Class, Privilege, and Social Markers

[Medusa]

I meant to start this thread last week after something that I posted triggered something in me that I wanted to talk about but Im ever the procrastinator so here I am now.

I recently got a promotion at work and was pretty overjoyed and wanted to share the news with my friends. I went in the thread and posted something about getting my promotion and ended up going back and deleting a sentence where I referenced "making more money than I ever have in my life".
When I posted, I was pretty caught up in the joy-moment and felt like I was referencing a new freedom I would experience due to this promotion. When I went back and read my post, I deleted the reference to the salary because I had a sense of shame about talking about "the money".

I was discussing this with a friend and kinda teased it out a little to understand that my moment of shame was a throwback to the first time someone told me it was rude to talk about money. That only very poor people talk about money in this way. Im not really shamed by being seen as poor or talking about growing up on food stamps and homeless at random times.

I definitely grew up in a working class family. I definitely have a relationship with money where I dont have filters about what "should and should not" be talked about. Ive also noticed that people sometimes appear to be uncomfortable when I (or anyone else) talk candidly about getting something for $1 at a yard sale or etc.

With growing up poor, I think that many folks have different social markers and possibly a different access to privilege or even recognizing privilege. I can remember knowing the difference between the kids who had money and the kids who didnt in school, usually based on arbitrary things like clothing and shoes. As an adult, I dont really care how much money people have until Im in a situation where I cant financially keep up with their lifestyle (and here I am talking about being able to travel to expensive places with friends or friends who want to eat out at expensive restaurants)

Anyone wanna talk about this shit?

[Dylan]

Originally Posted by Medusa

I meant to start this thread last week after something that I posted triggered something in me that I wanted to talk about but Im ever the procrastinator so here I am now.

I recently got a promotion at work and was pretty overjoyed and wanted to share the news with my friends. I went in the thread and posted something about getting my promotion and ended up going back and deleting a sentence where I referenced "making more money than I ever have in my life".
When I posted, I was pretty caught up in the joy-moment and felt like I was referencing a new freedom I would experience due to this promotion. When I went back and read my post, I deleted the reference to the salary because I had a sense of shame about talking about "the money".

I was discussing this with a friend and kinda teased it out a little to understand that my moment of shame was a throwback to the first time someone told me it was rude to talk about money. That only very poor people talk about money in this way. Im not really shamed by being seen as poor or talking about growing up on food stamps and homeless at random times.

I definitely grew up in a working class family. I definitely have a relationship with money where I dont have filters about what "should and should not" be talked about. Ive also noticed that people sometimes appear to be uncomfortable when I (or anyone else) talk candidly about getting something for $1 at a yard sale or etc.

With growing up poor, I think that many folks have different social markers and possibly a different access to privilege or even recognizing privilege. I can remember knowing the difference between the kids who had money and the kids who didnt in school, usually based on arbitrary things like clothing and shoes. As an adult, I dont really care how much money people have until Im in a situation where I cant financially keep up with their lifestyle (and here I am talking about being able to travel to expensive places with friends or friends who want to eat out at expensive restaurants)

Anyone wanna talk about this shit?

Great topic. Classism has been an issue in my life since I can remember. I'll spare everyone the 'growing up poor' stories, but I find it interesting how classism is overlooked a lot of times.

I too grew up knowing my 'place' in society. I knew which kids in school had more money and which kids had less money.

I have recently instituted a new rule for my business, and it's class based. I will no longer take jobs from people in a certain (high) class bracket. I've instituted this new policy, because I've noticed a certain attitude I just don't want to deal with.

I've also noticed the way people with money talk about money as opposed to the way people without money talk about it.

Personal pet peeve: the term 'working class'. I find this term a 'whitening up' of the term 'poor'. EVERYONE is working class. Unless you're a trust fund baby, retired, whatnot...you're working class. Poor people know they're poor...whether they work or not, they know they're poor. I also think the term 'working class' creates this illusion that the only poor people are the ones who are 'just being lazy on public benefits', which in turn helps feed the bootstraps theory that the quickest way out of poverty is to 'get a job' or 'work more'...which we all know is bullshit. I think the term 'working class' also negates 'the working poor'.

