Two Lives Diverged

I've been thinking about my old friend "J." He recently sent me a birthday message for my 25th. Days later, I sent him one back. I didn't need a calendar to remember the date. Best of friends remember each other's birthdays as well as they remember their mothers' birthdays. J and I, however, ceased to be friends a long time ago. We haven't hung out since we were 12. So goes the story of many kids in the United States, where children of disparate socioeconomic circumstances are brought together through school, but are then progressively distanced through the process of socialization and, eventually, by school itself.

J and I grew up in a Northeastern suburb. J is black and grew up in public housing. I was raised by a white father and an Ecuadoran mother, both of whom held advanced degrees, in a more affluent part of town, although I didn't grow up wealthy. Barring socioeconomic differences, J and I were not much different. We were two kids who shared similar interests and childish aspirations. Never then could I have imagined, as we laughed and crashed our toy cars in kindergarten or ran through the woods behind my house, how much greater the privilege that was bestowed upon me the day I was born. I had won what sociologists like Peter W. Cookson Jr. refer to as the "birth lottery." I was situated in a social sphere that offered me resources that would all but guarantee my academic and professional success. J's prospects couldn't have been more different.

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