It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. –Martin Luther King, Jr.

If I were a middle-class white guy (newsflash: I am) I would pat myself on the back for my success.

I was successfully born into a white middle-class family in America. My parents did not go to college, but they were hard working and creative people who became successful in the world of advertising. They taught and modeled the virtues of tolerance, creativity, intellectual curiosity, personal responsibility, and hard work.

Good for me for choosing these parents.

I grew up in a safe middle-class neighborhood in a city that was full of opportunity and possessed of a solid public school system. Because my family did have some extra money every month, I had the opportunity to play sports and experiment with music.

Good for me for choosing to live in that place. It was a smart decision to choose those parents and that place to live.

When I chose to go to college, a behavior that was encouraged in my family, the family that I chose had the resources to pay for my tuition. Working in the world of advertising my parents were surrounded by many college educated people and understood the value of an opportunity that they did not have.

Good for me!

I was born to a middle-class family and I have achieved middle-class status. I must be so much smarter than poor Americans. Just think about the stupid choices they made. They should have made the choice our daughter made and been born into a middle-class family. Duh!

Well, I guess that is just their problem. There is nothing I can do about it; and there is certainly nothing the government can do about it. Maybe they should just try to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Maybe they should buy a computer or something. I hear that being a physician pays well. They should go to med school.

What I do regret, however, was not being just a little bit smarter. I should have had the good sense of people George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, or Ted Kennedy and been born into a rich family; then I could be rich and really, really successful. Boy, I bet they pat themselves on the back all the time!

Well, I suppose we all make our choices and I guess I just have to live with mine.

[Note: This is a tongue-in-cheek critique of a recently posted essay “If I Were a Poor Black Kid“]