I don't know exactly what you want to talk about, but I think this is a conversation worth having.


Dylan

[Medusa]

This is interesting to me Dylan, how you and I see the term "working class" differently. I have almost the exact opposite take on it (surprise!). I have always viewed "working class" as a term that kinda equates with "blue collar", as in "the people who actually get their hands dirty".
Albeit, Ive never thought about it in any super depth.

I do know that when I was growing up, I knew the difference between blue collar and white collar even before those terms were introduced to me. My Dad and Step-Dads went to work in jeans and a t-shirt and drove a beat-up Datsuns and old trucks to their jobs. They carried their lunch in a leftover paper sack from the grocery store and mostly came home dirty, sweaty, and grimy.
I remember spending the night with a friend from school one time and her Dad came home from work and was wearing a shirt and tie and drove up in something that I perceived to be a fancy car. He wasnt dirty and they had actual glasses at the dinner table instead of plastic cups from McDonalds.
I also remember my friend having her own room (I shared with a brother and a sister) and how clean everything seemed to be.

I thought of my Dads as "working class" and their Dad as some "other" kind of class. Higher class. Better. Because you know how kids like to compartmentalize and label shit

I do think you have a good point about how saying "working class" instead of "poor" negates the working poor. Its like it creates this invisible barrier where the working poor must not be working hard enough because they are still poor or something. And it probably causes some of that "well they can get a second job at Mcdonalds - They're just lazy!" stuff that people seem to be so fond of.

[Andrew, Jr.]

I think today you are very blessed to have a job no matter what it is. There is nothing wrong with earning a ton of money or min. wage. It is what it is. And that goes along with promotions. If you work hard, and are able to do the work - go for it. There is nothing wrong with that. I always think of the movie "Working Girl" with Harrison Ford and Melanie Griffith back in the 80's.

This is a wonderful topic Medusa. Thanks for starting it.

Love,
Andrew

[Medusa]

I'll add another little tidbit in here for something to think about.

It had never occured to me until several years ago that class is not a static thing. That it is interpreted by the person's own experience and process.
For example: A friend of mine a while back used to talk about how poor she was on an almost constant basis. She talked about being poor, about not being able to afford things, about being "working class", and about how important it was for events to be sliding scale. She lived in an apartment in a city with one of the highest costs of living in the entire United States. Her rent on her apartment was more than my mortgage, car payment, utilities, and food costs combined. She taught at a University and had no children and had about 15 years of University education.
She viewed herself as "poor working class" but I often wondered if she ever examined that her ideas on class were burried in privilege. I saw them that way at times.

Im looking at my own ideas and seeing some privileges even in my own views of being poor. Funny how that all intersects.

[Venus007]

I grew up very poor, not just my generation but for many extending back to our country of origin, Ireland, where my great grandpa was a worker in a coal mine and before that were tenant farmers on English land. I always heard “Just because you are poor doesn’t mean you can’t be clean” like a mantra growing up. I know it is cliché (lace curtain Irish) but we ALWAYS had beautiful curtains and it was practically a moral obligation to keep up appearances. Oddly enough one of the worst insults that could be heaped on someone’s head was that they had gone “Above their raising”, meaning that someone was putting on airs or acting as if they belonged to a higher social class than they did. Education and physicians were viewed with GREAT suspicion. Education because it would get you nowhere since a good woman just needs to be able to raise good god fearing children anyway and education pulls you away from god. Physicians were suspect because not only were they expensive but also they didn’t know what the heck they were doing and made too much money to be trusted.

Money was fleeting and to be spent while you had it and it was irresponsible and absolutely selfish to save since there was never enough to cover basic expenses and bills. Needless to say one of my core struggles is with money and my relationship to it. Also money and assets were to be shared with your family, period. No matter what you had it wasn’t yours it was ours, everyone was expected to throw whatever assets into the family pot (literally and figuratively).

The only acceptable way to get more money was to marry well, and even then you were expected to behave yourself appropriately and not get trapped into that higher class better-than-everyone-else behavior and of course marrying well also meant that the new wealth needed to be used to help the other people in the family.

