I Wouldn't Be Caught Dead In a Volvo

I first became aware of class when I was in elementary school honestly. I’ve always been lucky enough to be part of the upper middle class for most of my life. I had opportunities, I had expensive clothes, I was very fortunate. I could see kids around me in school who didn’t have as much as I had. Some of my friends I hung out with didn’t have as much as I did. I can honestly say though, I was never someone who was classist. I never judged anyone by what they had and I’m proud of that. I was brought up to appreciate the things I had and to know I was lucky and that it could be taken away in a second. My best friend was part of the “blue collared” class. His father was an electrician unlike my father who was one of the head honchos of a large fiber company. Class has affected my life by opening my eyes to the things I’ve been fortunate enough to have. A couple years ago my parents moved and they got lower paying jobs and we became part of the ‘middle class’. I’m still fortunate but I don’t have the same opportunities necessarily that I had when I was in elementary school. We don’t’ go to fancy restaurants anymore, which is fine with me. Class is so invisible in the culture because no one wants to admit that they are forcing people into categories and assuming something about someone. When the teen girl in the intro to the movie was saying “he’s grumpy…. He’s a dork….” It interested me because I didn’t understand how she could just categorize someone into these ‘classes’ that exist in high school. There are so many different forms of classes. Rich, middle class, poor. Cool, dork, loser, goth. There are so many categories that people just label in our society and when you challenge them about it, they get defensive and deny it. In everyday life, they don’t pay attention and the class system seems invisible to them. I was talking to my brother today actually, about what language they speak in Afghanistan (he’s in the army and just finished serving his second term over seas), and he said “it depends. It depends where you are and it depends on your class. Higher class people, political people, and dignitaries speak Dari. The lower class system speaks Pashto.” American’s deny that we have a class system, but we can look at it the same way as Afghanistan. Southerners have a different dialect than Northerners and we classify them as “hicks” where Northerners are snobby, rich, jerks. We need to encourage the discussion about class by challenging the norms. We need to fight to not be part of the norms and to extend our “class” until we eliminate it.