That's Not the Choice You Think It Is

 A common argument I hear about inequalities in the US is that it's all a matter of choice. If you make good choices, you will be successful in life. If you make bad choices, you won't. There's even a lot of data used to back this up: if you finish high school, don't use drugs, and don't have children young and out of wedlock, your chances of succeeding are really good. It seems like an obvious answer - personal choice determines outcomes - since it's true for most of the people making the argument, and they use it as an argument against programs that help out the poor. Their solution is people should just choose to be successful like they did. But choice is not what you think it is.

First, it ignores the many cases where choice clearly isn't the main determinant of outcome. Even the data shows that a significant portion of people who make all the right choices still end up in bad situations. People who are poor because a cancer diagnosis wiped out their savings. People who can't work because a car accident left them with a traumatic brain injury. Even if these things represent a small percentage, that's still millions of people who need support even if they made good choices. And if you try to set up a program to help those in need, but tie that help to sorting out who is 'deserving' vs. who is not, then you inevitably open a can of worms that leads to less efficiency and less help overall. Helping people without judgment is not only a better moral position but a more effective policy.

But let's get back to those personal choices. People make choices in specific environments under specific circumstances and those are not all equal. For a kid growing up in a white suburb, with a decent school system and middle-class parents, the decision to finish high school is a no-brainer. It's what's expected of them, all their friends are doing it, and it's the path of least resistance. But to a poor kid in a neighborhood filled with gangs, a poorly funded school, a single-parent who never finished high school, and a bunch of older neighborhood kids who don't graduate, finishing high school must seem like an impossible challenge that no one expects them to accomplish. Their choice is simply much different, much more difficult and they shouldn't be judged for it the same way the middle-class kid is.

And it's also very true that the consequences for bad choices are not the same for everyone. Avoiding drugs is a pretty big indicator for success, but I know a ton of successful white guys who smoked a lot of pot in high school and college (and still do to this day). They never faced any consequences for their bad choice. They never even feared consequences. But Black Americans are three times more likely to get arrested for using marijuana. The sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine (used more often by Black Americans) are seven times stiffer than those for powdered cocaine (used more often by white Americans). If the consequences for making bad choices fall unequally on a certain group then using choice as your criteria for judging outcomes is biased.

Making good choices is the best way to find success, but blaming people's failures on their personal choices is not at all an accurate or fair way to pass judgment. And since that is the case, using such judgments to restrict programs meant to help those in need is simply an exercise in bias and an excuse to be cruel. We can pat ourselves on the back for getting where we are without using our other hand to beat down those less fortunate than us.