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I’ve been thinking about this for the last three minutes (I’m not even kidding), so everything that I write here is unorganized and unpolished. Everything here is essentially my stream of thought.

Recently, my school published a political review, where we have taken recent events and applied them to our own views. Here in the Silicon Valley, the majority of the people here are liberal. However, many of the largest corporations are here as well. This is where the problem begins.

My family has been affected greatly by the financial crisis, and we have been affected by layoffs. I go to a private school, but I receive over 90% in financial aid. Many of my classmates are children of some high-ranking guy in a Fortune 500 company. They, of course, fall in the top 10% of Americans in terms of wealth. (10% is just my estimate. Maybe they’re in the top 5%. I don’t know.)

One of these guys, which of course shall be unnamed, is just so privileged. He got every single new Apple product, upgraded his MacBook Pro to the most expensive configurations, received a new car after learning how to drive, and even bought a spare MacBook charger from one of those airport vending machines after someone admitted to forgetting to bring his. Who wouldn’t use him for future connections?

What does he do? He isn’t a stellar student—his grades are lower than mine, and he actually asks me for help on some homework questions. How does he maintain his “status”? I realized that he always asks questions privately, instead of asking everyone in the room. I think I’m going off topic, but I hope the point is pretty clear.

He is an editor-in-chief of one of our school’s publications, and he is adored by the staff. Have I seen him do anything in particular? Honestly, no. He claimed credit for the website that another guy made. The real creator did not receive any credit.

Here, we see a fault of capitalism. Supporters of this ideology say, “oh, he worked his way up. He deserves being rich.” Really? He didn’t earn that money. He got those for free from his parents! Any lower class, including my family, is not that privileged. No one in my family has gotten a new computer in the last two years. I got a used desktop last year, when my notebook from 2009 is just too slow. Did I not work hard enough? This is all luck! I’m content with what I have, but our system encourages the privileged people to become idols!

I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I just realized I mentioned nothing about the political review. I made the design, and I was acclaimed by all my peers, even random students while walking. That guy I mentioned above also made a layout—it was not likened. I wrote an article in that issue, and many of my peers loved it. By the way, it was a comparison between the failed American healthcare industry and other “developed” nations.

I seriously have no idea where this is going now. I just feel so frustrated about how privilege escalates and glorifies particular individuals, regardless of their actual contribution.

I am very thankful of what I have. There are suffering people all over the world, and I, in my current state, am already much more privileged than they are. That is all.