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My strongest memories are: "where are you from!!!!" and "how come you have an accent?"
I recently spent some time in the "developing" nation of Grenada, which is now once again recovering after having been repeatedly sacked by hurricanes. While I was there I worked for a nonprofit ngo doing environmental conservation. We lived in the community in which we worked and the stark dichotomy of class and race was clearly evident. Besides the members of my group I almost never saw another white person. It was a real shock for me the first time someone yelled "Hey whitey" at me as I walked by. Although I realize it was nothing at all to par with the discrimination some people experience, for me it was a first, and was quite disturbing. The work we did was trying to help conserve sea turtle populations by stopping the poaching of eggs. This in of itself brings up a lot of interesting questions concerning race and class as we were a predominantly all-white group that had come to prevent a black community from harvesting eggs which they used for food and as a source of income. Although the sea turtles and their eggs are protected by international law, our work did not sit well in my conscience, and I believe that the more community integrated alternatives are a better manner of achieving sustainable conservation.
Let’s hope that this is not out of place, but through many years studying the social sciences I came to understand that race is just another class in male dominated, hierarchical state structured cultures. The difference between being poor and being colored is much less than being rich and being colored. Race is just another term describing social class. Band and tribal cultures don't have classes or races. Marx's description of classified societies is very comprehensive for me. I think it is very important today that class consciousness/racism are brought to the forefront of public dialog. I would like to see discussion on entrepreneurial classes and labour classes. Brian
class and race--what an intertwining of experiences this brings to mind--as a woman who acknowledges herself as a combination of many races, cultures, and classes, the strongest reaction to all these classifications is to stand up and refuse to be defined by them. My worth as a person is indefinable by others who cannot know what makes me tick, whom I love, what my strengths and weaknesses are, who look at me from the outside and categorize me without asking who I am. So I define myself as a woman of infinite possibilites who refuses to present herself as pitiful no matter what my state of econiomics may be and embrace myself and others as soulmates on this planet.
I've grown knowing that there was a definite divide because of racism and classism, but I thought I had the perfect weapon against it. I was wrong. Two years ago I went to work for a thirty-year old non-profit organization. The Board was almost all white with one African American and one Asian. I worked tirelessly for the organization, raising money (although I wasn't a fundraiser and it wasn't my job), facilitating successful programming and putting our organization back on the collective map of other organizations and groups within our area as well nationally and internationally. It was, I believed, a collaboration made in heaven. As a African American, my father always taught me that hard work and good ethics made for success. While I believed that in most cases, I was startled to realize that no matter how hard I worked, I made less than my white colleague, that I worked longer hours, but got less credit than my white colleague, and when a meeting took place and my ideas were accepted, a separate meeting would occur afterwards made up of the socially-connected individuals and the parameters of the agreement would change. Classism and Racism work hand-in-hand. When you can't trust the process of input and agreements because of the underlying social connections that take place outside of the work/meeting arenas, you feel vulnerable and paranoid. A phone call can change your life. It creates distrust from those who don't play the game, but because they are white, you can't trust the process even with them. I work hard to take each situation individually, but it gets harder and harder. The unknown: that is what classism and racism create. When the privileged open their consciousness to be inclusive and open, things will change. But, it won't be easy. It means giving up some power. I've made is my responsibility to rise above the inherent rights of the privileged. I continue to participate. I think a lot of people of color do. We also get severely disappointed time and time again, but I have decided that I won't remain silent, but that I also won't hold a chip on my shoulder. I'm going to continue to be a voice of hope and reconciliation in these times that are cemented into our history as well as our culture today. We must change. It is imperative to the well-being of the planet and her inhabitants. Peace.
My strongest memory of this is also my earliest. I was in an advanced academic program within my public high school (mid 1990s) and there were criteria to qualify for the program. After the first three classes were admitted, the NAACP notified the school that we didn't have enough students of color in the program, and far fewer Black and Latino students than Asian students. Friends and teachers were talking about how they'd have to create a different set of standards to make it "easier" for Black and Latino students to get into the program. As a poor white student who sometimes had to do my homework after 10pm because I took care of my brothers and sister while my single mom worked full time, and sometimes by candle light because our electricity got shut off when she couldn't pay the bills, I couldn't understand what adversity Black and Latino students faced that I didn't and why they should have less rigorous criteria. I faced obstacles that were less visible--why was no one was sticking up for me? I asked these questions outloud, but no one seemed to have the answers--not friends, family, or teachers. Or at least no one seemed to want to talk about it. I was 14 years old, and I don't think I really understood what was happening and what affirmative action attempts to do in education until I was in college! Historically racism has pitted poor white people against people of color, but haven't we learned from our history? Aren't adults supposed to be able to talk about how this still plays out in our lives today? I've resolved to never let a young person's questions about race and class and other forms of oppression go unanswered. If I don't have the answers, I'll say, "I'm not sure. Let's try to figure that out!"
Read earlier survey responses:
June 2005: The New York Times and Wall Street Journal each ran their own series on class. What is your response to the recent press on class?
May 2005: The good, the bad, and the ugly of cross-class relating
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