From Michelle Obama’s brilliant DNC speech:
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“She (Kamala Harris) understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.
If we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third, or fourth chance.
If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead. We don’t get to change the rules so we always win.
If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top.
No, we put our heads down. We get to work. In America, we do something.”
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The whole speech was fantastic—both in content and delivery—but this section, and especially that first paragraph, was the part I loved most.
“Most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward.
We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.”
Boy do I love those two sentences.
I have nothing against folks blessed with a safety net that allows them to fail without disaster. I know people for whom their first, second, and even third businesses didn’t work out but had the luxury of settling into a family business, falling back on inheritance, or enjoying the generosity of parents who were willing to pick their children up, dust them off, and equip them for another adventure.
From a distance, the affirmative action of generational wealth appears to be a lovely thing. I know nothing about it, but I would not have complained if I had been blessed with any generational wealth.
But it’s when these same people fail to acknowledge their privilege, attribute their success solely to hard work and intelligence, and besmirch others for failing to achieve similar results despite the absence of generational wealth, a family business, a graduate degree funded by parents, and a perpetually strong safety net that my blood boils.
It feels good to know you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps. Knowing that you’ve survived and thrived on your own builds heaps of confidence, self-esteem, and inner fortitude. I can understand why someone who enjoys “the affirmative action of generational wealth” might not be excited about crediting some of their success to the previous generation’s hard work and good fortune.
But for every person who has managed to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, many have tried and failed — not for lack of effort but simply because they lacked other essentials required for success, like good luck, fortuitous timing, the right mentor, and more.
Luck plays a role in all of our lives, but it becomes much less important when you enjoy the grace of failing forward.
Luck becomes decidedly less important when you are born lucky enough to benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.
It’s the folks who are bouncing for a second or third time on their family’s safety net, enjoying a debt-free existence thanks to an absence of student loans, or are climbing the corporate ladder in their mother’s company who most often besmirch others for their lack of success and often attribute it to a lack of hard work or limited intelligence.
I suspect that sometimes, these people are so ensconced by the affirmative action of generational wealth that they don’t see and can’t begin to imagine the struggles of others.
But other times — perhaps more often — I think it’s too painful for these folks to admit that their success was not entirely theirs. They so desperately want to tell a bootstrap story, but in the absence of one, they turn a blind eye to their good fortune and claim it anyway, pretending that the benefits and advantages provided by their parents were non-existent or irrelevant.
Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that he received a $1 million loan from his father to launch his real estate business when records indicate he received at least $413 million from his father’s company.
This is truly a man who has fallen forward repeatedly, bankrupting business after business but still landing on his feet.
A $413 million nest egg, combined with fraud, extracting wealth from fake charities, and refusing to pay employees and contractors will do that for a person.
But I think for every Donald Trump, many more Americans benefit from the affirmative action of a more modest but no less important amount of generational wealth who refuse to acknowledge their good fortune and denigrate others for not working hard enough or smart enough.
Michelle Obama was correct:
“Most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.”
But perhaps we afford those folks — most people — the grace of understanding, empathy, consideration, and maybe even legislation to allow them to enjoy the opportunity of a second or third chance when needed.
Maybe even a first chance to do something great.
