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Bridging the class divide

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Classism in Diversity Work

Damaging Dishonesty

July 26, 2021 by Betsy Leondar-Wright 1 Comment

I guess you could call me a liar.  Back when I had fundraising responsibilities at several small nonprofit organizations, I lied to foundations all the time.  I assumed, often correctly, that funders wanted to believe that their money would directly bring about specific program impacts, so I told them it would. That meant hiding some […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Classism in Diversity Work, Classism in Progressive Movement Groups, Classism in the Economy, Dismantlng Classism, Labor movement, Money, Women and Class Tagged With: low-wage jobs

The Nonprofit Inferiority Complex and Why We Need to Lose It Now

May 4, 2020 by Jonathan Spack Leave a Comment

Here’s a thought exercise you can use to test yourself for the dreaded Nonprofit Inferiority Complex, the internalized idea that nonprofit work is inherently less valuable than other forms of wage labor. How do you feel about the following statements with respect to community-based nonprofits?  1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = maybe; […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Classism, Classism in Diversity Work, Classism in Everyday Life, Classism in Progressive Movement Groups, Classism in social services, Classism in the Economy

Building Bridges, Not Walls

November 24, 2016 by Class Action 1 Comment

Class Action was founded by visionaries who realized that they had grown up at different ends of the class spectrum, but who had arrived in the same place when it came to their passion for advancing social equity and justice. Their commitment to building bridges across differences – instead of building walls – continues to inform […]

Filed Under: Classism in Diversity Work, Classism in Politics, Electoral politics Tagged With: activism, classism, privilege, race and class, racism, social movements, stereotypes

Beyond Trump: Creating Class-Race Alliances

October 20, 2016 by Rahula Janowski 3 Comments

Part of the White, Working Class, and Worried about Trump (#WhiteWorkingClassVsTrump) Campaign*: I grew up in economically depressed, though beautiful, northeastern Vermont. My family was on and off welfare throughout my childhood, and we were always poor. As a child, I was acutely aware of the ways poverty set me apart from other people. As I […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Class prejudice, Classism, Classism in Diversity Work, Classism in Politics, Classism in Progressive Movement Groups, Classism in the Economy, Cross-class alliances, Dismantlng Classism, Electoral politics, Institutional racism, Owning class, Politics and Class, Poverty, Race and Class Tagged With: #WhiteWorkingClassVsTrump, activism, classism, community organizing, owning class, poverty, racism, working class

Beyond Trump: Building a Coalition for Change

October 19, 2016 by Justin Stein Leave a Comment

Part of the White, Working Class, and Worried about Trump (#WhiteWorkingClassVsTrump) Campaign*: I grew up in South St. Louis City in a multi-racial, working-class neighborhood. My dad was a union carpenter, and my mom worked part-time at various jobs while maintaining the home. I’m the oldest of seven children. I remember the constant anxiety in our […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Class cultures, Class prejudice, Classism, Classism in Diversity Work, Classism in Politics, Classism in Progressive Movement Groups, Classism in the Economy, Cross-class alliances, Dealing with privilege, Dismantlng Classism, Electoral politics, Politics and Class, Race and Class Tagged With: #WhiteWorkingClassVsTrump, activism, blaming the victim, classism, community organizing, privilege, race and class, racism, social movements, working class

A classist comment from a feminist publisher

May 7, 2013 by Fisher Lavell 3 Comments

I wrote a paper on the classism I experienced as a poverty-class single mother in the feminist movement, and it was selected for inclusion in a prestigious anthology. When I asked the editor about payment for my chapter, she said that all proceeds from book sales would be contributed to a charity. “None of our […]

Filed Under: Classism in Diversity Work, Classism in Progressive Movement Groups, Gender Class Intersections, Money Tagged With: academia, classism

Building Solidarity and Dealing with Racism

August 21, 2011 by Mike Miller of OTC

In 1971, when I was “lead organizer” for what became the All Peoples’ Coalition (APC), I learned a different approach to dealing with some racism I encountered among working-class whites. APC was a federation of some thirty organizations (churches, block clubs, the neighborhood shopping strip’s merchant association, tenant associations, and other groups in Visitacion Valley, […]

Filed Under: Classism in Diversity Work, Classism in Progressive Movement Groups, Race and Class Tagged With: community organizing, race and class, racism, social movements, working class

Felice’s mission of making classism a diversity issue

January 17, 2011 by Betsy Leondar-Wright

When Felice Yeskel started graduate school in the 1980s, she was outraged that the Social Issues Training Project at the UMass Education School omitted classism from its curriculum. Every aspiring diversity trainer had to practice facilitating two-day workshops on sexism, racism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism and anti-Semitism – but not classism. Felice had been severely oppressed […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Classism in Diversity Work Tagged With: classism, diversity workshops, economic inequality, Felice Yeskel, Walter Benn Michaels

Don’t be a classist anti-racist!

January 17, 2011 by Gita Gulati-Partee 4 Comments

While naming “white privilege” is an important part of exposing and dismantling structural racism, I can see how the term “privilege” is hard to swallow for white folks on the downside of our economic system.  Being marginalized in one power system doesn’t mean you can’t be privileged in another.  But this particular form of pushback […]

Filed Under: Classism in Diversity Work, Race and Class Tagged With: alliance-building, classism, diversity workshops, legacy admissions, race and class, racism, Rationalizing privilege

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