Closing The Divide, 14

Hey Gentle Reader! Remember Eleanor Roosevelt? She had some famous quotes and quips up her sleeve. Here's a fave: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. I first read it in Ann Landers. I think I was still in my teens. I didn't realize what a handy bullet that pithy bit of wisdom would be, and it has served me well. I have lived with inequality all my life. My upbringing was decidedly proletarian and the idea of ever setting foot in university a vague pipedream. I did end up spending most of two years at a community college while in my early twenties, but financial pressures prevented me from finishing. So, my entire life has been one of survival, and hard work, and closed doors, and poverty. But Eleanor, with help from Ann, really helped save my fanny. I did have a few advantages on my side and I exploited them to the max: 1. first of all, being "gifted" and having an IQ that puts me in the top two percentile. 2. An easy manner with people, making it very easy and enjoyable to meet and mix with a broad range of human beings. 3. My faith and experience as a Christian, which in so many ways beyond telling has opened me up and given me a broad, complex and inclusive vision of our shared humanity and our role in the Cosmos (please, Gentle Reader, I do trust that you have enough intelligence to neither confuse nor conflate this with religious fundamentalism, which is the polar opposite to what I wish to communicate here) 4. The influence of the counterculture and the hippies and radical left of the late sixties and early seventies. I was fourteen, with an insatiable curiosity and un unquenchable desire to learn, experience and live life. In many ways this put me in dangerous situations at times, but I gained such a berth of knowledge, wisdom and experience at an early age that people older than me for years would comment on how wise I was beyond my years. I learned about social inequality, the environment, human rights, sensible and healthy food and nutrition with vegetarianism and whole foods (not to be confused with the obnoxious eponymous and overpriced supermarket chain), about global realities and interconnectedness. 5. An almost endless supply of mentors, people who taught and role modeled for me in ways that my parents, nor my teachers ever possibly could serve as adequate role models. all of these diverse factors and experiences of my life passage have played a critical role in learning to punch above my weight and to refuse to accept the crappy treatment from my alleged social betters. This has not been without a cost. It has often been difficult, especially when younger, for me to keep my cool and not hit back with twice the force of what I was dealt. I also came to realize that in terms of intelligence, integrity and talent, I was very much their superior. What still sticks in my craw is that even some of my friends, who happen to be incurable bourgeoisie, aren't prepared to give the respect owed to a social equal, and I am quite prepared to make life so difficult for those gormless douchebags that they will either concede or bail. I really don't care what they do, because my dignity has nothing to do with the approval of mediocre persons and everything to do with how I measure in my own eyes and in the sight of God. This might not do a lot to address the broad scale of the social and economic inequality that we are all living under, but I do hope that this little rant de jour will help inspire and empower even one person to stand up and walk in their integrity.