Mr. Harr looked at my transcript. “These are borderline grades, Hugo. The Cs in math and science might be a problem.” Mr. Harr was my high school counselor. It was September 1984, the first week of my senior year, and we were meeting to discuss where I should apply to college. I had told him I was leaning towards Berkeley, or “Cal” as we all called it.
Thank you for this. I was born in a trailer park and raised on an Indian reservation. But my parents -- both teachers -- and grandmother were sticklers for being polite, well-spoken, clean, and properly dressed for the occasion. Those were both the attributes that differentiated our family as middle-class in a working-class town; and also the skills that they believed would best further our prospects in the world. They didn't have money, but we comported ourselves like we expected to be taken seriously.
I left my tiny hometown for UCLA, and was quite at sea in the big city for a while. But most of the social capital my folks sent with me was adequate to the challenge, so I survived -- and then thrived. I didn't have connections, but I was smart and eager and personable. It didn't take me long to find footing and make my way in LA (and later, Silicon Valley). I married into an old-money family, and now live far above my origins.
I despair now when people disparage this kind of soft capital, telling disadvantaged kids that they don't have to learn to speak well, and it doesn't matter how they dress, and politeness is just ass-kissing The Man and reifying oppressive social structures. No. It's easy for people with privilege, who can fall back on other sorts of capital, to be dismissive of these mere trifles. But when the only thing you've got going for you in this world is a pleasant face, the ability to express yourself well, some basic etiquette, a few presentable outfits, and a decent handshake, then those things *matter.* They are the only key you have that's going get you through the first set of doors -- incalculably valuable personal assets that are free to everyone with the sense to pick them up and use them.
Telling kids not to bother with this stuff is setting them up to fail right out of the gate. If you want to change the world (for yourself, or for your people -- whoever they are), it's critical that you find a seat at the tables of power where the world gets arranged. But nobody's going to seat you at those tables unless they're reasonably confident you won't embarrass them by saying the wrong thing, or picking up the wrong fork, or showing up in ripped jeans. It's the basic price of entry.
AMEN, Sara. Thank you for this wonderful comment. And you're right -- soft capital is indispensable, and the way in which it is dismissed and maligned rather than taught is tragic.
Thank you for this. I was born in a trailer park and raised on an Indian reservation. But my parents -- both teachers -- and grandmother were sticklers for being polite, well-spoken, clean, and properly dressed for the occasion. Those were both the attributes that differentiated our family as middle-class in a working-class town; and also the skills that they believed would best further our prospects in the world. They didn't have money, but we comported ourselves like we expected to be taken seriously.
I left my tiny hometown for UCLA, and was quite at sea in the big city for a while. But most of the social capital my folks sent with me was adequate to the challenge, so I survived -- and then thrived. I didn't have connections, but I was smart and eager and personable. It didn't take me long to find footing and make my way in LA (and later, Silicon Valley). I married into an old-money family, and now live far above my origins.
I despair now when people disparage this kind of soft capital, telling disadvantaged kids that they don't have to learn to speak well, and it doesn't matter how they dress, and politeness is just ass-kissing The Man and reifying oppressive social structures. No. It's easy for people with privilege, who can fall back on other sorts of capital, to be dismissive of these mere trifles. But when the only thing you've got going for you in this world is a pleasant face, the ability to express yourself well, some basic etiquette, a few presentable outfits, and a decent handshake, then those things *matter.* They are the only key you have that's going get you through the first set of doors -- incalculably valuable personal assets that are free to everyone with the sense to pick them up and use them.
Telling kids not to bother with this stuff is setting them up to fail right out of the gate. If you want to change the world (for yourself, or for your people -- whoever they are), it's critical that you find a seat at the tables of power where the world gets arranged. But nobody's going to seat you at those tables unless they're reasonably confident you won't embarrass them by saying the wrong thing, or picking up the wrong fork, or showing up in ripped jeans. It's the basic price of entry.
AMEN, Sara. Thank you for this wonderful comment. And you're right -- soft capital is indispensable, and the way in which it is dismissed and maligned rather than taught is tragic.