Dear Sticky Wicket,
Are Americans defined more by class than race today?
~Rich versus Poor, Southern California
Dear Rich versus Poor,
Society likes categories. We like to put people in boxes of young, old, rich, poor, male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, black, and white. And we treat people differently depending upon those distinctions.
When it comes to race, society has long held strict distinctions, many of which are overtly stereotypical. These beliefs long associated with blacks, include poverty, crime, and welfare. Whites possess the distinction of wealth, wholesomeness, and self-sufficiency.
Blacks and whites see the world through different lenses because of history and shared experiences. As a result, it creates a fraternity of race beyond mere skin color.
But hard economic times may cause these racially compartmentalized distinctions to begin to blur somewhat. As races share in either poverty or wealth it begins to create a fraternity of class, meaning that a poor black or Hispanic has more in common with a poor white kid than a rich black, white, or Hispanic kid and vice versa.
Carey O’Donnell president of the O’Donnell Agency public relations firm says the definition of class incorporates parameters of experience, education, and customs, so regardless of race, those with higher education and life experience have more in common with each other.
“For instance, white, well-travelled New Yorkers with good educations, have more in common with wealthy Hispanic families or businessmen from Sao Paolo, than a family living at poverty level in Arkansas,” O’Donnell says.
Although there is a certain cultural gap between these Brazilians and New Yorkers, O’Donnell adds. For the most part, they still study the same things, travel to the same places, and enjoy similar dining and health related experiences within their own cultural norms.
“The poverty level family, no matter what their race, is not in synch with these experiences,” she says.
Comments
response
It is very interesting to see how citizens of the United States are starting to see themselves and how our society is now looking at them. The author writes how we categorize Americans as if we were to be putting them in boxes but this makes me think back to an article we read about earlier in this semester by Otto Santa Ana about Identity. Santa Ana writes how people do not just have one identity; but rather have multiple identities at a time, so for this reason I do not believe it is like placing people in boxes, and therefore I do not totally agree with the author of this article. I also believe that some people, not all, are looking past the racial identity when it comes to social class. But when it comes to social class I still believe that race is still an issue. For example I have an uncle who I think has been pretty successful in life and is even attending USD, however when he moved to a new house with his family in a nice part of Escondido, Ca (mostly white neighborhood) his neighbors were not so friendly to him. My personal belief is that this has to do with racial issues. No matter how rich or poor you are race will always be an important factor to other people on labeling who you are.
Classism v. Racism
The week during my diversity lecture we discussed different types or classism. My Professor gave us each types of issues that faced oppression. For example, depression, being HIV+, and becoming wheelchair bound after a life full of mobility. I began to think that although these are nothing to do with classism based on financial purposes it all connects to money in the the end. For example, if one has a tragic car accident and suddenly finds themselves wheelchair bound that person is unlikely to be as comfortable and have the medical advancements and technologies if they are in the working poor class than someone would have who is middle or higher class. Most likely if they become wheelchair bound they will be unable to continue work and with little prior savings have not much to live on. True, that people with depression or HIV+ backgrounds are much more likely to connect with each other on an emotional level the reality is that today people are much more classified and "forced" together by they economic background. What they have pushes groups of people together based on experiences. You are unlikely to find a group of high class folk at a soup kitchen therefore the people who tend to the soup kitchen are likely to have interaction together. The class of a person begins the labeling in recent time periods.