Dear Rich People,

Hello. Did you think we’d leave you out, that we wouldn’t acknowledge you at all? Because that’s what politicians love to do, isn’t it? Pretend you don’t exist, unless they’re doing backroom deals with some of the shadier members of your community. Well, as you can guess, we’re not like them.

Even though our founder didn’t grow up in your community, she visited it many times. Some of her friends at university came from families of millionaires. They had mansions. Some had estates with grounds. Many had horses. And one was the daughter of a billionaire. You know what? She loved them all.

They showed kindness and introduced her to experiences and luxuries that she had no idea existed before. If we’re honest, she had always felt like rich people were completely different from her - maybe even devoid of emotions. She just thought you were different. Until she met you. Until she became friends with you. That’s when she realised, we are very much the same, just in different surroundings. In fact, some of you carry pain that some of us may never understand.

One of those friends we mentioned once became very upset. He was crying, saying how tired he was of disappointing his father, that he would never live up to the great example his father had set, etc. It was something he felt so deeply, and her heart broke for him. Then, he pulled himself together and started apologizing, feeling like he had no right to complain about such things, simply because, well, because he’s rich.

We don’t know who, if anyone, told any of you that you aren’t entitled to your feelings because of your financial status, but let’s clear that up now: Your feelings are valid, and you are very entitled to feel them. All of them.

You aren’t different. Your pain is pain. Your love is love. We will never use your financial status as a reason to ignore, or punish you, or to tell you that you have no right to be upset. The only thing we will ever ask of you is to pay taxes, and we will celebrate those of you who do. We won’t demonise you for being successful, and we will not disregard you on the assumption that your abundance of material wealth means you should just be okay with everything.

We are all in this together. The pseudo divisions of “poor people just want all our money” and “rich people just want us all to die” – is over. We all just want a fair and just society for our children to grow up in. And together, we can build it