The Class Divide
Class, I feel, is one of those touchy subjects like religion and politics that people just don’t want to talk about openly. They believe that just thinking about ideas of class are insensitive and shallow. Or, they choose to deny the concept outrightly, believing that the borders are so blurred that social class hardly, if no longer, exists (sadly, I find people in this category to be of higher income levels than the majority).
The boundaries that previously defined social class blurred over the history of America, making it harder than ever to decipher between the rich and the poor at face value. It seems anyone can get a cellphone now a days and televisions and music players, even computers are becoming more affordable – all items once only attainable by the relatively wealthy. But why would any righteous person ever want to make that distinction? What difference does it make whether a person is lower, middle or upper class since it doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) affect how we treat each other?
Class, for me, does not and will never make a difference in how I treat a person. In general I strive to be kind and courteous to anyone and everyone willing to be a part of my life. But I would be lying to say that I have never consciously assessed a persons class when talking to or thinking about them, even for a split second. As a gay man, judging is sort of in my nature. From the clothes people wear to the cars they drive, I discern (or what I like to call mentally assessing and constructively criticizing) almost everything. It’s called having eyes.
I hope those of you reading this don’t kid yourself and say that the same hasn’t happened to you. At least I’m being honest. And I believe it is this fear, the fear that making a mental distinction between classes and treating people from different classes differently is one in the same, that keeps any dialogue about the subject hush-hush.
For me, now more than ever, socioeconomic identities, and their accompanying pressures, have been rearing their ugly presences in my face. It’s not like I hadn’t seen these lines before. I always lived in certain parts of my hometown of Harlingen while the wealthier residents lived in Treasure Hills or Palm Valley Country Club. As a child, I lived off Mac n’ Cheese and Ramen and at times discovered first hand what food stamps looked like. Now I live some what comfortably with certain superficial amenities and possessions with my father and his stable, blue collar income. I have family members wealthier than me and poorer than me and I’ve been to all of their houses. I’ve seen both the upper crust sections of the east and west coasts, as well as the ghettos in the cities and the South. But just as the class lines have blurred, this blurring has affected my comfortableness with my life.
A few months ago, I worried myself sick about not having some very much needed health insurance, so as to see a few clinicians that I needed to see, a scenario that I doubt and don’t hope most middle income families have to face. I don’t own a vehicle, even a shitty used one, and I doubt in the future I can ever count on my parents on helping me with my first down payment on a house. My father strains every day to pay for my college education while supporting an extremely dysfunctional family of four. And I’m not the only one affected.
My best friend since the first grade just got his girlfriend pregnant after only six weeks of going out with her (meaning they sure didn’t wait long when they got together) and they’re not even married. My other best friend Cano, a kid that lives in the projects, failed most of his college exams this semester because he was too enticed to skip his classes (payed for by tax payers) for the ‘free’ Internet the library at the school provides. In fact, at this very moment, he’s using the Internet on my cell phone right now. Other friends of mine are dropping out of college like flies.
It seems like the American Dream, the dream of being able to “make something of yourself” by equal or open opportunity is becoming increasingly difficult – income mobility they call it. And although it may be that the rich have it better in almost all walks of life, I understand that life can only be so fair and that hopefully, if I try hard enough, I can make it too, out of the rags and into the riches. And just so you know, my rags are from Target.
Note: If you’re curious, I was inspired to write this entry after reading this archived article from the New York Times. I provided the link below, along with an interactive graphic where you can input some simple pieces of data to see where you fit in America’s socioeconomic classes, if you’re curious.
Leave a Reply