I was shown not to be too flashy, not to dream unrealistically, not to save, not to dress too well, not to have too many books, that women only got ahead by aligning themselves with desirable husbands, family matters above all and the wealthy are NOT to be trusted because they are inherently different from the “salt of the earth” regular people and that god was the ultimate source of everything from food to healing.

I, personally, don't subscribe to these ideas any longer, but it has taken A LOT of work and way too much money in therapy to get to the heart of it and move beyond it. Even so, my base position is still reflective of my class, even after all that work.

Alright I am rambling here, I think. I have a lot of ideas bouncing around about this but I thought I would get started somewhere and voila.

[SassyLeo]

Oooooh I have some stuff to share/process, but I am super busy at work.

Be back in a bit.

Great idea Medusa.

[Greyson]

Medusa, congratulations on your promotion. The class thing.... Initially as a child I thought much of what I saw as unfairness was more about race, ethnicity, not class. Honestly, I just did not see many poor white people where I lived. If you were poor, you most likely you were brown or black.

As I grew into my adulthood, I began to realize the big unspoken is class. Here in the USA there is the ethos of "Pull Yourself Up by the Bootstraps." This can be a hard one to live up to because one person's "boot straps" are anothers bare feet.

Something that impacted me greatly in the not so long ago past was when I took a position in the evenings and weekends as a security guard. During the day I have worked as an Planner for many years. This is a white collar profession. I have been in this profession since 89.

One day I was attending a meeting for my day job and at the other end of the table was an African American gentleman and graduate of Wheaton at this meeting. He came up to me during the break and asked me if I was not in fact the security guard that worked in the exclusive High Rise where he resided. I told him "Yes, it is me." He was clearly surprised. I tell you his interaction with me after that was very different. Subtle things. Now when he saw me at the security job, he would make a little small talk with me about my day ecetera. Previous to him realizing that the security job position was not my primary job, he never talked to me.

I am rambling a bit. The point that stayed with me is that here wan another "POC" and yet the perceived class differences did impact the nuances of our shared communication and I am sure our lives.

I just threw this out as an example. It is one incident but not exclusive to this one person or situation. "Class" is not something that has been openly acknowledged much in some cultures, but it is a marker that is defined and used in our institutions, decision making processes and so on.

[Mrs. Strutt]

There is quite a distinction in attitude toward and approach to money between people who grew up wealthy because their parents busted their asses to make good, and people who have inherited a trust fund four, five, ten generations old.

I want to take that thought somewhere further, but I'm not sure exactly where yet.

[Dylan]

Originally Posted by Medusa

This is interesting to me Dylan, how you and I see the term "working class" differently. I have almost the exact opposite take on it (surprise!). I have always viewed "working class" as a term that kinda equates with "blue collar", as in "the people who actually get their hands dirty".
Albeit, Ive never thought about it in any super depth.

I do know that when I was growing up, I knew the difference between blue collar and white collar even before those terms were introduced to me. My Dad and Step-Dads went to work in jeans and a t-shirt and drove a beat-up Datsuns and old trucks to their jobs. They carried their lunch in a leftover paper sack from the grocery store and mostly came home dirty, sweaty, and grimy.
I remember spending the night with a friend from school one time and her Dad came home from work and was wearing a shirt and tie and drove up in something that I perceived to be a fancy car. He wasnt dirty and they had actual glasses at the dinner table instead of plastic cups from McDonalds.
I also remember my friend having her own room (I shared with a brother and a sister) and how clean everything seemed to be.

I thought of my Dads as "working class" and their Dad as some "other" kind of class. Higher class. Better. Because you know how kids like to compartmentalize and label shit

I do think you have a good point about how saying "working class" instead of "poor" negates the working poor. Its like it creates this invisible barrier where the working poor must not be working hard enough because they are still poor or something. And it probably causes some of that "well they can get a second job at Mcdonalds - They're just lazy!" stuff that people seem to be so fond of.

