by Nicole Braun “How in the world can you have no savings? At one time in my life I made less than $20k a year and was still able to save 3 months of living expenses. True…the 4th month would’ve brought challenges but I was still able to save. People (especially the uneducated) live WAYYYY […]
Class in the Media
Thoughts on Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Kristoff and WuDunn
An essay adapted from Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, the new book by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, appeared in the paper’s Sunday Review section on January 9th. Focusing on “deaths of despair” occurring in the Oregon county where Kristof has roots, the piece tries to square common tropes about how […]
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 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 […]
Text, Lies and Videotape
It might be 2017, but it sure feels like 1984 to me. When terms like post-truth and fake news are used to explain what we used to call lies, we must be in Orwellian times. Just as in George Orwell’s novel 1984, political-speak is becoming doublespeak, language used to deceive usually through concealment or misrepresentation of truth.[i] […]
Class Inequality in Children’s Movies
A new study, Benign Inequality: Frames of Poverty and Social Class Inequality in Children’s Movies, from Duke University sociologist Jesse Streib reveals that almost universally G-rated movies legitimate poverty and social class inequality in a new way – by presenting them as benign. Limited Learning about Other Classes What are some of the first ideas about social […]
“Undercover Boss”: More TV Class Unrealities
Undercover Boss is a prime time reality show on CBS. The concept is that the CEO of a company is disguised and then goes “undercover” for a week in his/her company doing the low wage work on the front lines to see how things really are. Typically, bosses are white men, although there have been […]
Modern Family: A Poor Perspective
Each year, popular television appears to break new cultural barriers. Perhaps its most vital engine is the critically acclaimed, Modern Family, celebrated for its sophisticated portrayal of non-traditional households. But what if I told you Modern Family is no different from most shows in that it fails to address the poor and working class? In […]
Debt-Shaming in Contemporary Capitalism
I know that Dave Ramsey’s advice has done a lot of good things for a lot of people. There are thousands of people who are currently living debt-free as a result of Ramsey’s approach to personal finance—that’s great, and I’m not trying to take anything away from that. I’m simply saying that, even though Dave […]
9 Classist Halloween Themes to Think Twice About
I’ve been glad to see so much recent coverage exposing the cultural appropriation, racism and sexism inherent in so many Halloween costumes. Students at Ohio University have built a great campaign called “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume,” that highlights real people whose cultures are caricatured around Halloween. And one of my favorite YouTube videos […]
“Revenge” and the Failures of Social Climbing
The hit ABC melodrama “Revenge” features a slinky, mysterious blonde seeking delicious, sweet, sweet revenge. Emily Thorne, who isn’t really Emily, changed her name from Amanda Clarke, the juvenile delinquent and mentally lost daughter of a convicted 9/11 terrorist. The classist stereotypes portrayed in “Revenge” are viciously ripe. Each class has social limitations keeping them […]
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 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 […]
The distance between us … and them!
The other day, I saw a billboard that reached out and slapped me across the face in a very figurative way. An enormous billboard for a domestic violence campaign asserted, “Sally is not one of THEM, she is one of US”. I also heard the radio commercial version of this campaign, encouraging listeners to empathize […]
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.” 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 […]
Arrested Development & the pitfalls of the wealthy
Why do so many TV watchers love Arrested Development (whose latest season was released on Netflix last night)? Is it just another sit-com in the cringe-inducing comedy genre, like The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm? I think there’s another factor: the show accurately illustrates some common maladaptive life paths of people who grow up in […]
Is delaying marriage really the solution?
Ross Douthat’s opinion piece in last week’s New York Times summarized the results of a study arguing for “delayed marriage” as an economic boon to a select population of men and women. But studies that publish the socioeconomic statistical average of a certain population largely ignore the realities of the study’s outliers, like me. Delayed […]
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 lord of the manor bemoans its possible deleterious effect on his tenants and servants. And a remarkably high proportion of those servants seem happy to live their entire lives in […]
Lance Armstrong and the Illusion of Meritocracy
The psychology of the “Anti-Lance Armstrong Brigade” illustrates exactly why socioeconomic inequality is increasing so much in this country. While Lance Armstrong is privileged by his race and class, the nature of the attacks against him illustrate what is wrong with society today. To clarify, I do not condone cheating in sports. However, I do […]
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 proposing to raise the minimum wage from $8 to $10 per hour. I will be precinct walking on Saturday to help make this happen. This raise is more important than […]
The Invisible Majority: Class and the National Election
Working class people are approximately 63% of our population, but they are all but invisible in the upcoming national election. What you don’t see can hurt you. While President Obama and other democrats have numerous policies designed to “lift up” people from the working class, they offer little verbal validation for a working class way […]
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 when she said she wasn’t looking for fiction, I threw out a few nonfiction ideas, among them a book on what people don’t know about poverty. “What qualifies you to […]
