Privilege vs “Mindset” -what is more important for social mobility ?

For last couple of days, I kept hearing a lot on white privileges vs racism against blacks which deprived them of social mobility. Is it factually true? Yes. But issue, is, being underprivilege is not always a disadvantage and sometimes it does help in life provided mindset is right. I wanted to cite evidence that if mindset is right, with focus on education, everyone can overcome their perilous condition. Of course, there are academic papers of how privileged white students do even better in social mobility and that is true as well. But that is not the final or only truth. History has enough examples, even when people, or a group who have been underprivileged or racially discriminated did better than average because they inculcated a different mindset for excellence.

I will bring couple of examples from history to prove my points.

(1)    The American capitalists:  If we have to pull three top American capitalists from the history- in terms of wealth and consequence whom three  will you select? I believe most of us will select Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller and Henry Ford.  Was any of them born with any privilege? Father of Andrew Carnegie was bankrupt in Scotland and by the age of 14, he had to drop out from school and become the main wage earner for his family. For Rockefeller, it was even far worse. His father left his mom at the age of 12 and he was selling candies on the street as his mother had no particular skill to earn living. Ford was financially better than other two but he left his family farm to start his career as ordinary machinist earning few dollars a day. However, when I read their biopic, I found one common thread. All of them received tremendous high moral values from their family to uphold the integrity of honesty and hardwork. And they carried on. In fact, same was also true for Edison. Despite his family had fallen on hardship and he was working as a newspaper hawker, he received tremendous values from his mom.  They all rose very tall from the ashes of hellacious poverty. The gritty mindset and moral education, they received from their families helped them to overcome all the obstacles.

(2)     The persecuted Jews of Europe :  This is a long history. To cut it short, Jews have suffered far worse discrimination and racism than blacks in America if last one hundred years are to be compared. They were deprived of many civil rights in every country of Europe and faced segregation.  They have endured the greatest genocide on the earth. And yet they have produced the best and the brightest talents of 19^th and 20^th century. When I was reading about Sigmund Freud, father of modern psychoanalysis, his Jews family was living in the Jews Ghetto of village town Moravian where Jews were permitted to live.  Jews did face segregation in the same way black people had faced in America before 1970.  Yet they have thrived in business, science, philosophy and in every field of human endeavor. Why? Because they realized no country and no race in Europe will make them equal. So all Jews parents used to tell their children in those days that they have to do much better than average if they want to survive as Jews in a highly discriminatory society. That’s the secret of success behind Einstein, Mozart, Marx, Freud, Kafka and so many phenomenal personalities despite Jews constituted a tiny minority in Europe.

(3)    Hindu and Muslim refugees after partition of India :  If we talk in terms of human tragedy of 20^th century, it’s difficult to determine whether Jews concentration camp of Europe  or partition of India have seen the worst of mankind. Partition of India where the country of British India was divided between Hindus and Muslims (1947) saw a migration of 26 million people and butchery of 2 million.  To cut it short, around 14 million Hindus were forced to migrate from Pakistan and  East Pakistan ( what is now known as Bangladesh). Muslims from India also migrated to Pakistan and Bangladesh. Stories of horrific murder and rape would shame the entire history of mankind. When these Hindu refugees came to Delhi, Punjab and Kolkata, they have nothing- no money, no cloths, no food. Most of them have lost couple of family members in riots. Govt of India did almost nothing to alleviate their situation.  Yet within 50 years, their financial and economic condition was better than average Indians and neighbors they were living with. How? It’s because they never gave up in their endless endeavor for moving forward with education.  Both of my parents were refugee from East Pakistan ( Bangladesh).  Their families were well off before partition. In a matter of few days of history, as national leaders were coerced to agree on partition of India,  they were thrown into streets of India with millions of other refugees without food and penny. My dad who was in fifth grade in East Pakistan,  had to discontinue his education. He was forced to earn his living as a daily labor in a farm. After three years, he could go back to school again because my elder uncle decided that out of three brothers, he will continue to work and pay for the tuition of his brothers so that at least other two can go to school. Eventually my father earned his Masters  and become a high school teacher. In every refugee family, you will find, a brother or sister sacrificed so that other siblings can be educated. There was no Government help, no political sympathy ( if anything there was political antipathy because local residents thought the refugees are strain on their already limited resource).  My mother had to give tuition from the age of nine so that she can pay for her education and food.  Even if she was married early, she continued with her education against all kinds of odds and went to earn her Bachelors Hons in Physics.  She was the only woman in her science class.  She has been discouraged by her family, society and professors because during that time, India was highly conservative society for women. She told me not be angry with people who would try to discriminate or put you down when you break a barrier. Instead, her advice was to face the ignorance with knowledge and wisdom.  Anger and emotion are only ephemeral. From everyone of these refugees, I learned and experienced, if human beings have unending desire for success and upward mobility, nothing can stop them.  Now and then, I meet an Industrialist in Delhi whose family also migrated from Pakistan. It’s a same story- his family had tough mindset for success. He recalled how he used to get only one square meal a day when he was a student. Now he is running several industries with more than $300M annual turnover. It’s all because of family value and education.