I think my views on 'working class' stem from the people I have seen use the term. They're mostly middle to upper middle class people using the term to describe either their own upbringings or The Poor. When used in their 'self descriptions', I've seen it used to downplay their own middle class upbringings, and when used to describe others, it's always The Poor.

I have rarely (you're probably the first) seen someone who actually grew up Poor use the term 'working class' to describe themselves. I (in my own experience) equate it to the term 'fat'. Fat people call themselves 'fat'...while Others refer to fat people 'overweight' or 'heavy set' or some other 'polite' term.

Blue collar and white collar are the terms I personally use to describe the difference in jobs you spoke of in your post. Also, I think there's this funny idea that 'blue collar' workers are 'poor/working class'. I've seen this attitude for years, and it always makes me laugh. Office workers always assumed I was a class 'beneath' them when I came out to fix their roof. Yet, when I was in the union, I was making a helluva lot more money than most of those people. In the late 80s/early 90s, I was making 33$ an hour...which is (even today) a far far cry from 'poor'. And it was a helluva lot more money than most of the white collar folks I knew. I had better benefits, a better retirement package, better overtime/double time benefits, etc. But, because I got dirty at work and worked outside, it was assumed, I was 'poor' or 'beneath' office workers. It's just interesting to me. It's interesting to me now, because I see comments (even on this site) that landscaping/outside work is still treated this way, and that's what I do now...not because I'm poor and it's the only job I can get...but because I love love LUV it. Yet, it's assumed I wouldn't be doing this work if we weren't in a bad economy, or this is a low-paying field, or some other classist somesuch.

It's also interesting to me how One's friends tend to also come from One's own class bracket growing up. And, if One's friend(s) falls out of The Specified class bracket, One will somehow (subconsciously even) find a reason to drop that friend. I even saw someone post in one of these online survey threads that the quality they most admire in the friends is money. It's just surprising to me.

I have partnered with people who tend to have more education than I, and who grew up with more money than I. This has caused some problems in the past. One area I've really seen this is in the area of 'food in the house'. For some of my partners, when there's not too much food in the house, it's not that big of a deal. "If there's no food, we'll just go out to eat". But I (me,me,me) go through something I call, Food Panic. Even if I have money in the bank, it freaks me out if there's no food in the house (or if the pile is getting low). I've only noticed this type of Food Panic in people who grew up poor...people who have experienced not eating for days (our of Poordom...not out of 'I don't feel like eating for a few days-itis'). Even my dog goes through food panic, and constantly checks the level of food in his bag (yeah, Mahhh Boo and I have been poor together). I also tend to hoard food. I'll do this in hotel rooms; I did this on a cruise. I have to have food with me. I even keep food in the car in case there's an emergency.

I've also noticed that sometimes when One falls from a certain class bracket, some people will immediately equate that with 'an issue' (drugs/depression/some reason to blame the One who fell from the class bracket they were in). Example: When I lost my job a few years ago (you know, with half the country who lost their jobs too), some people stopped talking to me, because I couldn't afford to go out to eat and do the same things I used to do. I heard all kinds of stories through the rumor mill that the reason I didn't have any money is because, "all he does is sit around and do drugs all day". Now...um...if I can't afford to eat, I certainly don't have money to buy drugs. I mean, I heard allllllll kinds of crazy stories about why I didn't have any money. But I never heard from Others about how we were in such a miserable economy, and how half the country had lost their jobs, and how we were in a recession, or any of that. It was always blamed on my fictitious drug problem. It's just interesting to me how being poor/doing drugs/alcohol seem to go hand in hand in some people's minds. I think the stigmas of Olden Days still carry on no matter how ridiculous they are. Being poor is (almost) always chalked up to something The Poor Person did. "They don't work hard enough"
"They're on drugs"
"They're lazy"
"They're just not looking for a job"
"They just don't want it bad enough"
"They'd rather just mooch off of other people"



I'm Rambling Now,
Dylan

[Kobi]

Medusa,

Congrats on your promotion! And congrats on what sounds like some new found freedom....there is nothing like it and I personally find nothing wrong with it.

I hear what you are saying. It is difficult sometimes to feel comfortable sharing a success when it is unclear how people will react to it.

