06-27-2015, 05:54 PM
(06-27-2015, 04:47 PM)fredtoast Wrote: So you don't think Thomas received any advantage from having his grandfather take him in out of abject poverty and send him to a private all-white high school?
You do realize it is possible to give a guy credit for working hard, but at the same time admit that he had privileges that other did not. I hope someday to give my daughters' advantages that other people don't have. There is nothing wrong with that. But I don't want my daughters to grow up and claim that everyone has equal opportunity in this country.
This sounds like Obama's "you didn't build that" speech. I'm sure he probably did get some benefit from his grandfather helping him out. That said, a lot of people get help from a grandparent and don't end up at Yale and on the Supreme Court bench.
If you want to be a literalist about things, of course there's no such thing as "equal opportunity" and there's probably not a person in the country who wasn't helped along the way by someone. That said, it doesn't sound like Thomas was a legacy at Yale University.
