All of my life I have seen the effects of class around me, but never truly understood what “class” really means. Until recently I had not often thought about how I viewed the complicated issue of class in the United States.
Why do we avoid class?
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012Overlooking luck
Monday, January 23rd, 2012Can someone please explain to Newt Gingrich that people not wanting a job typically doesn’t cause poverty; being unable to get a job causes poverty. I would strongly assert that very few people want to be unable to provide for themselves and their families. People who have only experienced privilege often do not recognize the parts of their lives that others are not lucky enough to have.
The most classist comment of 2011
Friday, January 6th, 2012Last January Classism Exposed asked for your votes on which was the most classist comment by a public figure in 2010, offering eight options. Readers weighed in and added their own grisly candidates. But this year, there’s no point in running a poll, since we already know who’s going to win (drumroll, please): Newt Gingrich, for calling child labor laws “truly stupid” and advocating firing union school janitors and replacing them with poor students.
Taxing the Rich Isn’t Enough: Family Dynasties in America
Monday, December 12th, 2011My family has been wealthy for hundreds of years – with a lot of government help along the way.
Have pity on the rich
Monday, November 14th, 2011Rich people must protest the way they are treated here in the US of A. And Marin County is THE place to start, cuz we got a LOT of rich people here. Why, just recently we were proudly cited as one of THE richest counties in the US. Filthily so. It’s clear that the rich have been horribly mistreated. Let us recount the many, many, MANY ways:
A 4th of July Declaration of Dependence
Monday, July 11th, 2011It’s no small irony that on the 4th of July weekend our nation’s largest union surrendered a chunk of its independence. At their annual meeting in Chicago, the National Education Association’s Representative Assembly voted to support the use of student standardized test results in the evaluation of teachers. That vote alters the union’s previous opposition to such a policy and ties the NEA even closer to the Obama administration’s educational agenda.
Query: How to open discussion with a poor-basher?
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011Dear Class Action, What should I do? My neighbor in my conservative rural town emailed this racist/classist piece of junk to me. I need some advice on what to do next.
Economists can’t be rapists? Hotel maids are lunatics?
Thursday, May 19th, 2011In rushing to the defense of accused rapist and head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn, well-known conservative commentator Ben Stein has stooped to blatant classist stereotypes. His headline on the American Spectator website, “Presumed Innocent, Anyone?,” implies that he’s just asking for a fair trial before judgment – a reasonable point. But look at why he thinks Strauss-Kahn is probably innocent:
Responding to an anti-immigrant email
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011An old friend sent me an unbelievable poem, probably not realizing it would offend me. It was titled “Mexican Poem.”
Class, Race & the Attacks on Public Employees
Friday, March 11th, 2011The Wisconsin uprising has become as loud a wake-up call as there has ever been that working America is under attack. Attempts by Governor Scott Walker and the Republican majority to steal away the collective bargaining rights of public sector workers – as a false premise for the state’s budgetary hardships – has triggered a national uproar by labor rights supporters.
Caregiver Unions: Much Needed But Most Vulnerable Now
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011Often overlooked amid the current attacks on long-established public sector unions around the country is the threat to recently organized workers, who are the lowest paid and most badly treated. When “regular” state workers are under attack, it’s not easy to improve the conditions of a contingent workforce of direct care providers at the bottom tier of public employment, such as home health care aides and child care workers.
Who Gets Plowed in New York?
Sunday, February 6th, 2011After the first huge snow storm on December 26, my family was asking two questions: a) where are the damn snowplows in our Brooklyn neighborhood?; and b) why is Manhattan clear? Smells like a class issue here.
What was the most classist comment of 2010?
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011It was a bumper year for callous, elitist politicians and CEOs spouting off in public. Cast your vote for one of these doozies, or add another 2010 classist comment to this list:
