Nicholas Kristof "U.S.A., Land of Limitations?

Kristof argues that “talent is universal, but opportunity is not”.  Throughout this article Kristoff is trying to show that even if you are the most talented person out there, the chances of becoming someone of any importance is slim. The only way this can change is if the opportunity arises for the select few who come from lower social classes.

There are different aspects to having the opportunity in life move from being an average person in society to a person of higher reputation. People have their talents like Kristof said about his friend Rick, that although he was “smart, talented, and hardworking” (Kristof) he was faced with a struggle from the time he was born because of the social class he was born into. This caused his opportunities to be more limited than someone who would have been born into a high social class. And even though he was able to provide for himself and be a single father he had the life where he only had a small amount if any of emergency money in case something happened.

Rick lived his life in the lower social economic class and because of this based on Kristof’s argument Rick’s children are more likely to live their lives in the same social class as their father. He states that “where we end up is where we start” (Kristof) meaning that even if you fluctuate the chances of being able to move up to a different social class isn’t high for people in America, because of the limitations put on people who aren’t from higher up. This is shown with Rick because although he worked hard and became something of worth with his custom painter for cars the opportunity was taken by something out of his control, and because of this he had to live off of random jobs and disability.

This is supposed to be the land of opportunity, but it doesn’t seem to be that way. There are talented people all over the U.S. and instead of having opportunities to live a comfortable lifestyle they have to live to try to survive. Talents are pushed aside so that people can work whatever job they can get in order to provide for their families. The opportunity to shine their talent doesn’t get to happen for everyone in America; in fact it happens hardly ever to people in lower social classes. So although everyone has a talent of some kind they never get the chance to show what it is to the rest of the world, or at least the community they live in.  

Class Discussion:

This reading shows that there are limitations on everyone in the U.S., some limitations are greater for some people of the population than others, but our country was supposed to be the land of opportunity. But even from the start of having a Democracy, having people vote for other people to represent them, gives the electives more opportunities than it does the rest of society. It gives them power over the decisions even if it was what the people were wanting. So from the beginning shouldn’t we have been the land of limitations based off of who you are? I know it’s not a catchy slogan to get people to want to live in America, but it doesn’t seem wrong.