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; […]
Classism in Everyday Life
Are You Asking the Right Questions?
A crisis may not seem like the most convenient moment to take stock, but it can be an opportune one – if we take advantage of the opportunity. U.S. society will be profoundly different post-pandemic. What that new order will look like is up for grabs. Nonprofits are positioned to lead the way to a […]
College Amplifies Advantages & Disadvantages
Here’s some bad news for all of us who strive to get more working-class first-generation students into and through college: college is not an effective leveller. Class inequalities persist even among graduates of ‘good’ colleges. Expanding opportunities for higher education is ineffective if advantaged students graduate with even greater advantages, and if disadvantaged graduates still […]
COVID-19 and Class Inequalities
The national conversation about coronavirus highlights existing conversations about enduring class inequities in the United States. Elite colleges and universities, in line with the CDC’s preventive measures for institutions of higher education, have opted to move instruction online and reduce the numbers of students in their residential buildings. The decision has placed a tremendous burden […]
Noticing Inequalities: An Owning Class Student’s Journey to Class Awareness
By Sophie Hatcher-Peters I grew up in North Carolina as a preacher’s kid. My maternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister in the bible belt, and my mother is an ordained minister and religious studies professor. I was raised in a small, predominantly white Presbyterian church – I remember being a child, getting ready for church […]
Celebrating Survival: The Experience of Being Working Class During the Holidays
By Anastasia Lynge Anyone who knows me well knows that the two most difficult days of the year for me are holidays – specifically Thanksgiving and Christmas. I typically spend these days hiding away in bed, watching bad TV, and sleeping until I can rest assured that I’ve made it through another round of winter […]
Happy Day Before Payday!
While summer 2018 has been a scorcher, the high for February 1st and 2nd made it to 11º in Kari Fisher’s hometown in Minnesota, and single digits reigned during both school days. I got the email from one of my son’s high school teachers while I was teaching and didn’t have a chance to read it […]
Malnourishment: A Case Study on U.S. Food Insecurity
The final report of the 1996 World Food Summit states that food security “exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture agrees – at least in theory. […]
Environmental Classism/Racism and the Sides of Human Rights
On November 29th, Boston City Council unanimously passed a plastic bag ordinance that aims to reduce our reliance on disposable plastic bags. Stores will charge a 5-cent fee for each paper or sturdy plastic bag that they sell customers who come without a reusable bag. Despite eloquent statements by councilors Ayanna Pressley (at-large) and Tito […]
No Retreat in Confusion: Classism in Germany
When I talk about classism in Germany the common reactions range from an unknowing Never heard of it to a disbelieving and doubtful Do you really think classes still exist? to a search-engine-like Did you mean “classicism” to a pejoratively knowing I heard of it, but I think it lacks theory; it is too much about how you feel. […]
Class Background and Life Choices
For years, I defined class in the traditional way: Class is the relative social rank in terms of education, income, wealth, status/position and/or power. But more recently I have added the final phrase “life expectations/choices.” In the last two years I made a conscious decision to be, I hope temporarily, “downwardly mobile.” I have seen how […]
Living “Relatively Visible”
I am born to a Tamil, working class, OBC (Other Backward Caste) couple who immigrated to North India to earn their livelihood in the mid-1980s. My father had begun working with an American cultural agency, a full-time job that he would continue to do for the next three decades. My mother, by default, stayed at […]
The Poverty Catch-22
The High Costs of Destitution Cause a Vicious Cycle Nothing is more infuriating than the ill-informed critique that “the haves” like to lob at “the have-nots.” Here’s a classic: “If you’re so poor and can’t afford to eat, then why are you overweight?” If you have ever been poor, you know the answer to that question […]
The Gig Economy and The Creative
A Perfect Match, Right? People with power tend to view gigs as hobbies, or sometimes lucrative endeavors in the “sharing economy.” Everybody knows Uber drivers, indies and consultants make a killing while controlling their own destinies, right? Yeah, as if. For 26 years I’ve depended on project work, “gigs,” for my employment and income source. I didn’t […]
5 Class-Based Microaggressions
Microaggressions* have been a highly debated topic, particularly on college campuses. Some have suggested that the discussion of microaggressions, essentially, is making people overly sensitive. Others value labeling this subtle, persistent, often latent form of bias, expanding the discussion from solely conversations of race to include other areas of microaggression such as gender or sexuality. […]
Vacationing Broke
Being poor can feel like you’re stuck, and when everyone you know disappears into the world when they have the chance, you realize how truly stuck you are. When you’re young, it’s simple stuff like not being able to go to day camp, anywhere on spring break, or to anything but the free stuff you […]
When Skinny Isn’t So Cute
Growing up as the daughter of a farm worker, we often had dinners of biscuits and milk gravy. I always thought I was having a great meal! While we did grow a lot of vegetables and canned as many as possible, we often ran out before the next season. Sometime there would be a little […]
All Bodies Are Beach Bodies
Each year, as the chill of winter is thrown off by the warmth of spring and summer, we are inundated with advertisements on television or magazines, along with conversations in school or at work, all asking the same question: Do you have a beach body? The beach body is largely conceived of as a body […]
Too Afraid of Debt to Go to College
Recently, students in a class taught by Classism Exposed contributor L.A. Kurth responded to an essay in Yes! magazine about the student loan debt and the feasibility of a debt strike.1 Their responses illustrate the loss of opportunity and potential we ensure by offering loans with interest as high as 20% instead of grants or […]
Work It, Girl
Sister, I see you. I see you, with your shitty paycheck I see you, with your kids, your bills, your debt, your dreams I see you young and bright cheeked, skipping rope Or playing hand clap games I see you silver and still bright remembering Girl, you know I see you. You have been here […]
