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 […]
working class
“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 “class” may not be used always, but hints of class or class indicators, such as income, education, occupation, and power, certainly appear in one form or another. Cross-class relationships in […]
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 for the worlds my wealthier friends opened up to me and the way they included and shared with me. My closer friends were solidly middle (including comfortable working-class) and upper […]
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 hurt you. While President Obama and other democrats have numerous policies designed to “lift up” people from the working class, they offer little verbal validation for a working class way […]
Inciting critical thinking in 8th graders: An inspiring ‘Created Equal’ story
“The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot. And then, just possibly, hopefully, it goes on.” — Audre Lorde A deep conversation about equal opportunity was incited recently in a group of Latino 8th graders participating in a summer program in a Boston public school. I and another Class Action intern, Anna Rodriguez, […]
Classism in Academia
A little over two years ago, a student called me a ‘cunt’ in front of 38 other students. My academic employer did little to protect me and allowed a local, “progressive” paper to attack me in a newspaper/Internet article. I believe this had everything to do with my being a popular but adjunct, community college […]
“Jumping the Broom”: African American class divide
When you were a young child, did you think about getting married? We may plan our wedding and visualize the person of our dreams, but we never stop to think that our class backgrounds and family values could possibly clash with theirs. In the movie Jumping the Broom, Sabrina Watson and Jason Taylor come from […]
Anatomy of a cross-class breakdown at a youth shelter
Last spring my friend J got a job at a shelter for homeless young adults. She has an associate’s degree in Social and Human Services and is working on completing her B.A. She is smart, hardworking, compassionate, and skillful. She has great recommendations from other nonprofits. Additionally, she spent time at this same shelter back […]
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 Carter that party has moved to the right, supports so-called Free Trade, champions legislation that fosters financial speculation, has forgotten the poor as a group worthy of aid, and goes […]
New classism book holds the keys to movement-building
Barb Jensen was a rebellious teenager. When she tells her own stories in her new book Reading Classes, readers can vicariously enjoy her mouthing off to teachers, flouting school rules and delighting at turning a classroom into a circus. And unlike most writers about kids disengaged from school, who focus on their deficits and fret […]
What’s needed at this political moment? 5 well-known leftists, 5 strong opinions
At the Working-Class Studies conference last weekend, I heard an amazing dialogue about class, race and movement-building by five progressive journalists and activist scholars: Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now!, Frances Fox Piven, Bill Fletcher Jr. of Blackcommentator.com, and former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert of Demos, with conference organizer Michael Zweig, author of The […]
The Dreams of Poor and Working-Class Students
I was half-listening to the radio last week when I heard an interviewer ask a question that made me pause in my work to listen. “So”, the interviewer warmly asked, “You knew even as a small child that you wanted to be a concert cellist?” “Oh yes”, the woman answered. “Since I was eight.” I’ve […]
Exploring Classism
Just recently I attended a Class Action workshop. This was my first workshop ever dealing on the issues of classism. Heading into it, I didn’t know what to expect. I had an open mind and was willing to work with others I hadn’t met. It was definitely a big step to go outside my comfort […]
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 parents’ class culture? What do I mean? I have noticed an interesting phenomenon: In owning-class old money families eventually the money runs out and people are forced to raise the […]
Overlooking luck
Can someone please explain to Newt Gingrich that people not wanting a job typically doesn’t cause poverty; being unable to get a job causes poverty. I would strongly assert that very few people want to be unable to provide for themselves and their families. People who have only experienced privilege often do not recognize the […]
Building Solidarity and Dealing with Racism
In 1971, when I was “lead organizer” for what became the All Peoples’ Coalition (APC), I learned a different approach to dealing with some racism I encountered among working-class whites. APC was a federation of some thirty organizations (churches, block clubs, the neighborhood shopping strip’s merchant association, tenant associations, and other groups in Visitacion Valley, […]
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 went to a private school. At this school, the classes were small and there was support and help anywhere and anyhow we needed. Not the case in public school. This […]
