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What books or films have expanded your understanding of class?
I love the documentary People Like Us. It simultaneously reinforces and challenges stereotypes I hold about class, so it forced me to really think twice about those stereotypes.
My two favorite modern day fiction writers dealing with issues of class are Dorothy Allison (Bastard Out of Carolina and Trash) and Julia Alvarez (How
the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent). In the genre of film, Far From Heaven starring Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid takes a powerful look at class, race, sexism and homophobia in suburban Connecticut. And, I recently just saw Imitation of Life-- a 1959 Lana Turner film about a struggling young actress with a six-year-old daughter who sets up housekeeping with a homeless black widow and her light-skinned eight-year-old daughter who rejects her mother by trying to pass for white.
Anna Quinlan's fiction brings me out of my own middle-class life. In "Rise and Shine" her storyline between two sisters living in New York reveals both the ultra wealthy in their penthouse apartments and limos and the women of a shelter in the Bronx. The differences are as striking in fiction as the are in real life.
Jonathan Kozol's ""Savage Inequalities"" did it for me. In this book he compares and contrasts the allocation of funds to Public schools in different neighborhoods. I was raised and born in Harlem New York and read this book as an adult. After reading it I remember feeling cheated and robbed of a "good" education. I was blown away with the difference of money allocated per pupil between the poorest districts and the richest districts. If I recall correctly, the richest districts were given about fourteen times more funding than the poorest districts; not double, not triple, but fourteen times more. What a wake up call that was!
Read earlier survey responses:
July 2007:How does your current class position effect what kind of vacations you take?
June 2007: How does your class background affect how you use the commons (public spaces, commodities and rights)?
May 2007:How do you see class differences in the way that holidays are celebrated?
April 2007: How does your class affect what you eat?
March 2007:Has class status affected your family's mental health and or access to services? How?
February 2007: How do you feel your class situation has impacted your experience in or with sports?
December 2006: What responsibility do different economic classes bear for reducing their contributions to global warming pollution? Should wealthy people assume more of the cost of fixing the problem?
November 2006: For those who have served (or who are currently serving) in the military: Have you encountered classist attitudes about your choice to serve? For everyone: Do you see a class divide in terms of who serves in the military? What does this mean for the military and the country?
October 2006: How is television perpetuating stereotypes or classist portrayals? What are some examples of characters, storylines, or news stories that you have found particularly troubling?
September 2006: Higher Education can be a class marker, the access channel to "upward" mobility,or class liberator. What are the connections with class and higher education for you?
August 2006: How does class affect how you spend your non-working hours and impact your vacation options?
June 2006: What are the ways that you see class or classism play out in your spiritual community or congregation of faith?
May 2006: When did you first become aware of your class or class differences? How old were you?
February 2006: How do class differences impact your relationships?
January 2006: What privileges should we all have?
Are there any privileges none of us should have?
December 2005 Survey Question:
How do class issues come up for you during the end-of-year "consumer" holidays?
November 2005 Survey Question: Please tell us about your experiences of class, class differences, and classism in your education/school.
October 2005: Tell us about a time you've either been an ally to someone or had someone be an ally to you around issues of class.
September 2005: What are the ways you see the race and class divisions exposed by Katrina?
August 2005: What class did you grow up in? What was good or bad about your class experience growing up?
July 2005: What are your strongest memories connecting race and class?
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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