Education: Privilege and entitlement

Education: Privilege and entitlement

In Media: Who Reports the News?, I was surprised to find out that so many of those who report the news are entitled and elite – private school educations, elite universities, study abroad, etc.

I worked from age 10 onward, paid for 100% of my own college education, did not graduate from high school, but did go on to earn a BS in computer science, MS in software engineering (age 54), and an MBA degree (age 41). I did not visit Europe until I was 63 years old.

Then I see students shutting down college campuses and damaging buildings who are entitled and privileged and have studied abroad multiple times. They are the global elite, smarter than the rest of us – but mostly just privileged brats.

Consider: I’m a student who was arrested at a Columbia protest. I am not a hero, nor am I a villain.

We all want the warfare in Gaza to be over. But how do rich, elite, arrogant self-centered college students trashing university campuses in a completely different country end the war?

From her LinkedIn page, the author of the linked article attended NYU with a degree in “Human Rights, Peace, Nonviolence”, studied abroad in Prague, Ghana and Uganda (twice), attended private Middlebury Language Schools (Vermont) to study Russian, did an exchange study program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, did an MA degree at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations University, then an MA at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, and now studying for a PhD at Columbia University after various peace gigs including working as a disinformation specialist (a.k.a. censorship proponent, as those positions usually work out that way?)

She is dripping with privilege yet is utterly unaware of her privilege. She could afford to pursue esoteric degrees at elite institutions – probably due to family wealth. Yet to many of these protesters, who profited immensely from being Americans, America is awful, and smashing U.S. universities will end the war in Gaza. How that works is above my pay grade. None of this makes any sense (but reminder, l am a brain injured idiot).

As I note above, I worked from age 10 onward, I didn’t graduate from high school, I experienced multiple traumatic brain injuries including a 5″ long skull fracture (none of which received treatment until I was 58 years old), yet I went on to pay for all of my own college education – pursuing a degree, in 4 years, at public schools, graduating at age 21, which would lead to employment (I was full time employed as a computer engineer about 6 weeks after graduation). (I also paid for my own kids’ college educations, as well, and put my wife through her 2nd degree.) I did not have the luxury to study what I wanted to study, to study abroad, and to pursue multiple graduate degrees – and yet Allie Wong, who has studied abroad, traveled the world, and pursued multiple degrees at elite institutions, wants me to have sympathy for her because her cause is righteous (by her thinking).

Does she know how the rest of the world lives?

Allie Wong is an entitled and highly privileged individual.

The actions of these entitled activities have been a turn off – and are not garnering support for their causes. Indeed, a survey shows the public is not supporting them – and at Portland State University, even the rest of the students stopped supporting them. (At PSU, an estimated $1 million in damage was done to the library and the student library will remain closed until the fall of 2024 as the facility is repaired.)

She has no idea how the real-world works. She is privileged, elite and given page space in the media – begging for sympathy and seeking to justify her behavior as self-righteous. The rest of us, in the real world, had or have to work for what we accomplished, and did not have the opportunities to pursue esoteric subjects like peace studies or recklessly shut down universities. We had to pay for our studies ourselves and get a real job as soon as possible. We didn’t plead for student loan forgiveness – because dammit, I had to save all my money in advance to go to college and went to a cheap public college, live at home, and didn’t do study abroad.

I made a decision this past week – I will no longer be make donations to university programs. Instead, I am increasing my donations to a local homeless shelter, and newly sending donations to the Mike Rowe Foundation, to provide scholarships to those pursuing blue collar jobs in industry – those doing the real work that makes our civilized lives possible so that elite twits can play activist games at elite universities.

More examples of the mindless twits – our education system has completely failed us:

Not winning the support of the public:

The brilliance is blinding:

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