I've always wanted to share this story. The class struggle in America, "writ small". My own personal experience watching it play out over the course of a year.
It was 2005. Pat (now my husband Pat) and I were renters in New Jersey, coveting a place near the shore.
We found a room in a beautiful 3-story Victorian, a half block from the ocean. The owner, Chris, was the 27-year-old son of an extremely wealthy local builder.
He didn't need our rent money, but as the home stood vacant five nights a week (and fully 7 nights when summer was over, and he no longer wished to "party at the shore" on weekends), there was no reason not to sit back and collect.
He lived a blissful life as the scion of extreme wealth. Still 3 years away from 30, he was the .1%. Wealth I'd never seen up close.
On the first night after Pat and I had moved in, Chris stumbled drunkenly into our room at 3 a.m. and urinated all over a box of Pat's still-unpacked clothes.
In the morning, he was appropriately abashed & contrite, but made no effort at amends. (No laundry or anything.)
Pat and I looked at the box of his urine-soaked clothes and made the obvious joke ("Wow, the world's most literal interpretation of "trickle down theory").
He was lazy, of course. When his dishes piled in the sink, he'd summon his parents' maid (named Carmen, I swear -- even though it sounds too cliched to be true. Are all maids to rich white families named Carmen or Consuela?)
Now, do you want to guess his politics? You have 3 guesses. (And if you need all 3, you're adorable!)
Hard-core fiscal conservative, naturally. In America, anyone can make it if you work hard! If you're poor, you're lazy! Or less intelligent or you made bad decisions or have a multitude of moral / attitudinal deficiencies!
Pat and I once heard him yell to his girlfriend during an argument, defiant pride and righteousness pouring out in his voice "I worked hard for everything I have! "
And he believed it, too. Deep into his core, he absolutely believed it. They all do. It takes a very unusual person to recognize -- TRULY recognize -- the opportunities and advantages they've been afforded.
And if we tried to reason with him, and proffered some simple truths like:
1.) "Who gave you first 'job'? Your father. You were the boss' son. Do you understand that other builders would have to labor for DECADES to get the contracts you got at age 21?"
Or:
2.) "Your father's company built this house and gave it to you. And now you pocket rental income , which is passive income. That's the thing about capital gains. WE are the ones working. Pat and me. WE are the ones working for everything you have. You sat back and collected the fruits of OUR labor.
Or:
3.) "In the 8 weeks of this summer, you've taken more time off from your job than Pat and I do in the past entire year, combined. I'm not really sure that 'I worked hard for everything I have had!' is a boast you can legitimately make....."
... he'd not have understood. Dismissed us a jealous, no doubt.
For the 1%, it is very convenient to believe that wealth is directly correlated to hard work and talent.
One night his parents were kind enough to invite us to a barbecue at their estate. I swear, it was like walking into The Great Gatsby. Outrageous wealth on display.
Chris' younger brother was holding court at one of the tables, expostulating on "what a great country America is -- anyone, rich or poor, can go the hospital if they break a leg....."
"Really??" I said. "Try breaking a leg, or getting cancer, as a poor person versus a wealthy. A world of difference, an entire universe!
And PS: the care at the hospital isn't free. That poor guy will be so hounded for payment for the rest of his life, he'll start to wish he'd just let the leg stay broken!"
But how would he know that? How could he?
So he dismissed me. He said: "Read Ayn Rand" and literally turned his back, signaling our conversation was over. He was done with me. Enough, peasant.
This was years before Paul Ryan made Ayn Rand a household name, so Pat asked me who she was. I answered:
"An author. And 'read Ayn Rand' is the three-word sentence all conservatives who hide their ignorance behind a wall of pomposity use to end debates they're losing."
So. That is my story of Chris and his family of 1%ers.
Now, I flip it over to the other side of the story. The working poor.
When the summer was over, we hired two movers to help us. They started at 5 a.m . (an hour Chris had never seen unless from the other side, after a night of carousing).
They were from Mexico and didn't speak English very well. Also, they were physically small -- wiry and barely taller than me, and I'm only 5'2".
Still, in spite of their size, they carried a queen bed, a massive dining room table, and so forth, down 3 flights of stairs and into a waiting truck
Difficult to fathom what kind of mettle and inner strength was keeping them on their feet, step after step. .
They smiled, almost deferentially, the whole time. Just as kind-natured as could be.
We bought them lunch, burgers and soda, and they gobbled it on the porch. We begged them: "Please, come inside. It's so hot & humid out there! Please, come inside where it's cool and eat."
With those deferential smiles, they refused. They seemed to say, "Please, no, we couldn't."
It reminded me of slavery in the antebellum South. Like they were "outside slaves," not "house slaves" and eating inside Chris' fancy house would have been over-stepping. It disconcerted to see that. Slavery was a long time ago, right?
A few years later, after candidate Obama had his interaction with the odious "Joe the Plumber", I started to see bumper stickers that read: "Spread my work ethic, not my wealth."
On behalf of those two movers, I wanted to peel those bumper stickers off the cars and shove them up the --. Well, you know. (I'll let you just imagine where that sentence was heading.)
See, a fair-sized percentage of citizens in this country--brainwashed by the propaganda of the Right--would look at these movers in their poverty and call them lazy.
Or assume they spent all their money on, I dunno, booze or whatever the hateful stereotype is.
It's as cruel as it is ignorant.
**
When I first wrote this story, Pat reminded me of how our tenancy in Chris' home ended.
Chris sent us our share of the water bill. Impossible, we thought, this bill is far too high. After weeks of emails, he would not budge. "That's just how much you owe, and that's all there is to it," he's say.
Finally, Pat called the water company, who assured there was no way a private residence could run a bill that high. In fact, the water bill he showed us was for his family's collection of homes.
Further, without going too much into detail there was NO way it was an innocent mistake.
Why a person who was born into more wealth than Pat and I could ever imagine would try to con us, I have no idea. I'll never understand.
Maybe he considered us, the dumb proletariat punching a clock and driving beat-up cars, so beneath him that stealing from us was no greater a sin than stepping on an ant.
We didn't matter. We're nothing. Ayn Rand told him so.
Truly, I think that explains a lot of how the very wealthy plutocrats can treat the working poor the way they do.
