Very disturbing elitist/racist sub-text
The film seems to imply that only the old-money blue-blood WASP has what it takes to survive the harsh elements, and that the black man and the self-made working-class guy do not.
I'm very surprised to see this message from one of America's pre-eminent Jewish play-writers but perhaps it is indicative of David Mamet's sad transition from a politically-moderate writer to a reactionary conservative. It is also more representative of a more controversial proposition, that Jews who were once demonised and treated along with other ethnic minorities as social outcasts and thus gravitated towards progressive left-wing causes like the civil rights movement, feminism and socialism in general, are now more likely to be, alongside the old-money WASPs, part of the 1% conservative elite, preaching Islamophobia, neo-liberalism and right-wing Zionism (and to be clear, I am a Zionist, who staunchly believes in the importance of the state of Israel, I'm just not a right-wing pro-Netanyahu one). Mamet's sympathy for the old-money WASPs over the less powerful and privileged characters is sadly representative of that betrayal of the progressive Jewish movements that preceded his generation.