Students blinded by upper-class status
In between complaints about the low quality of chocolate milk and the injustices of homework, an occasional student tries to smugly address issues of politics. In between binge drinking and voting Republican in the primaries, an occasional son or daughter of Nassau actually questions his or her own upperclass lifestyle.
The March 28 'Prince' was no exception. If anything it was exemplary: The oh-so experimental Peter-Singer student who actually cut out red meat from his diet! The generous undergraduate who donates one tenth of his allowance ($30) a month to Oxfam — that means he has a monthly allowance of $300! The white columnist who wants all "the races" to play on the same team! What a delightful bunch of bohemians!
Can't-we-all-get-along thinking ignores the fact that 40 percent of our prison population is black and that access to quality education, health care and employment is disproportionate for urban blacks, latinos and rural whites. This is not an issue of mental gymnastics — it's about resource distribution. Changing minds is not the same as changing material conditions.
If you think hunger is simply a tragic fact of the world, like thunderstorms, or if you think hunger is something you can address with your allowance, well, bully for you I suppose. If you are willing to act against global monetary policies, corrupt authoritarian elites and weak-to-none welfare states — significant causes of world hunger and poor health care — now we're getting somewhere.
Princeton students suffer from something that we never talk about: class. That's right, you have money and if you don't have it, you would (and will) sell your soul for an upperclass lifestyle. Every now and then a few of you think about something besides yourself and your elite circles, but that wears off soon enough. Let's face it folks, you are caught in the Matrix. Elliot Ratzman GS
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