Listen, you can be ignorant of a fact without being a bad person. Ask a moody teenager if he thinks his overbearing parent is really trying to make his life better.
I can talk the talk if you want. Here's a snapshot. I started working when I was 11. Woke up every day at 6am and worked my paper route. Over the next 7 years, I earned $20,000 from that paper route. I saved all of it. Bought my first car, paid for the insurance. Worked 6 different jobs throughout my 4 years of college. First person on my father's side to go to college. When friends would go out and spend money on drinks, etc., I stayed home. A friend told me a night out would cost $10; I told her $10 a week to go out was too much. I studied hard, putting in 10-hour study days on weekends before exams. Worked hard enough to get into medical school. Now I'm a doctor.
I don't overlook the fact that my grandparents came from Italy with no money. That my grandfather worked 12-hour days lifting appliances at the local Sears in order to buy a plot of land. That my grandfather built the house my father grew up in with his own hands. That my other grandfather fought in World War II and shattered the vertebrae in his spine fighting for something better, paving the way for the country that I live in now. That my father has worked 6-7 days a week as a carpenter, a job that brutalizes his body, in order to help me go to the $35K/year Georgetown instead of the local college that gave me a free ride so that I can do something better. That public schools provided 13 years of my education. That while becoming valedictorian over several hundred other kids in high school was due in large part to my own efforts and abilities, I cannot overlook that a significant portion of my high school were poor, had to work after school instead of study, had parents who were high and beat them, lived in situations that encouraged them not to view school as a way out. That the paper route that allowed me to buy my first car and pay for some of college myself was in an affluent area in which I could make $350 in Christmas tips alone. That no one who is not already independently wealthy can afford to go to medical school without government loans to combat the $160,000 cost. That the ease with which I move throughout society is indeed influenced by the fact that I am white, male, straight, Christian, tall, and athletic. That had, by the simple grace of nature, I been born in Malawi, Tanzania, China, Russia, Cuba, Honduras, or even Arkansas, my life would be vastly different than it is today.
If you want, I can keep going.
I can overlook all of those facts, and I'd still be a good person.
But I'd be ignorant of those facts.