(4)     Google vs Microsoft :  You may wonder why I am bringing their recent history into this discussion.  Funny but please carefully read this. Satya Nadella and Sunder Pichai took over these iconic software companies almost within a year ( Satya took over in 2014 and Pichai in 2015).  Microsoft was a sinking organization after decade of misdirection and most importantly mistaken mindset of former CEO,  Steve Ballmer.  During Steve era, Microsoft was imbibed in the belief and mindset that Window operating system is the best and they have to push it harder.  While it was not and company was losing in every new sphere of mobile and cloud business.  Satya had to work hard to change the “closed mindset” culture of Microsoft created by Steve Balmer. He created a new slogan of “learn it all” vs “know it all” mindset.  What it would mean, every Microsoft employee has to face a new problem with open mindset that they will learn about it “fresh” instead of coming heavily with a prejudiced idea that they already know the issue.  In a number of interviews, he has attributed that change in culture in Microsoft was his toughest assignment.  With this cultural transformation,  Microsoft again regained  the  position of most valuable company in the world. This is in sharp contrast to what happened in Google. Google had one of the best work culture in 2014.  But over the time they wanted to force issues of equity, gender and racial diversity more than productivity.  In silicon valley, now many of the top talents do not want to work for Google anymore because of its toxic political culture  as it surfaced with the incident of James Damore.  Company that was known for outstanding innovative product quality has lost its stream in cloud business. They have failed in every new business they tried in their last five years including Mobile phone pixel which doesn’t have even one percent market penetration in USA.  If course, their failure has never been that evident or talked after because their search business makes too much of money.  But comparative studies  of Google vs Microsoft will show power of Mindset vs Politics.

Now it will be fun to discuss, what privilege we used to have in India when we grew up in 80s. I lived in a village town, where  elementary  schools even didn’t have rooms.  If it rains, there was a shade where all kids will be crowding -that’s all.  Right now, it’s much better and at least students have good classrooms. But in our time, only high schools used to have room and a single class might had more than 100 students. Still, I will never claim neither me or my friends were underprivileged as all of them have done very well in their life irrespective of wealth or education of their parent.  I happened to be the most privileged among them because I attended one of the best engineering and high school in India. Both of my parents were educator. In USA, I had the privilege of building relationship with top engineers and business owners.  But surprisingly many of my childhood friends, who didn’t have that privilege went on to raise big business and employ more people than I do in my business.  That’s because they work much harder than me and had gritty attitude towards life. I learned my humble lesson from them that more than privilege, it’s the mindset that works best for individual excellence.  Later when I saw the movie, The Founder, based on biopic of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald, I could exactly relate my own experience.

Honest hardwork always makes a big difference. Now you may argue, in India it is possible because there is no racism. Very wrong. India has worst form of racism in the form of caste system ingrained in the religion. Again,  I repeat what black families faced in last one hundred years in USA is nothing compared to what low caste Indians have faced for more than thousands of years.  MLK followed Gandhi because Gandhi also fiercely fought against systematic racism in India against lower caste. You are frustrated and upset by gruesome murder of George Floyd ? Killing of lower caste people by higher caste Indians are way more frequent in India and those murders are no less gruesome.

Many of my black brothers and sisters wanted to convince me that I am unaware of black history of America. Wrong.  I do read history of anything and everything out of curiosity and I did read history of slavery since 1600.  I am perfectly aware of all the miseries black people of American have suffered. But my point is- with due respect it is no way more or less than  the plight of the Jews in Europe or lower caste in India. Fact is, suffering should not speak end of the world. Victory of human beings overcoming their suffering is the true history of mankind.

 I have been compelled to write this piece looking at our children. I have never felt racism, or anything can be hindrance for my progress. None of my Indian friends who are also first-generation immigrant hardly think of racism as any issue impeding their success. But when I talk to second generation Indian American, including my son, it becomes apparent they do not think like us. They feel discrimination and racism.  Which is surprising because they are privileged. They do not have thick Indian accent that we have. They are more into American mainstream culture in terms of music, sports and counterculture.  Then there is only one explanation. In the schools, they are learning about racism, discrimination and started believing this country may not serve them the fair share of hope. And it’s also not politics. I admit some of the social media comments against spelling-bee winners who are always Indians have been obnoxious. But should they care or move on for a better future?