Personally, I enjoy watching my friends and family do well. I know a lot of hard work, long hours, sweat and tears went into what they accomplished. And, I am pleased to know the outcome was successful.

The only times I can remember success bothering me is when it changed the person i.e. a down to earth, humble person transforms into a corporate witch with an obsession with possessions, the accumulation of things, and little regard for people.

Having become much less materialistic as I age, I am enjoying staying out of the rat race I was in for decades. And I am learning more and more about bargain hunting so I can be more leisurely. It is a wonderful sense of freedom.

So, I say...be happy for what you have done and what it will do for you! It is ok to be successful.

[dreadgeek]

Medusa;

Firstly, congrats on the promotion!

Interesting topic and one I've been giving a lot of attention to of late. (I plan on going a panel about butch identity and class at Butch Voices Portland this fall)

I grew up upper-middle class although my father grew up poor (Depression-era poor) and my mother grew up in a farm family. I am *very* uncomfortable talking about my salary--even with friends--because it seems unseemly one of those things in the category of "not done". I am very uncomfortable talking about the things I own--again, it just seems unseemly. To give a sense of how deeply ingrained this is:

My mother died in 2007 and I inherited one of the rental properties they owned, my sister got the family home and the other rental property. There was also some cash as well. We paid off both our debts and bought a nice car (Audi A4) and did some traveling and furnished our house. The usual stuff.

A few things:

1) I'm profoundly uncomfortable even saying as much as I've said. Even when all the probate and escrow stuff was going on and I was participating at the dash site I don't think I posted much about all those trials.

2) It was the first time that Jaime really had any real idea what kind of money and material things I grew up around. I had told her about my parents, of course, and about my childhood. But until she first saw the house I grew up in, she really didn't have a picture. Driving back to Portland from Sacramento she commented that she hadn't really realized I'd grown up rich.

3) At this point in our lives, Jaime is living in a manner that is more comfortable than at any point in her life. I'm still not living in a manner that is as comfortable as what I grew up with while still being very comfortable. I am, again, profoundly uncomfortable saying what I make a year even amongst my friends. If they know the industry and what average salaries are, they can probably get in the ballpark but when I've gotten promotions (as I did in '08) or a raise (which I did in '06 and '07) I have mentioned the raise and perhaps the percentage without saying percentage of what. Again, it is this tape that if you have money, you don't talk about how much you have, how much you make and you don't draw a lot of attention to the things you own.

Jaime also observed that when she looks at my sister and I, we strike her more as 'old money' (without being trust-fund babies) than nouveau riche. I think the difference being that neither my sister or I throw the money around.

Then, there's the issue of middle-class people appropriating working-class identity. It bugs me. I mean really, seriously, nails-on-chalkboard, bugs me. It bothers me at the same level and for the same reason as cultural appropriation (by this I mean someone who is not Native American claiming that they are tribal because they have some Native blood dating back to around the war of 1812). It's obnoxious. At the same time, when I was first coming out in the late-80's/early-90's an ethic was developing in the SF Bay Area queer community that middle-class was one of the worst things you could be. It wasn't exactly being a Nazi but it was in the same moral orbit as being a Nazi or a Klansman. It has been a long road to a place where I recognize that--for better or worse--I am a product of the black middle-class. It is written all over my personality. I can't pretend (and have never tried to) that I grew up poor because I didn't. I won't pretend to know what it is like to grow up poor--even though Jaime has certainly told me about her childhood. I am finally at a place where I can be okay with being middle-class and not hang my head as if I had something to apologize about while, at the same time, not looking down my nose at people who did not grow up with my advantages and/or do not have them now.

One last thing, if war is the way Americans learn geography, I believe that race is Americans' language for talking about class. My experience of what it means to be black is *very much* mediated through my class background. It does not eliminate racism in my life, nothing does that. However, my day-to-day experience of racism is very different than my cousins on my father's side who grew up not quite as impoverished as he and his brother did but still with far less money than my sister and I.

