Or not. Probably not. Classism is the last -ism people talk about because it’s still taboo to talk about poverty, money and class. We can talk about sex, politics, religion, mental illness, sexism, racism or homophobia but it’s still taboo to talk about poverty, how much people make and peoples’ class standing. Bint has class privilege exercises to gain a better perspective on class. Mark in bold the ones that reflect your experience. The class taboo is also reflected in political discourse. Discussions of classism, class, poverty, socialism, capitalism or economics usually come after discussions of sexism, racism or homophobia.
When you were in college:
If your father went to college, take a step forward.
If your father finished college
If your mother went to college
If your mother finished college
If you have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
If you were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
If you had a computer at home
If you had your own computer at home
If you had more than 50 books at home
If you had more than 500 books at home
If were read children’s books by a parent
If you ever had lessons of any kind
If you had more than two kinds of lessons
If the people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
If you had a credit card with your name on it
If you have less than $5000 in student loans
If you have no student loans
If you went to a private high school
If you went to summer camp
If you had a private tutor
If you have been to Europe
If your family vacations involved staying at hotels
If all of your clothing has been new and bought at the mall
If your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
If there was original art in your house
If you had a phone in your room
If you lived in a single family house
If your parent own their own house or apartment
If you had your own room
If you participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
If you had your own cell phone in High School
If you had your own TV in your room in High School
If you opened a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
If you have ever flown anywhere on a commercial airline
If you ever went on a cruise with your family
If your parents took you to museums and art galleries
If you were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.
In childhood:
If your body does not bear long-term signs of malnutrition. (For example, my teeth are marked up from poor nutrition when they were forming.)
If you had orthodontia.
If you saw a doctor for anything other than emergencies or school-mandated shots.
If you heated your home with clean-burning fuels or had properly vented heating.
If you grew up in a house without vermin.
If you had running water.
If you had a basement or foundation under your house.
If you had an indoor toilet.
If your parents and immediate family were outside the criminal justice system.
If you yourself remained outside the criminal justice system.
If your parents had a new car.
If you never went barefoot so that you could ’save your shoes for school.’
If your parents never argued in front of you about having enough money for food to last out the month.
If you ate hunted and fished meat because it was a recreational activity rather than as the major way to stock a freezer.
If your laundry was done at home in a washer rather than in a lavandaria. (Laundromat)
If your hair was cut by a professional barber or hair stylist instead of your parent.
Now you can hate me but I have problems you’ll probably never know about because it’s not nice for me to discuss them.
13 responses so far ↓
Roy // January 23, 2008 at 9:59 pm
It’s sometimes amazing to me how people who have radically different experiences of money will sometimes not have any understanding of what that means. At my last job, a co-worker was talking about how his parents had lost their house when he was a child, and another co-worker tried to say that she knew what that was like and exactly how he felt about it, because when she was a kid, her parents got a divorce, and they had to *sell the summer house* as a result. Because selling one of the three houses your family owns is, you know, the same as being *homeless*.
donnadarko // January 24, 2008 at 12:15 am
You also can’t tell if people are poor unless they’re homeless. The first time I encountered poor people was through blogs because it’s that taboo to talk about class. This was a very hard exercise for me and it’s difficult to talk about. I came out as a liberal at 22, woman/feminist at 24, APIA at 24 but this took much longer.
Roy // January 25, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Absolutely- and you can’t always tell if someone is homeless unless they tell you.
One of the things that I found interesting on a personal level was how good my parents were at hiding just how bad off we were when I was a child. I’d have never guessed that we were in the situation we were in, because they managed to cover it up so well. Very interesting.
donnadarko // January 26, 2008 at 8:16 am
You also don’t approach people and ask what class they are but you can see what race and gender they are. We need to talk more about class. Talking about stuff will help income disparities go away.
Roy // January 26, 2008 at 5:11 pm
I think another thing that happens with the invisibility of class issues is that it helps create mythologies that are harmful- I’m thinking of how images like The Welfare Queen become the accepted image of a person on public assistence, despite the fact that such abuses are incredibly rare. But, what happens is that people who are on public assistence and working are far less visible and far less likely to be approached for interviews and far less likely to make the news, and so we end up with this public face that’s not in line with the majority reality. And then people want to cut or halt public aid to the people who aren’t abusing the system.
donnadarko // January 26, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Poor people are even more invisible than women and POC because race and gender are “sexier” than poverty. But it could be “sexy” if people started talking about it.
Has Class Trumped Race? Part 1 - Understanding Privilege at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture // February 5, 2008 at 12:01 pm
[...] originally found this through Donna Darko, who found it through Bint [...]
Cynthia // February 5, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Donna,
If APIA is what I THINK it means (Asian Pacific Islander American), how exactly do you “come out” as one?
-C
donnadarko // February 6, 2008 at 3:14 am
Feminists experience the “click” when they connect personal problems with structural problems related to gender.
Similarly, APIAs experience the click when they realize their problems are connected to structural problems related to race.
Cynthia // February 6, 2008 at 4:17 pm
But Donna,
Lots of gender-related problems are also connected to education, and sometimes the choice people make. Women are in general less likely to go into the hard sciences (opting for life sciences or liberal arts). And in non-traditional careers such as medicine, women often gravitate towards specialties like OBGYN, pediatrics or family practice over, say, cardiology. Also, things ARE changing, but really slowly. The main reason is because the Old Boys’ Club is still working and it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I think I’ve mentioned in another board that it’s really interesting to see the stark differences in the male to female ratio in a list of top experienced lawyers (average age is probably close to 60) and a list of top young lawyers (all under 40)
Older men who are considered “Old Boys” (especially those born before the baby boom) may have issues taking women seriously, but I know young men who fit the so-called “Old Boys’ Club” criteria, and they have NO ISSUES with me or my female friends.
donnadarko // February 6, 2008 at 9:58 pm
You’re still talking about structural and not individual problems.
Japanese Bobtail // February 7, 2008 at 12:12 am
I am intrigued by Cynthia’s comments. In the medical world, it is true we see men in cardiology and women in primary care or OBGYN, for example. And primary care physicians are paid much less. However, in terms of the real difficulty of occupations, we can not say cardiologists should be rewarded more than primary care physicians. They may be trained in the specialty and they may have technical skills, but primary care physicians are the ones who have the key in prevention, coordination, patient management, requiring significantly broader complex knowledge.
In the company, we see more men in R&D and women in Marketing. In the past, Marketing was a kind of sissy thing. Tech men have dominated, but Marketing is about customers, we can not say techies delivers more value than marketers.
And finally, in many companies, the heads of marketing are still men leading mostly women organization.
It is so complex, education, stereotyping, social pressures, unfair power distribution, exclusion, discrimination, the list continues.
By age 20, your life is set, because of your gender, race, family class, location, education, which you seldom had a choice. Or I should say on the day you are born, if you are woman, you are doomed to be disadvantaged, and every day your parents spend not to recover the disadvantage, your disadvantage widens…. am I too pessimistic?
donnadarko // February 7, 2008 at 12:15 am
These are systemic problems related to gender. Professions of care are undervalued because they’re associated with women. Just like child and elder care.
You must be logged in to post a comment.