"Create your Reality"

I thought this toxic meme had finally faded out, but it popped up again on my Facebook today.  This bullshit "gets my red up" every time. Of course, it comes to us courtesy of the "new age" movement.  Ever notice how the so-called new age, alternative-spirituality community is almost exclusively white and wealthy?  Of course it is.  Who else would gravitate to a system that justifies and validates class and racial privilege while scapegoating victims of systemic oppression?

Does the rape victim create her rape? Does the kid born in a third world garbage dump create his poverty? Does the slave create her bondage? Obviously not. Victims of injustice do not create the injustice that victimizes them. The opposite is also true: the great majority of those who live in privilege did not create their privilege. That's a terrifying thought for those of us who are lucky enough to live in our first world bubble. We want to believe that we earned our privilege, that we created and deserve it, but 99% of the time, our privilege is wholly attributable to dumb luck and genetics.  The greatest predictor of wealth is not our intelligence, talent or perseverance, it is our parents' wealth.  There is even a term for this:  the "birth lottery."

Shit happens. Sometimes we create it, sometimes it is beyond our control. The one thing we can control is how we react to that shit, how we choose to let shit change and shape us. 

Sorry for the harangue, but it's one of my pet peeves. I once got into a war of words on this subject with a woman who was doing "communication training" at OSF. I get hot under the collar when some highly paid, Ivy League-educated consultant tells underpaid, working class employees that their oppression is their own fault because they "create their own reality."