Just recently I attended a Class Action workshop. This was my first workshop ever dealing on the issues of classism. Heading into it, I didn’t know what to expect. I had an open mind and was willing to work with others I hadn’t met. It was definitely a big step to go outside my comfort zone and really engage. I learned a very valuable lesson that we all overlook at times, and that is to take the stereotypes out of class before you can get a deeper understanding of it.
Exploring Classism
Sunday, April 22nd, 2012Guilt and Defensiveness vs Owning Our Privilege(s)
Friday, January 6th, 2012What follows is a very personal essay about my own learning about class, race and other “isms.” I use my own method of self-critique and observation and lived experience. Most of what I’ve learned is, of course, unfortunately, hindsight.
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.
Who should we REALLY be wary of?
Sunday, December 11th, 2011The subject line said: “Tis the Season for Criminals”; then the body of the email, written in large threatening capital letters, said, “REMEMBER, DESPERATE PEOPLE DO DESPERATE THINGS, SO BE VERY WARY WHEN YOU ARE OUT IN PUBLIC……” What follows is my response, because I had this incredible experience this morning.
Give anonymously or openly? One woman’s family story
Sunday, November 27th, 2011I’m in the field of philanthropy. I not only advise on fundraising with organizations but I also advise donors on how best they can give away their money. It’s a great marriage of reciprocity and I’m honored to do this work. I love seeing the transformative effect on people who share their money with the world, and I love the effect of generosity on the people, issue, or cause receiving it.
Thoughts about Thanksgiving (& -isms we may encounter at the table!)
Thursday, November 24th, 2011After listening to a NPR segment about Thanksgiving and some anxiety that this very social holiday brings up for folks, I realized that this year may be challenging in new ways. Not only has the economy been stagnant, unemployment is rising, and political movements are taking place nationwide and internationally that put class inequality at the heart of the discussion. What do we talk about when we see each other?
Owning Class Folks – Let’s Explore Some Tough Questions
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011How can we owning class folks who care about enormous horrors going on today initiate a systemic difference by speaking up about the harm that continues in a drastically different manner? For some of us, the origins of today’s enormous inequities are from the source of our wealth. Will you join me in this conversation? Let’s get honest and face some questions and fears about our essential roles in the transformation this celebrating-its-birthday country needs. It’s time to think and act outside the box.
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.
Race Forward: Children, Wealth, and the Future of our Economy
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011For many children today, the door to economic opportunity is being shut, and they may never realize the “American Dream.” Of these kids, it is children of color that are most at risk since they are more likely to live in the most economically vulnerable households from birth to adulthood.
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.”
Middle Class Traitors: Who Are They?
Thursday, May 5th, 2011I recently came up with a phrase that other than one fleeting reference was not to be found in Google. It seemed to me to really describe a recent phenomenon that I found quite disturbing: the demographics of the electorate who voted for right wing conservatives in the November 2010 elections both on the federal level as well as in many states across the country. The phrase I coined was “Middle Class Traitors.”
Condescending Baby-Feeding Advice
Thursday, February 17th, 2011Who 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.
Rapid response to “low-class Italian white trash”
Sunday, February 6th, 2011What a coincidence! Just a few days after posting the two pieces below about responding to classist comments, I heard a doozy – and I think I responded quicker and better because I’d so recently read Nicole’s and Susan’s advice. But I’m still not sure whether it made any difference.
Don’t be a classist anti-racist!
Monday, January 17th, 2011While naming “white privilege” is an important part of exposing and dismantling structural racism, I can see how the term “privilege” is hard to swallow for white folks on the downside of our economic system. Being marginalized in one power system doesn’t mean you can’t be privileged in another. But this particular form of pushback should not be so easily dismissed as generic white resistance to confronting white privilege. Rather, the resistance I experience from poor and working class white people feels like an important opportunity to check my own class privilege and cross-class competence, as well as to develop either different language or perhaps different techniques to help the language resonate more clearly. Force feeding doesn’t work with anyone, and it gets in the way of building cross-race solidarity.
It’s Not Butter: The Other Tax Spread
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010Congress and the White House are wrangling over the future of the Bush tax cuts, which expire this year. Much has been written about how the 2001 and 2003 cuts widened the gap between the very wealthiest 2% of Americans and the middle and working classes. But far too little notice has been paid to the other spread caused by the tax cuts: the growth of the economic divide between white Americans and people of color in the 2000′s.
Special Delivery: Mexican-in-a-Box
Thursday, January 27th, 2011I found myself an unprepared witness to a classist/racist “joke” where and when I least expected it. Should I have intervened? Is there a way to turn such ugliness into a “teachable moment”?
Tags: classism, classist comments, Conflict-avoidance, racism, service workers
Posted in Class in Higher Education, Classism in Everyday Life, Race and Class | 6 Comments »