Vignette Related to Race Class or Ethnicity

Vignette related to Race, Class, Ethnicity never realized how class-centric my parents were until later in life. All my friends were from similar backgrounds, so I assumed that there was nothing unusual about my family. Interestingly, race, religion, and ethnicity were not as important as class when I was in middle and high school because our community was already very diverse. Heterogeneity eliminated a lot of prejudices and racial barriers. School classes were comprised of students from a wide variety of family backgrounds. In my school, cliques were formed not necessarily on race, but on class lines. These class lines, furthermore, were not only income-based. This is one of the reasons why the issue of class seemed irrelevant when I was growing up. I was always taught that people from all income brackets are the same, and while it might be cool that Sandy's dad drives a BMW, it really doesn't matter how much money you have. Now I realize that class is a function of occupation even more so than of income. The following story illustrates the fundamental class bias I experienced in high school. I drew from this experience a greater awareness of the subtle nature of class prejudices and I have become increasingly aware of how I inherited some of my parents' and friends' biases. As a middle or high school teacher I would hope to take notice of children who suffer socially for no apparent reason: perhaps they have been taught to feel inferior because of what their father does for a living.

My friend Josephine and I were close all throughout grade school. I knew her father was a plumber and that he owned his own company. My mom always said Josephine's family was fairly wealthy; their house was about the same size as ours, only they had a Jacuzzi and we didn't. Josephine wore a lot of designer clothes in keeping with the latest trends. She was also fairly popular.

One day the two of us went over to a third friend's house for dinner and socializing. The third friend, Rene, came from a very well-to-do family. Her father was a surgeon and her mother a psychologist. They had never met Josephine before. When her parents asked the inevitable, judgment-laden question, "So, Josephine, what does your father do?" their response to his being a plumber was a curt, "OH." Nothing more was said. I could tell even then that they looked down on Josephine not because she was from a certain ethnic or religious background or because she wore tattered clothes or even clothes that weren't in fashion. Her family car, moreover, was as nice as theirs was. This was a clear case of classism: prejudice based on Josephine's father's station in life. He was not a professional or a member of the academic elite. He was basically a glorified laborer in their eyes. Their curt, "Oh" conveyed more than I realized at the time.

A tried to understand from my parents why, if Josephine was not poor, she was considered to be "low class." However, I didn't have the intellectual acumen to come right out and ask, so I merely tried to perceive my parents' own perceptions. Looking back, I can see they treated the issue with a slight degree of condescension: it was so wonderful that Josephine's dad rose through the ranks of the plumbing trade to eventually own his own company. It was a quaint Rockwell-esque portrait of America in their eyes, a symbol of the middle-class and of the American dream. We, I was told in subtle messages, were above that. We were professionals, academics, elitists.