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 continues in a drastically different manner? For some of us, the origins of today’s enormous inequities are from the source of our wealth. Will you join me in this conversation? […]
Conflict-avoidance
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 response until hours or days later. I know that being a bystander is not enough. I owe it to myself, other listeners, the offensive speaker, and the target of the […]
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 to turn such ugliness into a “teachable moment”? One afternoon I was waiting in line at my university’s mailroom behind a rowdy group of undergraduate men. The students—mostly white and […]
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 my Facebook friends are divided clearly along class lines, in how we interact online. Class differences in dealing – or not dealing – with conflict show up starkly in my […]
