Capitalists? :: Free Essays Online

Capitalists? Capitalism is the American way to create massive amounts of wealth through exploitation of helpless or naive people. When capitalism controls one’s future it becomes a noose that will control how one grows up and lives in the future. An example of this type of controlling capitalism is the new Marriott Hospitality Public Charter High School in Washington D.C. that trains mostly black*, inner city, high school students to become desk clerks, sales directors, and caterers (Hedgpeth). Washington Post Staff Writer Dana Hedgpeth in her article â€Å"If You Can’t Hire ‘Em, Train ‘Em† describes this process and the way the Marriott Company is going about creating their ‘future’. While Hedgpeth praises Marriott for its attention to underprivileged high school students, the question remains whether the attention given to these students in this school is the type of attention that will allow them â€Å"to be all they can be†? Marriott and other supporters of this school believe that what they are doing is creating a chance for a lost cause. In Washington D.C. there are plenty of poor black parents who would immediately send their child to a Marriott Charter School instead of a D.C. Public School where the classes are huge, the teachers are less inclined to care about the students, and fights or killings sometimes occur. The high school graduation rate of Washington D.C. in 1998 was approximately 57 percent, which is one of the lowest graduation rates in the country (The Manhattan Institute For Policy Research). †It’s better then having no chance at all,† says Rory Holderness, an inner city Baltimore native, who went to public school, saw fights almost everyday, and two of his friends dropped out of high school. Marriott thinks that their new charter school will be helpful to inner city high school kids that might not have a future or enough money to go to college. â€Å"The l abor market is very tight these days†¦ [These] students†¦ will take on jobs in the city’s largest industry †, said William R. Tiefel, who is the chairman of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, and Emily Vetter who is the president of the Hotel Association of Washington, D.C. (Hedgpeth). Although nothing is guaranteed in life, Tiefel and Vetter have basically promised these District students that if they do not go to college from their charter school they will have secured a job in the â€Å"city’s largest industry†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (Hedgpeth).