The American Dream: Myth or Fact?

Ah, the American Dream. It is still alive and breathing fire into the hearts and minds of the unknowing and gullible American populace. The propagandist media, and leaders of all parties and denominations guide us like pigs to the slaughter, squealing with excitement and enthusiasm until the rusty blades slit bewildered throats. It is an ingrained philosophy, a bedtime story, a salient meal even the most impoverished, starving child can feast upon and sleep at night with full, churning bellies while visions of picket fences, three car garages and Ford Expeditions dance in their heads.

Boy, youre gonna be president
But just like everyting else, those old crazy dreams
Just kinda came and went
Oh but aint that america for you and me...Aint that america, home of the free
John Mellencamp, 1984

Yet, for all the absurdity and impossibility of this concept today, and the impossibility grows more stark with each new year, we all still hold it in our hearts as what America was built on. Even if in our minds we now know it as a lie, a fairytale perpetuated to keep us marching to the tune, as the creation of Little Red Riding Hood kept children from wandering in the woods, we must not stray to far from the fold because we may miss our opportunity for the American Dream.

The myth is so fixed in the American consciousness that even the drug dealers on the corner strive for it. Ask any one of them and they will tell you they are risking their lives to have all the things that money brings. They all dream of driving a nice car, having a house with a big screen television, pool and deck, and if pressed, they will talk about giving their children a different life. Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, they have no illusions that this model of the American dream can be acquired through the invented notion of hard work and playing by the rules, something most average Americans refuse to accept or attempt to understand. Those on the corners comprehend, with little education, that the CEO's who make "352 times the pay of average workers" (Sklar, 330) are no less criminals than they, and do as much physical and emotional harm to employees as they to drug buyers/users. Possibly, they do less emotional harm because they do not pretend to care for their clients, nor promise them a hopeful future which they have no intention of delivering. Drug dealers' clients, as opposed to the American worker, knows full well that their 'bosses' are interested only in themselves and that the clients, like the American worker, are expendable.

Yet still, each American continues, in his/her own way, to reach for the dream. Why? Perhaps it comes from the original meaning of the phrase/philosophy that capitalism has exploited. James Truslow Adams first expressed the phrase "American Dream" in his book "The Epics of America," written in 1931.

"The American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position"(p.214-215).

It is my contention that the core of the current misconception and the resulting exploitation of this philosophy lay in the words "a dream of a land." Our forefathers had this dream and it propelled them to rebel against the English empire, as many other civilizations rebel against an occupying, repressive empire. This dream holds true still for immigrants to America.

As Alejandro Reuss states in "Cause if Death: Inequality," "You often hear it said that even poor people in...the United States are rich compared to ordinary people in poor countries" (387). Even though Alejandro goes on to say it is only true for "consumer goods like television or telephones...it's completely wrong when it comes to health" (387), this is disputable. Even those without health insurance in America no longer suffer the torturous death of AIDS that Africans, Indians and now, Afghans do. Our housing projects, as despicable as they are, are better than thatched roof huts beside gutters of waste infected water.

People in poor countries "dream of a land" and that land is America. Americans "dream of a land," yet unless there is a revolution or a new land discovered, it is merely a fanciful dream, except of course if you do not play by the arbitrarily assigned rules, as the drug dealers, CEO's and government officials do not. Alternatively, unless we become "hungry" for equality as were our forefathers and current immigrants. This is why "Immigrants in the United States, Canada and Australia continue to manifest higher rates of self-employment than the native born" (Conley, 356). They have a driving ingenuity to make the best of their surroundings (and there is so much more surrounding them in America) that most modern Americans lack, and of course, government subsidies.

This seems to bring us full circle to the matter of the American dream as reality or myth. As the philosophy itself, the answer is a duality, both yes and no, to some and not others. The question remains how to change the no to a yes, and how to bring the have not's into the have's. I believe that it can be done, over time, if we support the comments of Conley in "Being Black, Living Red," "In other words, it is not race per se that matters directly; instead, what matters are the wealth levels and class positions..." (354). We must realize that wealth levels and class positions cross race distinctions. We must recognize that the propaganda of the hegemony perpetuates the race issue. It is the top 1 percent who "has more wealth than the bottom 90 percent of households combined," (Sklar, 329) who know that if not separated by race, if a force combined, we, the bottom 90 percent, could overtake with ease. The perception would no longer be as "special interests" (Sklar, 331), rather as "national interests" (Sklar, 331) of which, collectively, we do not just represent, but truly are.