2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: When did michael moore join team trump [View all]politicaljunkie41910
(3,335 posts)from a family of nine kids, who grew up in the inner city of Los Angeles, we have 7 college grads and 2 Technical College grads. Everyone of my family members, except me and my sister who's a nurse, have had their ups and downs during recessionary times including my oldest sister who is a medical doctor, and my youngest sister who is a lawyer and at one time worked for one of the top Law firms in Los Angeles. The only thing that saved me was that I was working for the federal government. I've been furloughed along with other government employees, had salary frozen for up to three years, and had periods over my career when we were told to stay home when Congress played games and failed to sign a budget before the deadline, but never laid off.
So pardon me if I don't give a damn about disenfranchised white voters. I've watched my family and friends be disenfranchised their entire lives. Yeh, they might have saw whoa me once, but then they got up the next day and began hitting the pavement looking for their next job. All of them went through savings and if they were lucky to have an employer who offered a 401K plan, tapped into those resources. None of my family or friends have had it easy. They've worked for everything they have and worked hard to get where they are today. We've leaned on one another during difficult times. The only ones who the media seems to think that they are entitled and have a right to be angry are angry white people. Now I am not trying to paint a whole group with a broad brush, but for someone who has lived in white communities my entire adult life, (I'm 58) and have many white friends, co-workers and neighbors, my experience is that they have an expectation or a sense of entitlement that I don't see among my black friends and family.
Also, I guess that since my black family and friends have come from a christian upbringing, when a setback occurs, you tend to hang on to your faith, that this too shall pass. My parents raised us that the world did not owe us anything because we were born. They taught us that if you work hard, you can have anything you set your mind to. So since our entire lives have been a struggle, you learn a different way to deal with adversity and setbacks. I thank God for the struggles because I can't imagine what a basket case I might be if I had an entitlement mentality and had a setback.
I have 3 college grad children and each of them have had setbacks early in their careers and I am grateful for the fact that they experienced disappointment early. My oldest, a daughter who decided to follow me and got a degree in Accounting ended up at Countrywide at the wrong time, and after their demise, ended up transferring to Wachovia, only to end up bought out by Wells Fargo. But she knew that something was not right at Wells Fargo with their aggressive sales goals, and she said I can't work under the pressure that they're applying and I won't do anything dishonest to meet these sales goals. So she quit. She got another job quickly, but at a much reduced salary.
She's currently in another management trainee program with a Fortune 500 company, but in spite of having to change jobs and take a reduction in salary, after three years she's back to where she was three years ago salary wise. But she has the right attitude and she can sleep well at night. And finally, at age 35 she's pregnant and she and her husband are expecting their first child at the end of this month. For someone who has always been at the head of her class, I'm sure she had expectations where she would be at this time, but I'm just thankful that she made it this far, and came out a winner, conscience free, and she's on much more solid footing right now.