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Lita Kurth

Lita Kurth

About Lita Kurth

Lita Kurth grew up in rural poverty in Northern Wisconsin, but excellent public schools, low tuition, and a modicum of financial aid allowed her to attend college (University of Wisconsin). Starting out as an historian at UC Berkeley, she switched gears, working as a fund raising researcher and grant proposal writer until returning to get a degree in English Composition (San Francisco State) followed by an MFA in creative writing (Pacific Lutheran Rainier Writers Workshop). She has taught at numerous colleges and universities and currently teaches part-time at De Anza College, retaining a passionate interest in the suffering and injustice that still exists in the lives of poor and working class people, as well as other justice issues. She has published essays, reviews, stories, and poems, and is at work on a novel, The Rosa Luxemburg Exotic Dance Collective.

Cross-Class Alliances: Silicon Valley

December 20, 2017 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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 saw was a line of yellow school buses bringing the picketers from the local labor council to the restaurant, partly because many workers rely on a bus, not a car […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Cross-class alliances, Dismantlng Classism, Race and Class Tagged With: activism, classism, community organizing, low-wage jobs, Minimum wage, speaking up, unions

Is Elvis-Hating Classist?

August 15, 2017 by Lita Kurth 1 Comment

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 upper-class. When you look at photos of Elvis fans at his funeral or Graceland, they don’t usually look well-off. Their haircuts, clothes, whole demeanor suggest they came from the same […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Class cultures, Class in the Media, Class prejudice, Internalized classism, Pop Culture Classism Tagged With: class cultures, classism, snobs, stereotypes, working class

Social Class and a Writing Conference

March 2, 2017 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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 who can’t – a worthy policy.  But one still tends to meet more wealthy people than poor at a writing conference. Last summer, I attended one on the East Coast that […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Class in Literature, Class prejudice, Classism, Pop Culture Classism Tagged With: poverty, privilege, snobs, working class

Affordable vs. Attainable Housing

January 5, 2017 by Lita Kurth 3 Comments

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 why a new term has arisen in the real estate market, attainable housing. Under the new rules, old safety precautions are ignored. Once, homebuyers were advised to spend no more than […]

Filed Under: Affordable Housing, Building Economic Alternatives, Money Tagged With: debt, downward mobility, middle class, money, working class

10 Facts About Housing Affordability

August 3, 2016 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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 bigger is only better if you’re well-off. The federal government doesn’t track the size of apartments, but numerous articles predict smaller units. A 500 sq ft condo, anyone? 2. Want […]

Filed Under: Affordable Housing, Dismantlng Classism Tagged With: affordable housing, housing housing, housing laws, working class

Forgoing College to Forgo Debt

June 7, 2016 by Lita Kurth 1 Comment

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 not to go to college. I’m not talking about marginal students but successful students. These are not the students that lawmakers are likely to hear about. They and their families are too […]

Filed Under: Building Economic Alternatives, Class in Higher Education, Classism in the Economy, Money, Poverty Tagged With: academia, debt, education, low-wage jobs, Minimum wage, money

Rich People’s Church, Poor People’s Church

September 29, 2015 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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 same churches I did and did not come away angry, feeling they were warped by them. So I recognize that more than one experience is possible. Like many poor and […]

Filed Under: Religion and Class, Spirituality and Ending Classism Tagged With: church and class, religion, religious teachings

Is That What They Would Say?: Home Knowledge vs. School Knowledge

February 9, 2015 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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 Jerry book, a lovely book about the foreign country of the middle class where kids got surprise playhouses for their birthdays— built, painted, and transported by Dad and Grandpa who’d […]

Filed Under: Class cultures, Classism in K-12 Education Tagged With: class cultures, kids, public school, working class

Privatizing Driver’s Ed: a Lesson in Disenfranchisement

January 8, 2015 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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 safety, and then behind-the-wheel in a room of simulators which offered the physical experience of turning a key, and locating the brake, gas pedal, blinkers, and gear shift. Finally, we […]

