Life Chances: Class and Race

Life Chances: Class and race in a Classless Society chose Maine, said masquerading reporter-as-a-low-wage worker, the social scientist Barbara Ehrenreich, "for its whiteness." (Ehrenreich, p.51) Writing in her text Nickel and Dimed, the author makes one of her starkest references to race in this book subtitled on Not Getting by in America in the book's second section entitled "Scrubbing in Maine." She portrays a virtually all-white world where class and occupation still create divides between peoples. Ehrenreich describes herself ostracized when shopping after work, based on her appearance alone in a maid's costume. However, she actively sought out such a white community came from her experiences in Florida as a waitress, where she often found herself "at the wrong end of some infallible ethnic equation; most but by no means all, of the working housekeepers I see on my job searches are African-Americans, Spanish speaking, or refugees." (Ehrenreich, p.29)

Some of these refugees from Central and Eastern Europe are white. But Ehrenreich's experiences suggest that, given a plurality of cultures, people are most comfortable seeing those in service jobs, often in demeaning positions such as busboys and housekeepers, as different from them, rather than similar to them, and race is an obvious physical differential, even more so than the trappings of class or even the inability to speak English. The introductory Maine Merry Maids tapes, despite the whiteness of the state, each have "starring an attractive possible Hispanic young woman." (Ehrenreich, p.73) the predominance of non-white workers in the most prominent service jobs makes the American class differentials seem more secure, for there is no need to think 'there but for the grace of a good economy/education/several generations as part of the white collar word' go I, for a white professional making use of such services.

But in the absence of racial diversity, community class tensions do not evaporate. "If we're cleaning their house, they're wealthy," observes a maid. (Ehrenreich, p.95) or, as less saliently put by Michael Hughes and Carolyn J. Kroehler, social stratification "results in some members of society benefiting greatly and others suffering and thus "social arrangements are not neutral but serve and promote the goals and interests of some people more than they do those of other people. (Kroehler & Hughes, p.175)

Class and race thus do not exist in some narrow, either/or dichotomy. There are some suggestions that Ehrenreich did not benefit from her race, as her difficulty to get a job as a maid in Florida is of amble evidence. However, the social perceptions that could have gained her an easier entry into low-class work also could have kept her there, and prevented her from entering a management position. Gender in the absence of race seems to be the cutting divide at the Maids, while the individual who is in charge of the franchise is male, and a male voice guides the Hispanic demonstrator on the tape. But in more diverse Minnesota at the Wal-Mart, Ehrenreich is recruited as "management material," a status not extended to her nonwhite colleagues. (Ehrenreich, p.109) "Much of our interaction with others consists of subtle negotiation over just how much deference, honor, respect, and awe we are to extend and receive." (Kroehler & Hughes, p. 178) Divisions of respect are not exclusive to race, but race seems to predominate, with class, language, and gender stepping in only afterwards, in the absence of clear racial markers.