The Gilded Rats

Something I learned from being one of the few poor kids in a rich kid's school.

Rich kids are generally rats.

A rich kid will rat you out because they've been raised to think that the authorities are on their side - which they are. They've never had to band together to protect each other from authority - Daddy's money protects them from any mistake they might make.

They know very good and well that the difference between being a rich kid and a poor kid is that when it comes to the game of life, a rich kid gets as many strikes as they need to get a hit, while a poor kid gets one, if that. A poor kid has to work very hard to succeed, a rich kid has to work very hard to fail.

Now, someone is abusing their keyboard to answer that "My parents had money, and they made us be responsible!" They might have. But in the background was always the knowledge that they'd never let you fall too far. Poor kids work the high wire without a harness, and no net below.

And when a rich kid, playing life on easy mode, succeeds, everyone tells them they're geniuses. When a poor kid fails, playing life on nightmare mode, well, they're just a failure. A slacker. Lazy. Probably a criminal.

These are the facts of it, and they have predicative power. A Musk, a Trump, and almost any member of their class were born on third base, and given an award for winning a triple. This is why they don't respect struggle, or solidarity, or community. It's never mattered to them.

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99Joseph Kramer III, Floretta Brumley and 97 others