Later, we got into a conversation about work and wealth, and the white people in the class insisted that their parents were self-made; that the sole factor in their family’s wealth was hard work. My white peers refused to acknowledge that race affected the school they’d gone to, the loan or funding they’d received, the promotion they’d landed at work. Of course their parents had worked hard. But their skin color had also given them advantages that we did not and do not have. These two facts coexist.
