The View From Flyover Country: Essays by Sarah Kendzior

by Sarah Kendzior

  Millennials are almost uniformly poorer Americans. Those who are financially secure tend to have family wealth. According to a 2012 Pew survey, 38 percent of millennials say their current financial situation is linked to their parents' financial situation. Millennials are chastised for leaning on elders, but the new rules of the economy demand it. Unpaid internships are often prerequisites to full-time jobs, and the ability to take them is based on money, not merit. Young adults who live off wealthy parents are the lucky few. They can envision a future because they can envision its purchase. Almost everyone else is locked out of the game.

  Dependence may be the primary trait of the millennial generation, but it is a structural dependence, caused not by "laziness" or "narcissism" but by a lack of options or social mobility. For millennials much more than for the generations which immediately preceded them, the future is determined by the past. The son is indebted to the debt of the father.

  When I ask millennial parents about how they see their children's future, they tell me they do not like to think about it. It is one thing to discover, as an adult, that the rules have been rewritten, that the job market will not recover, that you will scramble to survive. It is another to raise a child knowing that no matter how hard they work, how talented they are, how big they dream, they will not have opportunities - because in the new economy, opportunities are bought, not earned. You know this, but you cannot tell this to a child. The millennial parent is always Santa, always a little bit of a liar.

  'Class privilege'

  Some may argue that the children of millennials do not have it so bad. Even if their parents cannot save enough to pay for college, surely they can apply for scholarships. But in the new economy, scholarships are increasingly reserved for the rich. According to a report from the New America Foundation, colleges give "merit aid" to wealthy students who can afford to pay nearly full tuition at the expense of aid to low-income students.

  The goal is to increase the university's prestige by building an affluent student body. But the consequences for social mobility are so dire that the authors of the study argue for government intervention. "Federal action is needed to ensure that colleges continue to provide a gateway to opportunity, rather than perpetuating inequality by limiting college access to only those who are rich enough to be able to afford it," they write. The children of the millennials have been born into a United States of entrenched meritocracy - what Pierre Bourdieu called "the social alchemy that turns class privilege into merit". Success is allegedly based on competition, not background, but one must be prepared to pay to play.

  "This reliance on un- or underpaid labor is part of a broader move to a 'privilege economy' instead of a merit economy - where who you know and who pays your bills can be far more important than talent," writes journalist Farai Chideya, noting that this system often locks out minorities. By charging more for a year's college tuition than the average median income, universities ensure that poor people stay poor while debt-ridden graduates join their ranks. By requiring unpaid internships, professions such as journalism ensure positions of influence will be filled only by those who can pay for them. The cycle of privilege and privation continues.

  The economy may seem bad now, but the true test will come in the next two decades, when the children of the "screwed generation" reap the meagre harvest of their parents' lost opportunities. Perhaps, then we will return to the ideal of equal opportunity because we will have witnessed the long-term consequences of its erosion.

  In the meantime, millennial parents surrender their dreams in favor of survival. That is what a good parent does. It is much harder to surrender a child's dreams as well.

  --Originally published May 29, 2013

  Mothers are not ‘opting out’ – they are out of options

  "The choice that is not really a choice" is one of the oldest tricks in parenting. Anticipating a tantrum or endless dawdling, the parent offers the child a limited set of options: "Would you like to wear the red shirt or the blue shirt? Would you like the carrots or the apple? It's your choice."

  The child, being a child, feels empowered. He is the one in control; he gets to make the big decisions. But this deception only lasts for so long. Eventually the child grows older and starts to dream beyond his proscriptions. He realizes there are not only two options, but a world of dazzling variety. He demands to be part of this world, but his requests are denied. He realizes he never had options after all, but that choice itself was an illusion produced by the powerful.

  If only his mother would realize the same.

  On August 7, the New York Times ran an article called "The Opt Out Generation Wants Back In" - a follow-up to a 2003 story about highly accomplished, well-educated American women who left the workforce to stay at home with their children. Ten years later, the mothers are seeking work that befits their abilities but most are unable to find it, causing them to question their original decision. The New York Times piece frames the mothers' misgivings as a result of questionable planning and poor marriage partners, paying mere lip service to the tremendous change in the economy over the past ten years. Whether to work or stay at home is presented as an option that has to do with personal fulfillment and childrearing preferences, divorced from fiscal limitations.

  But for nearly all women, from upper middle-class to poor, the "choice" of whether to work is not a choice, but an economic bargain struck out of fear and necessity. Since 2008, the costs of childbirth, childcare, health care, and education have soared, while wages have stagnated and full-time jobs have been supplanted by part-time, benefit-free contingency labor.

  The media present a woman's fear of losing her career as the fear of losing herself. But the greatest fear of most mothers is not being able to provide for their children. Mothers with high-paying jobs go back to work to earn money for their kids. Married mothers with low-paying jobs quit to save money for their kids. Single mothers struggle to find work that pays enough to support their kids. Self-fulfillment is a low priority in an economy fuelled by worker insecurity.

