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 […]
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Poverty Constrains Your Wardrobe – and You
I will always remember December 2013. It was a particularly cold winter, and downtown Los Gatos was in the low 30s. My friend Jane rented a carriage and invited me to come along. I declined because I did not have a jacket. I was too ashamed to tell her why, so she was rightfully angry […]
Addressing Food Insecurity on Campus
The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food insecurity at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had been both poorly understood and oftentimes neglected until very recently. I think the overwhelming view of the administration was that students were, in general, […]
Missing Corner, Missing Choices
I recently participated in the Class Action workshop The Moment for Change: Exploring Class and Classism for Social Action. I learned a lot from the “class” – specifically, that class does matter, and each of us brings our experience into interactions with others. There was one point in the class, however, when I felt a strong […]
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 […]
Surviving in the Gig Economy
As a creative person without a degree, the gig economy field has always appealed to me. I have had various jobs in customer service that have left me emotionally drained and unable to create art and enjoy my life, due to long hours and low wages. It seemed at first that gig economy jobs were […]
Gig Economy Hustle
I stare through wild green houseplants out my bedroom window. A robot voice over the phone guides me through my student loan servicer’s menu. “Lower my bill,” I say to the aloe. “Lower my bill,” I say to the cactus. “Lower my bill,” I say to the jade, and eventually I speak to Daisy. Daisy […]
Eviction
Frequent Classism Exposed contributor L.A. Kurth invited students in her class at a California community college to share their thoughts on affordable housing. Here is one student’s response. All my life I have lived in a rental home or an apartment, except for the brief period of time when my family and I had a […]
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 why a new term has arisen in the real estate market, attainable housing. Under the new rules, old safety precautions are ignored. Once, homebuyers were advised to spend no more than […]
Being an Owning-Class Activist
All of us are more than a label, right? We each are more than one of our identities standing by itself. We are complex, changing, contradictory beings, and a mystery in many ways. And yet, our identities do matter – at the very same time as those identities are not all of who we are. […]
Graduate School and Kind Strangers
By the time August rolls around it seems like summer is pretty much over. School started on September first this year, that’s the earliest I can remember. If it weren’t for good people and programs that help, there is no way my family would ever have been prepared. I am a graduate student at the […]
My Summers on the Cape
Working, Not “Summering,” on Martha’s Vineyard Summer rolling around means vacations for many. But for others it means seasonal migration to restaurant and hospitality work. When on the Cape recently, I stopped by a Black Dog store, to check to see if the clothing was still made on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. A considerable […]
No Interest in Sharing the Wealth?
As a young person with inherited wealth who is public about my identity, sometimes my friends will ask me for a gift or for a loan. I don’t always say yes, but when I do lend money, I don’t charge interest. This comic makes a case for people with more than enough financial wealth to […]
Avoiding Loans at Any Cost
Recently, community college students in a class taught by Classism Exposed contributor L.A. Kurth (see her note at the bottom of the post) responded to an essay in Yes!* magazine about the student loan debt and the feasibility of a debt strike. Their responses illustrate the loss of opportunity and potential we ensure by offering loans […]
Forgoing College to Forgo Debt
In education, we are headed toward a perfect storm. Increasingly large numbers of capable students are so afraid of incurring debt that they are deciding not to go to college. I’m not talking about marginal students but successful students. These are not the students that lawmakers are likely to hear about. They and their families are too […]
The Port Cafe: Dining Without Classism
Imagine opening the door to a high-end, exclusive restaurant. The whoosh of air-conditioned comfort draws you in as the well-trained hostess welcomes you to the bustling space, full of smiling, well-dressed, and well-fed people. The aromas of garlic and spices waft throughout the room, evidence of the much-loved chef supervising the kitchen. Now imagine the […]
Groveling for the Greater Good
I’ve been fundraising for nonprofits for 15 years now, mostly for homeless youth and families. When I started fundraising, my bible was the now classic “Fundraising for Social Change” by Kim Klein. Klein taught grassroots fundraising strategies that were developed during the 1970’s, the peak of middle-class prosperity in the U.S. These strategies are ethical […]
10 Ways a Corporate Workplace is Worse than a Casino
1. A Casino is legally required to post the odds of each bet. Corporate workplaces can lie about your chances of rising to the top. 2. If you gamble in a casino using a line of credit and lose, you can file for bankruptcy. If you take out a student loan to go to college […]
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 proposing to raise the minimum wage from $8 to $10 per hour. I will be precinct walking on Saturday to help make this happen. This raise is more important than […]
