Roadblocks and Detours: Classism En Route to Drivers Ed
I was shocked when a well-known environmentalist criticized my students’ campaign to make drivers education accessible to low-income students. The campaign ran into a lot... Read More
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... 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
Silver Linings Playbook: Class themes in Oscar nominees #3
Movies about mental illness are a favorite of the Oscars. The nominees are often serious affairs with sad endings and a key point: it sucks... Read More
Hopscotching the Tracks
In my last essay, I spoke of my experiences of the disdain I receive as a working-class woman walking among the denizens of the middle-class... Read More
A story of crossing the tracks
I was born and raised in working-class Philadelphia. Growing up I did not see myself as an underrepresented and repressed segment of society. Certainly I... Read More
Gifts, power and money
The holidays can be hard times. With all the hopes and expectations of the season up, disappointments have more room to play. And when we... Read More
Who Is Stressed Out?
I regularly facilitate a Stressed Out! workshop for Job Seekers in a non-profit organization serving a wide range of customers and clients in search of... Read More
Lettuce in winter: When more is less
We all know what it’s like to appreciate a rare event–a fine restaurant dinner, a vacation to a far-away place, even an evening at home... Read More
The Anthropologist in the Organic Store
The drive on I-90 on the way to the Organic Store is picturesque. That’s the only word that can quantify the margarine yellow and red... 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
A cross-class dating anecdote
At Brooklyn College, part of the City of New York’s public higher education system, I began to be acutely aware of class. I asked a... 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
Why do we avoid class?
All of my life I have seen the effects of class around me, but never truly understood what “class” really means. Until recently I had... Read More
The Class Nightmare of Disability
Seeking instant invisibility? Displacement from society? Separation from the shared life expectations of friends, family and colleagues? If so, become disabled. Visible or invisible, commonly... Read More
The anger of a first-generation student
Growing up, my parents always told me that I could be and do whatever I wanted. I always believed them, but what I was never... Read More
An interesting class culture question
To what extent is a person’s class culture determined by the environment they are raised in, and to what extent is it determined by their... Read More
Hiding the lunch ticket
I was an outsider at my junior high school. Why was I ashamed of my family’s poverty? When my family lost its small business and... Read More
Guilt and Defensiveness vs Owning Our Privilege(s)
What follows is a very personal essay about my own learning about class, race and other “isms.” I use my own method of self-critique and... Read More
Thoughts about Thanksgiving (& -isms we may encounter at the table!)
After listening to a NPR segment about Thanksgiving and some anxiety that this very social holiday brings up for folks, I realized that this year... Read More
Giving thanks humbly or smugly
When I was a girl, at the beginning of Thanksgiving dinner, my family would sing a beautiful old hymn, We Gather Together, the most traditional... Read More
Speaking of human rights, how many violations have I encountered in my life?
We never had enough food for all five children in our house and I don`t remember ever having an orange. My earliest memories are of... Read More
Socializing with Ivy League elitists
“But you don’t seem poor” — five words that I’ll never forget. In the fall of 2009 I arrived at Wellesley College after having spent... Read More
CEOs Rewarded For Dodging Taxes
As the Super Congress eyes trillions in budget cuts that will undermine the quality of life for most Americans, here’s a stunning fact to contemplate:... Read More
Misconception of debt
Like many college students, I recently took out my first loan for college. Although not a significant amount, it was still more than I’ve ever... Read More
Owning Class Folks – Let’s Explore Some Tough Questions
How can we owning class folks who care about enormous horrors going on today initiate a systemic difference by speaking up about the harm that... Read More
I Love Money
Recently, my partner, who was raised working class, called me out about an emotional block I have around money. He said, “As long as you... Read More
Query: How to open discussion with a poor-basher?
Dear Class Action, What should I do? My neighbor in my conservative rural town emailed this racist/classist piece of junk to me. I need some... Read More
Learning about Class in Private School?
Like parents everywhere, we wanted to give our teenage daughter advantages we never had. High on our list was to provide her a much clearer... Read More
Ironies of hip places and companies
The San Francisco Bay area is the most open minded, experimental, and inclusive place in the world. It is full of a million young white/Asian... Read More
Middle Class Brats?
I fear I am raising spoiled-rotten, middle-class brats. I fear I am raising the very kind of children I would have hated as a child.... Read More
Joe Bageant: 1946-2011
It is with great sorrow that we learned of the recent death of Joe Bageant. Joe and Class Action’s late co-founder, Felice Yeskel, were two... Read More
Condescending Baby-Feeding Advice
I read this article about negative breast-feeding myths among African Americans in The Root and sat upright when I saw this bit of social class... Read More
Who Gets Plowed in New York?
After the first huge snow storm on December 26, my family was asking two questions: a) where are the damn snowplows in our Brooklyn neighborhood?;... Read More
Rapid response to “low-class Italian white trash”
What a coincidence! Just a few days after posting the two pieces below about responding to classist comments, I heard a doozy – and I... Read More
Responding to Verbal Classism
When I hear a classist put-down, I feel like Derek Zoolander in the Ben Stiller movie Zoolander, tongue-tied and unable to come up with a... Read More
Special Delivery: Mexican-in-a-Box
I found myself an unprepared witness to a classist/racist “joke” where and when I least expected it. Should I have intervened? Is there a way... Read More
When you’re rich and when you’re poor
When you’re rich and lose money on a leveraged investment, you are a victim of the bad economy and deserved to be bailed out. When... Read More
The Santa Secret: Santa Plays Favorites
Australian author Dr Joanne Faulkner created a stir worldwide recently when she advocated for parents to not tell their children the Santa Claus story. “[Parents]... Read More
Defending my vibrant neighborhood
Recently four people were killed about ten houses away from where I grew up in Mattapan, a neighborhood of Boston. The neighborhood was maligned by... Read More
Why don’t schools do more to stop bullying?
I have been reading (I am sure you have too) about the many cases of bullying and the awful consequences of being a target for... Read More
Living in a rich neighborhood
I’m a kid of a single mom that works very hard to make a living and support her family’s needs. We live in a rich... Read More
The Bus Stops Here
I have two little boys; they are very bright, good boys. They have never had a babysitter and maybe I have been a little over... Read More
Classed Relationships on the Internet
“Social class and the Internet” usually implies issues of access to high-speed Internet and newer computers. But recent online discussions have me reflecting on how... Read More
Obstructed Views from the Country Club
I was born and raised in New England, half Jewish, half WASP. Went to the same prep school as my grandmother, and the same college... Read More
Illiterate in 3 languages
At a meeting in Amman, Jordan, high-powered social policy analysts from many nations were deploring the limited intelligence of illiterates and the effects on their... Read More