Much is said and written about class structure and the rightness of giving the less fortunate their chance at the good life and giving people the opportunity to make a choice. And all of that is absolutely true. But what happens when someone who was born to a single mother, goes to a school whose student body is from the same unrealized class background you are a part of, whose mother works more than one job to make a life for you and yet you don’t feel any less loved? And what happens when your mother gets you admitted as a scholarship student in a school for the elites? A school inhabited with students whose lives are golden, who live by entirely different rules? You see your chance and you take it but a chance doesn’t mean your new life will be easy. The chance opens your eyes but you now have decisions to make.
Charlie Boykin was just such a person. He had friends, a stable enough life, could tell right from wrong, was a good student and then everything changed when he was offered a scholarship to a Nashville elite school. He is befriended by Archer Creigh and thrust into Archer’s world. Because Archer accepts Charlie everyone else does, too, and he becomes the trusted friend and decisions become easier because, well, he’s one of “them” now, right?
But the golden life has a cost and while Charlie is taking advantage of the opportunities he is given, he also knows where he came from. It isn’t easy fitting in to a world that really isn’t yours and many who are given the chance don’t make it because the cost is too high, the values too different, the acceptance rate too low and if you aren’t willing to do the work with blinders on, well, Charlie had decisions to make at every turn.
This is a very well written look at this question of the haves vs. the have nots. The question is put before us in the news every single day.
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