It’s Okay to Acknowledge That You’re Rich (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Ohio)

by Alice Morrow, Contributor

Rich Obies have a complicated relationship with wealth. Much like many white progressives try to distance themselves from their own whiteness, I’ve seen wealthy friends and classmates take pains to distance themselves from their financial status. And speaking as someone who doesn’t come from a particularly wealthy background, we can tell.

I wouldn’t have been able to attend Oberlin had it not been for a combination of a generous scholarship and financial aid. I feel lucky to be here, and it’s a privilege that I don’t take lightly. Oberlin is not a cheap school, which makes the way that Obies interact and consider the concept of wealth all the more interesting.

I think it’s healthy and even necessary to be critical of wealth as a concept, and I think it’s good that progressive spaces understand how privilege can shape the opportunities you’re given in life… but as a result, “privilege” has become a bad word, something that makes you an inherently immoral person.

Having privilege doesn’t make you a bad person, and it doesn’t devalue the contributions you put into community building and leftism here on campus. But, at the risk of sounding overly combative, it isn’t all about you. You can exist in a space centered around the needs and struggles of communities you don’t personally relate to, and not self-flagellate in order to apologize for the sin of your privilege. 

I think folks in leftist spaces—particularly those that emphasize class consciousness or anti-capitalist philosophy—assume that they are absolved of classism. But no one, no matter how well-read or informed they are, is immune to making snap judgements and actions based on unconscious biases.

Nowhere is that clearer than in the way certain students talk about the burden of living in Ohio. Look, I get it. I, too, am a transplant from a major city, and I often find myself wistful for the fast-paced nature of city life. But I think complaints about rural life can easily snowball into weird and classist judgments. Like it or not, Ohio is our home for the next however many years, and the way that some people talk about it verges on elitist and disrespectful to the people who have spent their entire lives living here. 

There is an instinct, in some left-leaning major cities, to generalize all of those who live in redder Middle America as less educated and therefore less evolved than their coastal counterparts. This paints an entire diverse and nuanced swath of people with a classist brush. I’m not saying you are at all obligated to engage with people whose political missions are contrary to your own—especially if their political mission is to denigrate basic human rights—but consider the fact that someone is not automatically a republican just by virtue of living in the Midwest. 

I think this disrespect of Ohio ties into some of the classism that I discussed at the beginning of this piece. In progressive spaces, folks living in rural America become an easy punching bag, a class of poor people that you can feel comfortable degrading because it’s, in some way, “punching up.” It is not punching up. Even if you, as a rich person, supposedly champion the working class, the way you talk about poor and working-class people outside of your community says a lot about how you see us. Sometimes I worry that the progressive attitude of my wealthier peers is not a legitimate philosophy that they’ve internalized, but just an empty veneer that they’ve never bothered to truly examine. 

I’m not sure if some students’ attitudes towards Ohio and the greater Oberlin community are entirely politically motivated. It’s true that on every college campus located near a college town, there will be some separation between the “townies” and the college students. It’s easy to stay in the college bubble, to only venture off campus when a drink at Slow Train or catching a movie at the Apollo, and otherwise staying confined to the College social sphere. I’m definitely guilty of the same thing. It’s hard to push yourself beyond what is comfortable, and it’s understandable to feel wary.

Oberlin is a school that is mostly composed of out-of-state students, while the number of students who grew up in Ohio is fairly low. Regardless of financial background, we operate with a degree of privilege in even going here, in having the opportunity to pursue a higher education in the first place. It’s alright—necessary, even—to acknowledge that, but that is why it is all the more important to seek out opportunities to connect with people who have different life experiences than we do.

When I first told friends and acquaintances that I’d be moving to Ohio, of all places, I tacked that on with qualifiers. Yes, but it’s close to Cleveland. Yes, but the area is very progressive. Yes, those things are all true, but my reluctance to admit my new place of residence betrayed my cowardice. My inability to accept or embrace the town that would soon become my home.

When I walk the quiet cobbled pathways of Tappan Square, when I watch the soft golden fans of Ginkgo leaves spiral downwards in the wind, I miss the city I grew up in. But my love for this place grows. Put it on a T-shirt, blast it out the window. I’m only a little ashamed to say it…

I love Ohio.