I came across two interesting statements from Emory students last week. The first, a confession about spending $1000 in one week and the second, a passionate plea for students to give the workers of Emory all the "thank you's" they rightfully deserve.
These comments, one overheard at the gym, the other posted on Emory Secrets, illustrate both the enormous privilege and ignorance often characteristic of members of an elite university. Emory is a top 20 school. Almost 100 percent of Goizueta Business School graduates are employed three months after graduating with average base salaries starting at over $100,000. The majority of us were in the top 10 percent of our classes. I could go on. This privilege and intelligence should come with an equally impressive political engagement and social awareness.
Before we pat ourselves too smugly on the back, let's not forget that our life chances were largely set out for us before we were even born – class is a self-reproducing system. Less than three percent of individuals from working class backgrounds earn a four year degree, and the vast majority of students at elite universities are from middle and elite classes. Combine these numbers with the fact that college degrees, especially from elite universities, are correlated with wealth and success, and it doesn't take an Ivy education to see that inequality reproduces itself over generations (perhaps not incidentally, it may take an Ivy education to not understand these basic facts – Bill O'Reilly with his fetishization of hard work is a prime example.)
At this point some might want to rejoin with the racist/classist "culture of poverty" argument that states the poor are poor because of their degenerate culture, but even here, if it were true, little blame should be placed on the individual – they no more chose their "culture of poverty" than some college students choose alcohol and H&M. Cultures are largely unconscious, internalized systems that structure our behavior and thought. Arguments about hard work, bootstraps, etc. seem equally dubious given the data.
Because of the general efficacy of social reproduction, haves and have-not positions are largely accidents of birth, and a large part of our existence as future managerial and capitalist class members depends on workers like the laborers at Emory; these are the same lower class people who many of us will manage, sell products to and employ to perform service and production jobs. As if this debt weren't enough, the functioning of our current society depends on individuals who do the jobs that many people don't really want to do. Just as capitalism was built on the backs of slaves, elite success depends on the misfortunes of the poor.
In this context, stopping at a simple "thank you" looks not only inadequate but virtually criminal. We have an obligation to act. There are plenty of easy things we can do right now, many of which don't even require us closing our MacBook Pros, that would have much more lasting and concrete benefits on the working poor than the fleeting emotion that follows a "thank you."
Emory students are smart and can come up with their own solutions, but as a point of departure I recommend sending a letter to University President James W. Wagner asking him to pressure Sodexo, to hold them to the same ethical standards for their workers on campus as non-contracted, Emory-employed labor.
Or sign one of the numerous online petitions to increase the minimum wage to the real value of the 1968 level: $10. The latter won't immediately affect contracted labor at Emory (contracted labor is not subject to federal minimum wage requirements), but it will benefit millions of working poor people across America. These are simple measures that won't get you arrested or consume an inordinate amount of time. We can and should do more than offer a meaningless "thank you," and if you truly care about working people (I have no doubt that the author of the misguided Emory Secrets post does), you will do more.
- By Charlie Price
