For classist put-downs, a maximum wage just may be the ultimate antidote. How raw can class contempt get? Take a look at the venom that oozed out earlier this spring from Ronald Havner, the CEO of Public Storage, America’s biggest self-storage company. This year, for the first time ever, enterprises like Public Storage have had […]
super-rich
Trump One Year Later: Most of Us Live in Dread
I had a discussion with my doctor late spring 2017. I was having gastrointestinal issues, and I said to him that I kept wondering whether the anxiety that I felt about the Trump regime was affecting me physically. My doctor responded very seriously and with a straight face. He replied that many of his patients […]
President Trump, One Year Later
After 12 months that have felt like an eternity, Mr. Trump remains as greedy and volatile as ever. Donald Trump campaigned on the pledge to “Make America Great Again,” but he never did specify exactly who he wanted to make the country great for. After a year in office, we can deduce from his actions […]
Trump’s First Year: Did the Working-Class Benefit?
Donald Trump ran for president on a populist and inclusionary platform. As he campaigned across the country, he appealed to increasingly larger numbers of Americans who felt forgotten by the country’s policies and politicians. Despite the fact that he lost the popular vote by three million, there’s no doubt that he tapped into the visceral […]
Andy’s Story: Class and Homelessness
Before the year 2004, the word “classism” was not in my vocabulary. As a music teacher at a prestigious private elementary school and a private teacher of piano and voice, I schmoozed comfortably with those who could afford such high-quality education for their children. The fact that many of them lived in million dollar homes […]
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Statement Voted 2017 Most Classist Comment
For Immediate Release: December 31, 2017 Contact: Anne Phillips, 617.477.8635; Denise Moorehead, 781.608.4608 BOSTON – For the eighth consecutive year, Class Action has asked people from across the United States to nominate and then vote for the Most Classist Comment of the year. With 35.7% of the vote, U.S. Senator Charles (Chuck) E. Grassley’s (R-Iowa) […]
Trump’s War on the Poor, Working-Class and …
When explaining why his cabinet is filled with billionaires, President Donald Trump uttered what might just earn him Class Action’s 2017 Most Classist Comment of the Year Award. Mr. Trump said, “Somebody said why did you appoint a rich person to be in charge of the economy? No, it’s true. And … I said: ‘Because […]
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 deserve to lose healthcare.” To me, and I’d guess probably to you, this logic is completely unsurprising. In the Northeastern city where I live, we hear it every day – […]
Risk Telling the Truth
I thought I was going to be a career teacher. But after a decade, I hit bottom. Teaching in inner-city schools, I saw the barriers my students faced and confronted my own limits caused by my vastly different experience growing up. I had some positive, uplifting experiences, but I wasn’t very resilient, and I kept […]
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. […]
Wealthy, Come Home
Here’s my invitation to those of you, like me, in the top of America’s income and wealth ladder. Come home. What I mean by “coming home” is to bring your whole self – your passion, your stake in a place, your wealth and sense of agency – and throw it fully into the movements to reduce […]
Voting Today Means Democracy Tomorrow
I don’t think so! Democracy is often measured by free and fair elections. Free and fair generally means that individuals vote one time every two or four years for the candidate of their choice. After standing in long lines and casting a vote for the “best” candidate or candidates most people who live in America […]
Google, Hookers, and Heroin
I’ve been compelled, and I feel kind of sick about it, to read about the Google executive who died when a $1,000-a-time call girl—who found serial killers exciting and sexy— shot him up with too much heroin, on his yacht. The picture of decadence. Nine months earlier, his obit had pictured him as a father […]
400 Billionaires = Wealth of All 41 Million African-Americans
Click here for updated numbers for 2015 from the new Forbes 400 Report. Preview: Just two years later, the wealthiest 100 now have as much wealth as entire African American population. The racial wealth divide has reached new heights. The billionaires that make up the “Forbes 400” list have as much wealth as the entire African-American […]
“Revenge” and the Failures of Social Climbing
The hit ABC melodrama “Revenge” features a slinky, mysterious blonde seeking delicious, sweet, sweet revenge. Emily Thorne, who isn’t really Emily, changed her name from Amanda Clarke, the juvenile delinquent and mentally lost daughter of a convicted 9/11 terrorist. The classist stereotypes portrayed in “Revenge” are viciously ripe. Each class has social limitations keeping them […]
Arrested Development & the pitfalls of the wealthy
Why do so many TV watchers love Arrested Development (whose latest season was released on Netflix last night)? Is it just another sit-com in the cringe-inducing comedy genre, like The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm? I think there’s another factor: the show accurately illustrates some common maladaptive life paths of people who grow up in […]
The Myth of the Ultra-Rich Job Creator
You would think from watching “Downton Abbey” that the only reason enormous estates existed was to provide jobs. Every time a change comes up, the lord of the manor bemoans its possible deleterious effect on his tenants and servants. And a remarkably high proportion of those servants seem happy to live their entire lives in […]
Ubuntu and The Self-Made Myth
We’ve all heard rags-to-riches stories about successful individuals who “pulled themselves up by the bootstraps.” Certainly, many successful business people owe their good fortune to hard work and innovative thinking. But, to describe those people as “self-made” would be to dismiss a big piece of reality—the role of the commons. Would Bill Gates have enjoyed […]
Taxing the Rich Isn’t Enough: Family Dynasties in America
My family has been wealthy for hundreds of years – with a lot of government help along the way. My ancestors had a plantation with slaves, which began with a royal land grant. Their state government went to war to protect their “right” to make money from slavery. The family’s wealth and influence was setback […]
Have pity on the rich
Rich people must protest the way they are treated here in the US of A. And Marin County is THE place to start, cuz we got a LOT of rich people here. Why, just recently we were proudly cited as one of THE richest counties in the US. Filthily so. It’s clear that the rich […]
