In today's America I believe opportunity is more equally distributed than in decades past BUT only within each stratum of wealth, and the further one's stratum is from the greatest wealth the more unequal opportunity becomes, and the opportunity gap between the top 10% and the bottom 10% has grown wider and wider and opportunity between the strata has become more and more unequal since the 1980s. I also believe that those in the bottom 10% strategically have very very little to no opportunity, allowing those in the top 10% to point at the bottom 10% and manage the layers in between with the admonition to be grateful for what they have, and those in the layers in between are afraid of saying too much. For the top 10% to narrow the gap by creating more opportunity (which is in their power to do) is inimical to their capitalist creed.

This dearth of opportunity, this refusal by the wealthy, though a significant distance is still a direct line (just some steps removed) from the heat of a switch or a whip flaying strips of skin from my naked back all in an effort to teach me my place and to be grateful for the pain and the humiliation.