Actually, truly the last thing--if you ever want to know why I am so passionate about education, why I believe that it is truly a liberating force and why I resist any rhetoric that would try to get people of color to doubt the value of an education, one need look no further than my father to understand the why of it. The ONLY difference between my father and his brother was that my father got a college education and my uncle didn't. That difference, a B.A., changed the trajectory of my father's life into an orbit that, at the end of his life in 1999, he had achieved a lifestyle that would have looked (and been) impossible when he was born in 1922. How different? Keep this in mind, my father was blue-black. He was so black that my maternal grandfather at first forbade my mother to marry him because he (my grandfather) thought that my dad was 'too dark to have any prospects'. So this man, from a little postage stamp in a town in Northern Louisiana (small enough that native Louisianans say "where?" when I mention Ruston), raised by a single-mother in the midst of the Great Depression, became a full-professor in one of the more respected (at the time) education programs in the country and was in demand as a educational policy consultant across the country. Education can make all the difference in the world.

Cheers
Aj

[Apocalipstic]

To jump off of what AJ said, often education is the marker, rather than how much money someones makes/has.

How many times have I heard, Ohhh, so and so works in a car or other type of factory, but for 100 years those have been stable middle class jobs that paid for education, families, very nice homes, amenities, boats, travel etc. But a factory worker or truck driver might be seen as lower class than someone who makes a 10th of what they make (or rather did until recently) who works at a museum or a high school or even in retail. It is somehow seen as more higher class since no one actually gets dirty.

In some other countries, the UK and Argentina that I know of, the Middle Class is actually wealthy people who work. Powerful Doctors, Lawyers, Government Officials, Captains of Industry are Middle Class, as is anyone who has a job no matter how much money they have. To be rich, one does not work at all.

In this scenario, most of what we call Middle Class in the US falls into "Upper Poor" maybe?

Thoughts on what actually is Middle Class?

[Blade]

I think sometimes poor choices put a person in a seemingly lower class, just as sometimes good choices put a person in a seemingly higher class. Just because a person seems poor to someone else doesn't mean they view themselves as poor. Just because a person seems higher classed doesn't mean they are or that they view themselves as such.

My Dad's family were dirt poor financially, but oh so rich in family and values. They had everything they needed, and really most everything they desired, because they were simple folks and didn't want all the expensive things in life. They didn't live on credit. They died indigent.

My Mom's family *chuckling*..well I think you've seen my posts about how frugal they were/are. Pa told me one time if you save half of everything you make, you'll be worth something one day. Now mind you, they got their money from working for it and saving half of all they made. Nannie made most of their clothes, they always tithed their 10% at church, and there are many "saving" things they did at their house. From the outside looking in you'd never know they are worth what they are worth.
My Nannie is very much a classism type person but my Pa was just an ole country boy done good.

More later maybe as I have a lot on my mind on this thread just not sure how to word it all just yet.

[Lady_Wu]

First, Medusa, conratulations on the promotion and second, congratulations on a great thread! I am on disability and make almost no money but do not consider myself poor. I am rich in education (MA in Philosophy), have taught University, and have been a librarian, paid and unpaid, for most of my life. I think that my attitude gives me enough. I study online at a Buddhist college and offline on my own. I have a roof over my head, food to eat, and cable internet. I have clothes I like to wear. So I do not consider myself "poor" at all. I do tend to bristle when I hear people talk disparaginly about people on SSD/SSI. I had 2 strokes at an early age, plus have MS, RSD, and fibromyalgia. This is not my fault-I would rather be working. So would most I've met!

[AmazonWoman1]

Congratulations on your promotion.I think what is really going on is people were raised with the Bible.In it there are references to the money changers in the temple as well as the eye of the needle comment about the rich entering heaven.This all was done to make for more compliant sheep like people.The eye comment actually refers to a very small gate used in forts for entries at night of people.The camel would have to crawl to enter.The shame about money stems from this.It was portrayed as a bad thing to have money.Our fables & myths control what behavior we want to see continue or stop.

[Venus007]

You can't imagine how many time I heard:
"The love of money is the root of all evil" 1st Timothy 6:10
The story of Ananias and Sapphira was a huge one too.*(link to the story if you don't know it)

It was assumed a way that you would show your gratitude to (and deflect the coming catastrophe (rare gift without curse)) was to give a gift to the church if you had a windfall or married well.