  The assumed divide between mothers who work inside and outside the home is presented as a war of priorities. But in an economy of high debt and sinking wages, nearly all mothers live on the edge. Choices made out of fear are not really choices. The illusion of choice is a way to blame mothers for an economic system rigged against them. There are no "mommy wars", only money wars - and almost everyone is losing.

  Motherhood as a financial burden

  Here is how raising a child in America has changed over the past decade. Between 2004 and 2010, the average out-of-pocket costs for delivering a baby rose fourfold, making it the costliest in the world. Two decades ago, insured American women, on average, paid nothing. Today the average out-of-pocket cost with insurance is $3,400, with many insured women paying much more, and uninsured mothers charged tens of thousands of dollars.

  The average American woman begins the journey of motherhood paying off mountains of debt. One could argue there is indeed a "choice" at play: the hospitals and health insurance companies can choose to stop inflating prices, charging for unwanted procedures, or refusing to cover necessary ones.

  But with the health insurance industry facing little accountability, the burden of "choice" reverts back to the mother. The skyrocketing cost of childbirth corresponds with the rise of the homebirth movement, which, while appealing to some women for personal, non-economic reasons, is also a way to try to dodge the hospital bill (for women with complicated deliveries, this "choice" is quickly curtailed). Like so many movements born in times of economic ruin, homebirth is presented by the media as a lifestyle trend, a return to "natural living" much like the rise of bicycling (cannot afford a car), "shabby chic" (cannot afford new clothes or furniture), and gardening (cannot afford fresh produce).

  Desperate or pragmatic economic decisions are rationalized with moral superiority. In the post-employment economy, "opting out" is often code for "cannot afford a job".

  America is notoriou
s for workplace policies that are unfriendly to mothers - we have among the shortest parental leave of any developed nation, with 40 percent of companies providing none at all. We also have among the world's most expensive childcare (although our childcare workers are paid a pittance). The average cost of daycare is $11,666 per year, with the average cost in some states as high as $19,000. This means that young parents, still struggling to pay off their massive college loans, are also expected to pay daycare costs equivalent to college tuition.

  Since the recession began, the cost of daycare has soared while US median income collapsed, plummeting 7.3 percent. The average household makes $51,404 before taxes. A family with two children and two working parents could easily find over half of their income going to childcare. For the average married mother of small children, it is often cheaper to stay home - even if she would prefer to be in the workforce. It is hard to "lean in" when you are priced out.

  Regardless of their reasons, all mothers who stay home with children are penalized later by the perception that they "chose" to neglect their career. When they attempt to return to the workforce, their years at home are held against them, considered a "blank spot" on the resume - a blank spot with a reason so obvious and laudable and often involuntary that it is sick we deride it as "choice".

  Careers are not pursued by choice

  Corporate feminists like Sheryl Sandberg frame female success as a matter of attitude. But it is really a matter of money - or the lack thereof. For all but the fortunate few, American motherhood is making sure you have enough lifeboats for your sinking ship. American motherhood is a cost-cutting, debt-dodging scramble somehow interpreted as a series of purposeful moves. American mothers are not "leaning in". American mothers are not "opting out". American mothers are barely hanging on.

  Careers in this economy are not about choices. They are about structural constraints masquerading as choice. Being a mother is a structural constraint regardless of your economic position. Mothers pay a higher price in a collapsed economy, but that does not mean they should not demand change - both in institutions and perceptions.

  Erasing stigma - whether of hard-working, impoverished single mothers branded as "lazy", or of wealthier mothers whose skills outside the home are downplayed and denied - does not cost a thing.

  The irony of American motherhood is that the politicians and corporations who hold power do have a choice in how they treat mothers and their children. Yet they act as if they are held hostage to intractable policies and market forces, excusing the incompetence and corporate malfeasance that drain our households dry.

  Mothers can emulate them and treat "choice" as an individual burden - or we can work together and push for accountability and reform. This option is not easy. But we are used to that.

  --Originally published August 19, 2013

  PART III: RACE AND RELIGION

  The wrong kind of Caucasian

  In 1901, a 28-year-old American named Leon Czolgosz assassinated US President William McKinley. Czolgosz was born in America, but he was of Polish descent. After McKinley died, the American media blamed Polish immigrants. They were outsiders, foreigners, with a suspicious religion - Catholicism - and strange last names.

  At a time when Eastern European immigrants were treated as inferior, Polish-Americans feared they would be punished as a group for the terrible actions of an individual. "We feel the pain which this sad occurrence caused, not only in America, but throughout the whole world. All people are mourning, and it is caused by a maniac who is of our nationality," a Polish-American newspaper wrote in an anguished editorial.

  It is a sentiment reminiscent of what Muslims and Chechens are writing - or Instagramming - today, after the revelation that Dzokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, are of Chechen descent. At this time, there is no evidence linking the Tsarnaev brothers to a broader movement in Chechnya, a war-torn federal republic in southern Russia. Neither of the brothers has ever lived there. The oldest, Tamerlan, was born in Russia and moved to the US when he was sixteen. The youngest, Dzokhar, was born in Kyrgyzstan, moved to the US when he was nine, and became a US citizen in 2012.

