Act was passed, finds himself struggling to overcome an aura of privilege.
'It really is a delicious irony that the first serious black candidate for president should suddenly be described as elite,'' said Tom Wolfe, the author of ''Bonfire of the Vanities'' and a longtime chronicler of the nation's fixation on status."
"Ivy League credentials aside, what matters in the end to most voters, when it comes to choosing a president, is not academic pedigree, but rather the candidates' ability to make an emotional connection and to win trust and confidence. The most famous aristocrat-presidents of the 20th century, John F. Kennedy and Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, all had that gift, and it outweighed the advantages -- and drawbacks -- of education, wealth and privilege."
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