There are several races and nationalities used throughout the books. I don’t particularly care what color a person’s skin is or where they come from. I also don’t believe that any race or creed is inherently inferior to another. I do find that individuals vary.
Our society judges us on material wealth. That’s the simple truth. A football player that is making ten or twenty million dollars, but never spent one day in college is adjudged superior and idolized. You can probably name a dozen football players. How many of you have heard of Michael Sofia? He was the guy that basically led the team for the discovery of the cure for hepatitis C. Some people play a game and make money, others save millions of lives, who gets the fame and glory?
There has crept into the English lexicon the term ‘the 1%’, and it is not usually used in a pleasant way. Yet, if we look at athletes, movie stars or musicians that make staggering amounts of money, they are never included in thoughts of the ‘1%.’ They are a part of it, but they are somehow excused.
We have become a nation of ‘bread and circuses.’ Even those who recognize it, don’t seem to want it changed. If you are wondering exactly what that means, “A superficial means of appeasement. In the case of politics, the phrase is used to describe the generation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent public service or public policy, but through diversion; distraction; or the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of a populace.”
It’s true, not just for our country, but most of the civilized world. We hold up as icons people whose knowledge of subjects that they speak on is less than that of an informed fourth-grader. Entertainers mock and even threaten world leaders, and it is accepted. If the ‘average’ person did the same, expect a lengthy jail sentence. That is the equality that the 1% expect.
It comes down to, if you are not one of the few truly privileged (race seems to be immaterial), you are as equally unequal as the rest of us.
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