  Despite the Tsarnaevs' American upbringing, the media has presented their lives through a Chechen lens. Political strife in the North Caucasus, ignored by the press for years, has become the default rationale for a domestic crime.

  "Did Boston carnage have its roots in Stalin's ruthless displacement of Muslims from Chechnya decades ago?" asked The Daily News , a question echoed by the National Post , the Washington Post , and other publications that refuse to see the Tsarnaevs as anything but walking symbols of age-old conflicts. Blame Stalin, the pundits cry, echoing the argument made every time something bad happens in the former Soviet Union. Blame Stalin, because we can pronounce that name. In one sense, this sentiment is not new. American Muslims have long had to deal with ignorance and prejudice in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. " Please don't be Muslims or Arabs ", goes the refrain, as unnecessary demands for a public apology from Muslims emerge. This week made it clear that it is Muslims who are owed the apology. After wild speculation from CNN about a "dark-skinned suspect", on Thursday the New York Post published a cover photo falsely suggesting a Moroccan-American high school track star, Salah Barhoun , was one of the bombers. "Jogging while Arab" has become the new "driving while black ".

  Later that Thursday, the FBI released photos of two young men wearing baseball caps - men who so resembled all-American frat boys that people joked they would be the target of "racial bro-filing ". The men were Caucasian, so the speculation turned away from foreign terror and toward the excuses routinely made for white men who kill: mental illness, anti-government grudges, frustrations at home. The men were white and Caucasian - until the next day, when they became the wrong kind of Caucasian, and suddenly they were not so "white" after all.

  Crucifying the wrong Caucasian

  Muslims face prejudice, but Muslims from the Caucasus face a particular kind of prejudice - the kind born of ignorance so great it perversely imbues everything with significance. "There is never interpretation, understanding and knowledge when there is no interest," Edward Said wrote in Covering Islam , and until this week, there was so little interest in and knowledge of the Caucasus that the ambassador of the Czech Republic felt compelled to issue a press release stating that the Czech Republic is not the same as Chechnya.

  Knowing nothing of the Tsarnaevs' motives, and little about Chechens, the American media tore into Wikipedia and came back with stereotypes. The Tsarnaevs were stripped of their 21st century American life and became symbols of a distant land, forever frozen in time. Journalist Eliza Shapiro proclaimed that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was "named after a brutal warlord", despite the fact that Tamerlan, or Timur, is an ordinary first name in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Her claim is equivalent to saying a child named Nicholas must be named in honor of ruthless Russian tsar Nicholas I - an irony apparently lost on New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who made a similar denouncement on Twitter (to his credit, Kristof quickly retracted the comment).

  Other journalists found literary allusions, or rather, illusions. "They were playing the nihilists Arkady and Bazarov in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons," explained scholar Juan Cole, citing an 1862 Russian novel to explain the motives of a criminal whose Twitter account was full of American rap lyrics. One does not recall such use of literary devices to ascertain the motives of less exotic perpetrators, but who knows? Perhaps some ambitious analyst is plumbing the works of Faulkner to shed light on that Mississippi Elvis impersonator who tried to send ricin to Obama.

  Still others turned to social media as a gateway to the Chechen soul. Journalist Julia Ioffe - after explaining the Tsarnaevs through Tolstoy, Pushkin, and, of course, Stalin - cites the younger Tsarnaev's use of the Russian website VKontakte as proof of his inability to assimilate, then ranks the significance of his personal photos.

  "The most revealing image of Dzhokhar is not the
one of him hugging an African-American friend at his high school graduation, but the one of him sitting at a kitchen table with his arm around a guy his age who appears to be of Central Asian descent," she writes. "In front of them is a dish plov , a Central Asian dish of rice and meat, and a bottle of Ranch dressing." Again, it is difficult to imagine a journalist writing with such breathtaking arrogance - why is the Central Asian friend more "revealing" than the African-American one? What, exactly, are they "revealing"? - about the inner life of someone from a more familiar place.

  One way to test whether you are reading a reasonable analysis of the Tsarnaev case - and yes, they exist - is to replace the word "Chechen" with another ethnicity. "I could always spot the Chechens in Vienna," writes journalist Oliver Bulloughs in the New York Times. "They were darker-haired than the Austrians; they dressed more snappily, like 1950s gangsters; they never had anything to do." Now substitute the word "Jews" for "Chechens". Minority-hunting in Vienna never ends well.

  Demonising an ethnicity

  It is easy to criticize the media, and after this disastrous week , there is much to criticize. But the consequences of the casual racism launched at Chechens - and by association, all other Muslims from the former Soviet Union, who are rarely distinguished from one another by the public - are serious. By emphasizing the Tsarnaevs' ethnicity over their individual choices, and portraying that ethnicity as barbaric and violent , the media creates a false image of a people destined by their names and their " culture of terror " to kill. There are no people in Chechnya, only symbols. There are no Chechen-Americans, only threats.