CARLTON FLETCHER: Who needs perception? We have our own reality

An ounce of perception, a pound of obscure.

— Rush

One of the popular buzz phrases of the day is that thing about perception being reality. I get it. But I’d personally alter it a bit: Because we’re so lazy and believe everything we see on social media and don’t bother to find out the truth, perception has replaced reality.

One reality, though, that has survived even the social media onslaught is the fact that rich people have a different take on things than the rest of us. And, because we envy them their wealth, we buy into their bull.

Think I’m just allowing my jealousy to do the talking here? Consider this:

— When one of us regular folks has a problem with the bottle — as in Beth Hart’s “He drank so hard that the bottle ached.” — we are labelled “drunks,” “bums,” “sots,” “barflies.” The rich people who stagger out of the local watering hole sloshed to the gills, or just toss down that $300 bottle of scotch at home, are called “social drinkers,” “eccentrics” or, at worst, they “have alcohol issues.”

— When those of us who can’t spend several hundred bucks buying a pedigreed animal for the help to take care of so we pick up a Heinz 57 mutt at the local shelter, we’ve resorted to raising “pound puppies.” When rich people forego the expense of the pure breeds and do, essentially, the same thing that we did, they’re celebrated for “rescuing” the animals.

— When the non-wealthy give a portion of their earnings to a cause they believe in, even though giving means they have to sacrifice in some other area of their lives, they get a curt “thanks” from the receiving agency or cause. When a wealthy person makes a larger donation, but one that in no way compromises his or her bottom line, they’re celebrated as heroes and have buildings named after them.

Wealthy people look at the poor who receive some form of benefits from government or charitable agencies — those who deserve the charity and others who bilk it — and refer to them as “entitled.” Yet because they are accustomed to having everyone in their world cater to their every whim, it is the wealthy who assume they are entitled to act as they please without repercussion. (And, of course, in our screwed-up justice system, in which money is generally the determining factor, they’re usually right.)

Here’s an example of my point, something that continues to bother me to this day. When my buddy Sam Shugart put together the Georgia Throwdown festival at the Exchange Club Fairgrounds back in 2012 (Was it really that long ago?), spending a ton of his money to try and do something big for Albany, he called on a lot of his friends to help him out by talking up the fest and encouraging them to invite others to the three-day event.

A lot of the people he called on for help are the kind of folks who have money, the kind who can afford to buy a few tickets for friends and family to help boost attendance. They had the kind of money and influence to help swing the costly event out of the red and into the black.

But what did a lot of these so-called friends of Shugart’s do? They made it clear to ticket-takers and other hired staff that their friends were not to be charged admission. In fact, I personally watched some of them stand at the gate and wave large groups of their friends into the festival, no ticket needed. When staffers dared to confront the freebies, these people just kept waiving their friends in, saying, “Do you know who I am?”

And, to make matters worse, staff inside the festival grounds said that some of the mostly wealthy freeloaders barged into the VIP section and started demanding that they be served, gratis, of course. Some even collected whole cases of liquor and beer and walked out with them.

So … the perception that the wealthy taking what they want is OK, while the scammers who get hand-outs that they don’t deserve are the lowest of creatures just doesn’t work with me. In fact, those of us in the middle class, working from paycheck to paycheck or from day to day … we just hate them all.