The American Dream Today

Opportunity and the American Dream In spite of what Adams said, the American Dream still depends a great deal on birth or position. As Reifenberg and LeBlanc note, it all depends on one’s opportunity: a “general lack of opportunity affects the ability of the less welloff to live up to their full potential. Often disadvantaged for reasons beyond their control, they are forced to live life dreaming of what might have been had the circumstance of their birth been different” (445).

In other words, unless one is born into the right circumstances, the right family, or the right environment, the so-called American Dream is unlikely to become a reality. Someone born in the urban part of America, in a poor family or in a poor community, is not going to have the same opportunity to achieve the American Dream as someone who is born the son of a wealthy businessman or a senator or a well-connected individual: that person will have many more opportunities.

This paper will show why the American Dream is just that a dream and not really a reality for many. The American Dream was more possible 200 years ago because there was more possibility for work but not so today. Ben Franklin wrote his Autobiography and helped to lay the foundation for the American Dream by describing how he made the most of every opportunity given him. But he was also someone who was able to use his talents and skill and training and education to use those opportunities.

A slave in America would not have had such opportunity and would not have had the training or skill to make anything of those opportunities were they given. The American Dream depends upon an individual having some education and some ability. As Atwan notes, the American Dream was promoted by Franklin, “who believed that anyone from any background who worked hard and lived responsibly could succeed” (436). Yet it was a different time in the Revolutionary days when Franklin arrived in colonial America. Things were still in flux.

The nation’s future had not yet been determined. The structure of the government had not even been put in place. Today, America is more than 200 years old. The ways things are are now set almost in stone. Few people are able to arrive today from other countries and achieve the kind of status that is equated with the American Dream. At every turn there are obstacles, due to race or gender or class or wealth. Today, the American Dream is blocked by many obstacles.

Barack Obama hinted at these obstacles as being political when he stated that “it’s not surprising that the American people’s frustrations with Washington are at an all-time high” (Obama 436). People are frustrated with the government because they feel the opportunities to pursue the American Dream are denied them. There are too many regulations and rules, too many obstacles put in their paths.

There are too many walls that they face: they struggle “to make ends meet, to pay for college, buy a home, save for retirement” and their frustration is “rooted in the nagging sense that no matter how hard they work, the deck is stacked against them” (Obama 437). This frustration stems from many factors—such as the income tax, income inequality, lack of job opportunities, the achievement gap—many factors affect people today.

They do not have access to certain social circles; the system appears to be constantly “rigged” against them, as Obama says, and they cannot make their payments or reach their goals. They try and try but never get anywhere. The American Dream is more of a reality for those who run the social, economic and political system: unless you are rich, it is not for you.

In fact, nearly every aspect of life is “rigged” by the haves against the have-nots in order to strengthen the position of the haves or allow them to hold onto what they have so that they do not lose any of the ground they have attained. This is made clear by The Economist in the article “Young, Gifted, and Held Back,” in which it is stated: “Housing, too, is often rigged against the young….Overregulation has doubled the cost of a typical home” (455).

How can people who are struggling to make it enjoy the American Dream if they cannot even afford to own a home? Home ownership is part of the American Dream but clearly The Economist knows that it is not for everyone. So Franklin’s idea that anyone can attain the American Dream does not apply today. Everything today is so regulated and expensive that no one can possibly have a chance to make good unless one comes from a family or environment where one is already well-situated.

As Susan Estrich points out, achieving the Dream today is especially difficult because the modern world is really out of control. At least in Franklin’s day there was a bit more sense to things and the way the world worked. People were more civil. There were norms to the way people behaved. Today, one has to watch one’s back just to make sure he is not attacked by a mob or by someone who wants something he has.

If one says the wrong thing, he can have his life destroyed by social media. If one is not careful, his very existence can be turned upside down. There is a lot less security today. One cannot be sure of anything. That is why Estrich states: “there is a lot going on in the world, and most of it seems frightening, depressing and utterly beyond our control” (476). The modern world is not a place in which dreams can become true.

It is a place where more likely than not, a nightmare is going to be one’s reality. The nightmare is just waiting around every corner: crime, oppression, poverty, homelessness, disease, the broken family, the loss of one’s savings—it is all just waiting and most are powerless to do anything about it. The American Dream is also not really for people who are outside the sphere of white privilege.

As Robin DiAngelo states, there is “a system that ensures an unequal distribution of resources between racial groups” (261)—and most of the benefits of resources go to those who are white. The social system was not set up to benefit blacks or Asians or Latinos. A higher percentage of blacks are in jail than whites. Blacks have always had a hard time in America—from slavery to Jim Crow to now. There has not really been much opportunity for them to pursue the American Dream.

It was set up to benefit people like Benjamin Franklin. Blacks were enslaved at that time. Asians, when they came over, were put to work on the railroad—like slaves—and were not given the same rights as whites. The country has always been oriented towards giving whites the advantage because of the racist undertones of the Puritan America that was made the foundation of the country.

Stascavage points out that the current social and political unrest in America is evidence of this lack of opportunity for equality and for the American Dream among people, especially those of color, noting that “there is clearly something wrong” (271). The fact is that minorities have always had in hard in America, and achieving the American Dream has always been more of a miracle if it happens for them than it has been an actual reality.

Minorities have it so hard that it is more likely for them to end up in jail than it is for them to end up achieving the American Dream. In conclusion, opportunity plays a big role in whether or not one can achieve the American Dream. People think.