The Myth of JD Vance's "Unique" Yale Experience in Hillbilly Elegy
This is a portrait of Elihu Yale and his intimates being served by an enslaved boy wearing a padlocked collar. I’m showing it to you because I want to talk about Yale Law School, and specifically its graduate JD Vance. A funny thing about Vance's Hillbilly Elegy book: the man believes he had a unique experience, because he felt like an outsider when attending an Ivy League university. He didn't come from a background of wealth and prep schools and world travel. He was at a loss as to how to handle his cutlery when taken out to a fancy restaurant by a potential employer, because the place settings included a salad fork and dinner fork, a soup spoon and teaspoon, a steak knife and a butter knife. And when he went back to his hometown, he found he did not want to brag to strangers about going to Yale. If they were the kind of people who would disrespect him unless he shared that credential, then they weren't people he wanted to bootlick, and if they were ordinary locals...