Gravity Is the Thing

by Jaclyn Moriarty

And I have this surge of what my brother, Robert, and I used to call the Breakfast Club vibe. The feeling that something swift and strong is going to happen or unfold; that here, among these people, are stripes of energy, smoldering and poised, ready to snap into being.

Books like The Secret, I reasoned, along with lotteries, basketball scholarships, and happy-ending movies about impossible dreams, all help to maintain the inequitable system. You are not poor because of entrenched privilege, race, class, oppression. You are poor because you emit negative thoughts. If only you allowed your light to shine, glowed with positivity, you could have anything you wanted! This is government by false or faint hope.