Cross-Class Alliances: Silicon Valley
On Labor Day, I thought, what better way to celebrate than to show up for cross-class picketing at a local McDonald’s? The first thing I... Read More
Is Elvis-Hating Classist?
So much depends on whether you are looking up at Elvis from the working poor or working-class or down at him from the middle- and... Read More
Social Class and a Writing Conference
Though not all writing conferences are expensive, many are. A number try, essentially, to take money from those who can afford it to subsidize those... Read More
Affordable vs. Attainable Housing
When you think affordable housing, you think $600,000 for a condo, right? With a $12,000 down payment, that would be $3,557 per month for 30 years. Maybe that’s... Read More
10 Facts About Housing Affordability
5 Things to Make You Furious About Housing 1. Realtors and their allies in government keep track of the growing size of single-family homes. But... Read More
Forgoing College to Forgo Debt
In education, we are headed toward a perfect storm. Increasingly large numbers of capable students are so afraid of incurring debt that they are deciding... Read More
Rich People’s Church, Poor People’s Church
I have much to say on the topic of religion and class, but let me begin with a disclaimer. I know people who experienced the... Read More
Is That What They Would Say?: Home Knowledge vs. School Knowledge
Two incidents from my school years illustrate the clash between home experience and school assumptions. In second grade, I was drawing in my Alice and... Read More
Privatizing Driver’s Ed: a Lesson in Disenfranchisement
When I went to high school in Wisconsin, Driver’s Ed was a required course, first in the classroom where we learned in-depth about rules and... Read More
Phony rags to riches stories
I just finished watching the movie Julie and Julia, and it irritated me in the same way that many books and movies have irritated me... Read More
Google, Hookers, and Heroin
I’ve been compelled, and I feel kind of sick about it, to read about the Google executive who died when a $1,000-a-time call girl—who found... Read More
Denial of class in Downton Abbey’s dream world
Ah, Downton Abbey. Who wouldn’t want to live there? Crises arise, but they are almost always resolved with human kindness. It’s a comforting world; maybe... Read More
Your Public Freeway: First Class or Coach?
I have to pinch myself lately because it seems the U.S. has been infiltrated by post-Soviet Russian gangsters bent on turning every public good into... Read More
“Bring Enough for Everyone”: What We Lose When We Lose Public Education
Did your schoolteachers say, “Don’t bring [candy, toys, coveted items] to school unless you bring enough for everyone”? Mine did. Maybe they recognized how incapable... Read More
Now Showing in Seattle: A Multicultural Working Class Movement!
Any American interested in the working class should know about Kshama Sawant, an open Socialist (and immigrant), who was recently elected to the Seattle City... Read More
Money is No Object: Over-representing the Upper Middle Class on TV?
As a child, I recall watching The Brady Bunch. Wow, they were rich. Although they had a large family, it never seemed to impact their... Read More
Destroying Labor Law in the “Sharing Economy”
Many a magazine, including the usually liberal New Yorker, has gone ga-ga about Taskrabbit, AirBnB, Elance, and other new companies that in one fell swoop... Read More
The Price of Passing
Recently, a community college newspaper offered a fashion profile of several students. I was amazed and alarmed to learn that, if they were telling the... Read More
Do We Still Need Race-based Affirmative Action?
Do we, as some claim, live in a post-racial society that no longer requires any special measures to aid equality of opportunity? After all, we... Read More
Intracommunity Rejection: Racist, Classist, Tragic
The Facebook post showed a 1950’s cartoon businessman: blonde hair, suit and tie, saying, “No, you can’t ‘axe’ me a question. I don’t speak Walmart.” ... Read More
Need vs. Greed: Greed Wins
I’ve been interviewing people and carrying out research lately on housing affordability in San Jose, and what I’ve found has been both heartbreaking and enraging.... Read More
The Myth of the Ultra-Rich Job Creator
You would think from watching “Downton Abbey” that the only reason enormous estates existed was to provide jobs. Every time a change comes up, the... Read More
Santa Claus, Imagination, and Class
I must have been around seven, living in far northern Wisconsin—not classy Minoqua and other Chicago playgrounds, but the dregs of the timber industry, the... Read More
A Forty Hour Week From the Other Side
As this election nears, I find myself passionate about a local issue: San Jose, following the stronger leads of San Francisco, Seattle, and Albuquerque, is... Read More
Cross-class College Interactions
College, they tell us, is the great middle class-making machine. When I think back on my own cross-class interactions at college, I mostly feel gratitude... Read More
Who Counts as Poor (and who gets to talk about it)
I had a bizarre and frustrating experience recently talking to an agent at a writing conference. My main interest was to pitch a novel, but... Read More
Shame, School Lunch, and Passing
When I was in sixth grade, my family was eligible for free school lunches. I attended a small country school, without much class diversity, mostly... Read More
“Is This for a Rental?”
Ever gone to a hardware store to buy a toilet, sink, or door and have the salesperson ask, “Is this for yourself, or for a... Read More
Is Classism a Hate Crime?
Classism is the new acceptable discrimination. It’s a phenomenon I met while growing up poor and continually saw in the physical facts of life—food, clothing,... Read More