The Work to Be Done This Labor Day
On Labor Day 2018, it’s hard to maintain hope. Many will labor on Labor Day (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Growing up in a... Read More
Breaking the Silence about Class in One Liberal Denomination
In 2012, I was lucky enough to attend a remarkable weekend-long Class Action Train-the-Trainers mega-workshop. I did not attend to learn techniques to raise awareness about class and... Read More
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... Read More
Four Ways Nonprofits Can Address the Classism Within
Several years ago, I was sitting in a diversity training of a nonprofit I helped manage. We’d spent the morning talking about inequality within the... Read More
Class Diversity Improves Your Nonprofit Board
Nonprofit organizations, which are legal entities that must be approved by state governments, allow people to join together and combine resources to achieve common goals.... Read More
Trump’s Presidency: What We Deserve
Type “Trump voters deserve” into your search bar, and the two suggestions that pop up are “Trump voters deserve what they get” and “Trump voters... Read More
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.... Read More
Spring Break?
When I think of spring break, I think of MTV and early 20-somethings soaking up the sun. I believe that this ideal spring break is becoming... Read More
How Class Affects My (Breaks from) Class
As a teenager, I became acquainted with our modern society’s expectation of “spring break” through MTV’s spring break specials. I remember as a teen feeling... Read More
Five Classist Pitfalls to #Resist in Your Activism
In a moment of potentially revolutionary activism and mobilization, don’t let classism undermine your efforts. The past few weeks have been both terrifying and inspiring.... Read More
Affordable vs. Attainable Housing
When you think affordable housing, you think $600,000 for a condo, right? With a $12,000 down payment, that would be $3,557 per month for 30 years. Maybe that’s... Read More
Changing Classes, Changing Vacations
I was born to two African-American strivers. My dad had been born poor and my mom came from people who had “clawed their way up,”... Read More
Housing Is a Right not a Luxury
While most of us know that housing in the Boston area is getting more and more expensive, you may not have realized that between 2000... Read More
Brexit – A Class Issue
Two weeks on, a lot of progressive people in Britain are still in deep shock or fury or despair – or alternating rapidly between all three... Read More
First in the Family: Social Mobility as a
First Generation College Student
As the first in my family to pursue a college degree, I have found challenges in navigating the privileges and isolation encompassed in the system... Read More
African Americans and Classism:
It’s Complicated When I started this post, I thought it would be a straight-forward musing on classism on and in African-American communities. A few minutes in, and... Read More
Championing Postal Workers Is Good Class and Economic Sense
I watched the second Democratic debate hoping that Senator Bernie Sanders would clearly articulate an economic policy that would differentiate him from Hillary Clinton, that... Read More
Seeing the World: The View from Above
Ever since I was a little girl, my parents have taken me traveling all over the world. They have always told me how lucky I... Read More
Who Are the Despicable Racists?
We all know that a young white man murdered nine black worshipers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, S.C., just two weeks... Read More
When Love Crosses Class Lines
What’s it like to be married to someone who grew up in a different class? If you asked most of the 64 college-educated adults who... Read More
Class identity is different for black professionals
Why would someone not identify as middle class? Many high-income African American professional homeowners respond to pollsters who ask for class self-identification by not choosing... Read More
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?
Working with couples who hail from different class backgrounds is one of my specialties as a counseling psychologist. I offer an example from my counseling... Read More
When Love Crosses Class Lines
What’s it like to be married to someone who grew up in a different class? If you asked most of the 64 college-educated adults who... Read More
Obama’s State of the (Dis-)Union Speech, 2013
If you ain’t poor (by America’s low poverty standards), you are “middle class.” That is the current political and pundit mode of understanding the USA.... Read More
Adjusting to holiday changes
Throughout my life, when my holiday traditions have changed, for financial or family reasons, I have found myself yearning for what used to happen. When... 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
“Wishing for Heaven”: Cross-Class Relationships and Contemporary Culture
Class representations are present in many aspects of contemporary culture. Think about the latest TV sitcoms, five star movies, and literary novels. Sure, the word... 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
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... Read More
Who represents the working class?
There was a time when if one asked, ‘Who represents the working class?’, a reasonable answer would have been the Democratic Party. But since Jimmy... Read More
Verizon Strike: A Teachable Moment?
Why Health Care Strikes Should Demand “Health Care For All,” Not Just “Hands Off My ‘Middle Class’ Benefits” For two weeks in August, thousands of... Read More
From a Teenage Class Action Fan
My name is Liora and I’m fourteen years old. I’ve attended public schools my whole life except for the last year and half when I... Read More
Middle Class Traitors: Who Are They?
I recently came up with a phrase that other than one fleeting reference was not to be found in Google. It seemed to me to... 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