Filed Under: Classism in K-12 Education, Classism in social services Tagged With: budget cuts, classism, public school

Phony rags to riches stories

October 9, 2014 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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 lately: they purport to be the story of extremely humble origins turned into ravishing success through pluck and persistence. But they aren’t. I didn’t mind, in fact I preferred the […]

Filed Under: Class Themes in Film and Fiction Tagged With: pretense, privilege

Google, Hookers, and Heroin

July 18, 2014 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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 serial killers exciting and sexy— shot him up with too much heroin, on his yacht. The picture of decadence. Nine months earlier, his obit had pictured him as a father […]

Filed Under: Money, Owning class Tagged With: affluenza, super-rich

Denial of class in Downton Abbey’s dream world

May 21, 2014 by Lita Kurth 2 Comments

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 that’s why, despite its blithe ignorance or studied denial of most facts about working-class life, I still watch it. We all need some wish fulfillment, and the wish fulfilled by […]

Filed Under: Pop Culture Classism Tagged With: classism, snobs

Your Public Freeway: First Class or Coach?

January 30, 2014 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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 a private jackpot. I could talk about public schools, libraries, parks, a litany of places and services that once were available to everyone, but are cut in half now with […]

Filed Under: Classism in Politics Tagged With: privatization, the commons

“Bring Enough for Everyone”: What We Lose When We Lose Public Education

January 21, 2014 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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 children are of understanding the fundamental injustice of wealth inequality, of some people having immensely desirable things that for some reason cannot be attained by others. Those who endured segregation […]

Filed Under: Classism in K-12 Education Tagged With: education, kids, public school

Now Showing in Seattle: A Multicultural Working Class Movement!

November 26, 2013 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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 Council. Recently, I exchanged emails with her assistant, Anh Tran. Rather than repeat widely-known facts, I’ll include some of our email Q & A, which I was grateful to receive […]

Filed Under: Electoral politics, Politics and Class Tagged With: cities, corporate power, immigrants, Minimum wage, socialists, tax cuts

Money is No Object: Over-representing the Upper Middle Class on TV?

September 30, 2013 by Lita Kurth 1 Comment

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 finances. They had money for bikes, vacations, really nice clothes, nice cars, a gleaming kitchen commanded by a servant, a huge house in an obviously nice neighborhood. Didn’t they also […]

Filed Under: Class in the Media, Money, Pop Culture Classism Tagged With: consumerism, upper-middle-class

Destroying Labor Law in the “Sharing Economy”

September 3, 2013 by Lita Kurth 6 Comments

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 make a mockery of fair labor practices, regulated consumer products, minimum wage, and taxes. In a rather lengthy article in which a New Yorker writer gushed about her Taskrabbit experiences, […]

Filed Under: Building Economic Alternatives, Class in The News, Classism in the Economy, Labor movement, Poverty

The Price of Passing

July 10, 2013 by Lita Kurth 9 Comments

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 truth, they were spending $200-plus on a pair of shoes and the same for a handbag. It’s true that the recent economic downturn has sent middle and upper middle class […]

Filed Under: Class cultures, Consumer culture Tagged With: class cultures, consumerism, working class

Do We Still Need Race-based Affirmative Action?

June 25, 2013 by Lita Kurth 1 Comment

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 have our first black president. What further proof of racial opportunity could anyone want? Well, a lot. Our racial history casts a long shadow particularly in black-white relations, (though other […]

Filed Under: Race and Class Tagged With: affirmative action, race and class, racism

Intracommunity Rejection: Racist, Classist, Tragic

June 2, 2013 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

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.”  A snotty enough putdown if it came from racial and class privilege. But it wasn’t posted by an upper-class or even a middle-class person, but a person who has struggled […]

Filed Under: Class in the Media, Classism, Race and Class Tagged With: classism, internalized classism, status

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