I need to think about this more

Originally Posted by AmazonWoman1

Congratulations on your promotion.I think what is really going on is people were raised with the Bible.In it there are references to the money changers in the temple as well as the eye of the needle comment about the rich entering heaven.This all was done to make for more compliant sheep like people.The eye comment actually refers to a very small gate used in forts for entries at night of people.The camel would have to crawl to enter.The shame about money stems from this.It was portrayed as a bad thing to have money.Our fables & myths control what behavior we want to see continue or stop.

[Melissa]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

To jump off of what AJ said, often education is the marker, rather than how much money someones makes/has.

How many times have I heard, Ohhh, so and so works in a car or other type of factory, but for 100 years those have been stable middle class jobs that paid for education, families, very nice homes, amenities, boats, travel etc. But a factory worker or truck driver might be seen as lower class than someone who makes a 10th of what they make (or rather did until recently) who works at a museum or a high school or even in retail. It is somehow seen as more higher class since no one actually gets dirty.

In some other countries, the UK and Argentina that I know of, the Middle Class is actually wealthy people who work. Powerful Doctors, Lawyers, Government Officials, Captains of Industry are Middle Class, as is anyone who has a job no matter how much money they have. To be rich, one does not work at all.

In this scenario, most of what we call Middle Class in the US falls into "Upper Poor" maybe?

Thoughts on what actually is Middle Class?

I grew up in England and the class divisions in the US still confuse me. I have to admit that a lot of the posts here confuse me. I don't understand class shame.

Class for me always meant if you worked you were working class (plus there are issues of accents) if you owned your own business or worked for yourself you were middle class and if you didn't have to work or had inherited money/a title/ the right accent/education then you were upper class. Being upper class wasn't tied to income.

You could be poor but be upper class based on your accent, family, or if you had a public school education. To me, what is defined as middle class in the US is working class. Plus, the US is supposed to "classless" yet there is a huge obsesssion with class.

Can we exchange the word class for income? Because in the US class seems to be more about what income bracket you fall into than anything else. Also, your class status changes based on your income so you can move up or down. In England, you are the class you are born into or what your accent marks you as. So know matter how much money I might earn, my class status won't ever change.

Melissa

[Hack]

I think I was fortunate to have the upbringing I did. I had a foot firmly planted in two very different worlds.

First, there was my father's side of the family -- professional, solidly upper middle class (even called "rich" in our little town). I always like to say this is where I learned my table manners -- which fork to use when and all that.

Then there was my mother's side of the family -- loud, boisterious Polish-Catholics. Always a party. I like to say this is where I learned to respect women because Grandma was the center of the family, and the wives, moms and aunts were always upheld and respected. I like to say this is where I learned respect, especially for women.

I'm comfortable anywhere...at a fancy restaurant or at someone's kitchen table being served hot dogs and tater tots. Yet, when I am at some fancy event, you're likely to find me talking more to the hired help, and not my fellow partygoers.

My whole life is a study in dichotomy, but in this respect, I find it beneficial. I think my life is a good mix of the two.

Jake

[Medusa]

Im glad that a few folks have brought up the whole thing where folks appropriate a class history that doesn't really belong to them.

Im trying to tease out a parallel around the very rich and the very poor. There is almost some kind of....I dunno...."money ceiling"? where the very wealthy and very poor are concerned. Some kind of untouchable glamorization.
I think of the very wealthy as they are shown on tv and how there is this mythical unicorn feeling attached to them through tabloids and media. Movie stars and singers with gold-plated dog bowls and $30 million homes are elevated to this "untouchable" (or maybe unimaginable) status.
There is "celebrity" attached through wealth. The idea that human beings are worth more if they are "worth" more.

But then, there is this weird dichotomy where the very poor also have a mythical unicorn thing attached. Think of Nuns and Monks who have no earthly possessions; I think society oftens sees this life as "magical" or "untouchable". The celebrity attached here is one that says "This person must be magical in other ways because they have no money". Glamorized for what might seem like a perfected lack of desire?