This column is part of a series written by seniors from the pilot senior seminar on American citizenship. The class is led by its students, whose interests and experiences are as diverse as their areas of study. These columns are their lessons.
When Ian Williams wrote his famous “Why I Hate Duke” column in 1990, he was talking about more than basketball. We all know you can’t set foot on Duke’s faux-Gothic campus without feeling the weight of the private wealth that built its spires and arches.
At UNC, we take pride in being public. But while we imagine our university as a great equalizer, we seldom talk about what it equalizes; we almost never talk about wealth.
Discussions of students’ radically different socioeconomic backgrounds are rare on this campus. We hardly ever acknowledge the fact that some of us will enter the post-UNC world constricted by loan payments, while others — whether because of family background or scholarship opportunities — will graduate debt-free.
By observing this taboo against talking about money, we’re doing ourselves and our society a disservice.
There seems to be a broader trend at work here: Americans generally don’t talk about their wealth, and most of us like to think of ourselves as middle class.
According to a 2008 Pew Research Center poll, 33 percent of Americans making $150,000 or more per year self-identified as middle class. Forty-one percent of Americans making less than $20,000 per year also called themselves middle class.
Perhaps this is a symptom of a political discourse that labels any discussion of wealth inequality as “class warfare.” Or maybe this phenomenon stems from a belief in social mobility.
But something is shifting. Our generation seems to think a conversation about wealth and resource allocation is long overdue (can we fail to mention Occupy?).