Answer one or all: In the U.S. we live in a classist society. The principles that guided our forefathers were ones of individualism and the mentality that everyone should be able to pull themselves up by their own boot straps, but is that a true statement if people don’t start life out the same? Schools that are predominantly African American receive 90 dollars less per student than schools that are predominantly white. 1 in three African Americans are living in poverty, while fewer Than one in ten white people do there same. Those born into affluent families, go to better schools, and are afforded better opportunities, while those born into poor families are often not getting basic needs met. How do you feel about that?
Are you aware of your own experiences with classism?
How, if in any way, do you combat classism?
what is your opinion of the class system that exists in the U.S., and in your own country, if applicable?
What would it take to get everyone in society to a social minimum?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
35 responses to “Classism”
Was that intra-district or across districts?
I admit I don’t know a lot about us school funding, but I did a quick read of studies that were from unbiased sources and with high citation levels in professional circuits. I tried to bypass the sources of known bias and sensationalized or pseudo-scientific reporting.
The studies I looked at were functions of multivariate analysis, looking at spending disparities in uniform rich and uniform poor districts, mixed and uniform racial districts, and in districts of segregated race AND segregated schools within the district.
Long story short, it did not produce the artifact you mentioned. Plus It produced some unexpected results such as marginally more money being spent on poor and non-white students in many districts, including predominantly rich white ones: plus several instances of rich uniform non-white communities spending less on their own children then the national average for similar white districts.
It’s a very complex issue; but one that is very open to tactics of white shaming if one relies on broad univariate analysis.
The studies I viewed did say there were still genuine instances of racial disparity in some districts. But it is not nearly what you propose, and just as often slants to favor the poor non-white students.
Now balance this with an abundance of bursaries in grants available to poor minority students for post-secondary school, and is this really the raging four-alarm fire some white shaming groups might wish it was?
Sources:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2017/05/25/do-school-districts-spend-less-money-on-poor-and-minority-students/amp/#ampshare=https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2017/05/25/do-school-districts-spend-less-money-on-poor-and-minority-students/
https://www.heritage.org/education/report/the-myth-racial-disparities-public-school-funding
@griz I am talking about classism, racism, and the lack of equality in the U.S. Do you at least acknowledge classism as an issue in the U.S? Is it right that there are millions of Americans who live below a social minimum? For the purposes of this discussion, could we agree that a social minimum would be defined as being able to get one’s basic human needs met? What factors do you believe need to be considered when examining inequality?
Personally, I think the biggest factor to consider when examining inequality is the egregious imbalance of wealth in our society. In the last two decades there has been a growth in wealth in the U.S., but the biggest part of that has gone to the wealthiest 1% of population. Many of the wealth holders are millionaires and billionaires in their older age. Many are individuals who started small businesses many years ago when the environment was conducive to white individuals who wanted to obtain business loans. Furthermore, a great deal of the wealth belongs to those who were fortunate enough to be born into wealthy families and lived off the means of their already amassed fortunes.
When one considers individuals such as Bill Gates, another reported multi-billionaire,, we can’t help but question, what if being rich isn’t so much a crime as being so rich that it forces others to be poor? Bill Gates, and other billionaires possess enough wealth that they could distribute it to those living in poverty and still have more than they need to live a comfortable life. But, we live in a society that rewards people who have this type of wealth. Just look at the disparities in corporate welfare versus individual welfare. Individuals living in poverty who have to obtain welfare are stigmatized while wealthy individuals who get tax relief for their corporations are viewed as something to aspire to, and have no stigma attached to the assistance they receive.
The wealth disparities are highlighted even more greatly when comparing african american individuals to white individuals. Having already endured the oppression of slavery and racism, African American individuals continue to encounter inequality in the areas of housing, education, employment etc. In the last few decades, these disparities seem to have gotten worse rather than better, with the wage gap growing. Almost one out of three blacks live in poverty compared with fewer than one in ten whites.
So what would it take to promote an equal and just society? I think we need to awaken that classism exists, and stop allowing racist and classist acts, and recognize them for the social problems that they are. This will mean that we need to cultivate an environment that encourages conversation, listening, and having those in different classes to become more involved and inclusive of each other. The conversation could begin around the inbalance of wealth in our country, and how to redistribute that wealth, as well as make opportunities more available to minorities (end institutional and structural racism). A mathematician could end poverty today by redistributing wealth and opportunities to ensure a more just and equal society, but first it would take a critical mass to agree that it needs to be done. Any social problem could be solved if enough people agreed that it was a social problem.
How would you feel about making every person in the u.s. bank balance 0 right now?
Thoughts?
Reference: Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W.J., Castaneda, R., Hackman, H.W., Petters, M.L., Zuniga, X.(3rd Ed.). (2013). Readings for diversity and social justice: An anthology on racism, sexism, anti- ‐ Semitism, heterosexism, classism, and ableism. New York: Routledge.
@Scarlett
I don’t deny that inequality exists. No rational person would. It will continue to exist in ANY system with any degree of freedom . This is so assured, that something as concrete as a statistical equation has been applied to it (the Pareto Principle). The ONLY way to do anything about this sort of freedom-predicated inequality, is to destroy freedom with despotism. And the warning sign of this starting to happen, is when ideologies start taking about “social justice” (borrowed from Fascism) and “equality of outcome” (borrowed from Marxism).
If we want freedom, we have to recognized and accept that some things people are going to have to be left free to hash out themselves, within the freedom of opportunity given, to the outcomes they are competent to achieve. Yes, this sucks. But how are we to “leverage” it for the truly disadvantaged, without also leveraging the lazy and the criminal AND destroying the very entrepreneurial process the nation was built upon?
Have you heard of the Cambridge Somerville Study, commissioned in 1936? While touted as an “early intervention” experiment with disadvantaged groups intended to positively affect juvenile delinquency rates, it was idealistically an attempt to monkey with the Pareto Principle and Gini Coefficient. The experiment backfired horrendously, having the exact opposite effect despite volumes of money and counseling and support thrown into it. (Data showed a marked increase in delinquency and crime rates in the target group compared to the control group.)
There are artifacts that come with a free and open society — or such as we’ve been able to achieve thus far. I don’t think we should give up on trying to resolve these issues of disparity . . . but I would advise EXTREME CAUTION in using the convenient pseudo-science of various “victimhood ideologies” (postmodern neo-Marxism) or “social justice (Fascism) as emotional fuel in the engine of change.
EXTREME CAUTION.
Let’s start with recognizing that the figure you cited was an artifact of uni-varied analysis (a favorite pseudo-science of neo-Marxism) and doesn’t represent the greater reality. Consider how, in very short order and without trying to bias my search except against known sources of biased science . . . I was able to find proof of rich white districts directing MORE money at poor non-white students in their schools, and districts of rich non-white directing LESS money at their own non-white students. Uni-varied analysis in such cases is immoral and incompetent.
So the base premise of these stats is faulty beyond moral and competent (responsible) use. So we ought not to join in that irresponsibility just to prove the point we favor (Machiavellian process).
What destroys a society isn’t poverty. It’s relative poverty, the Gini Coefficient. Because the poorest people in America are far better off than the poorest people in 80% of the world — some of which don’t have NEARLY the same crime-rate as manifest in the West. America isn’t perfect by a long shot. But this insipid demonizing and attempt to radically deconstruct “what is” . . . to build up. . . well, nobody’s really sure . . . is toxic.
No developing society has ever been able to resolve the Gini Coefficient issue, or smooth out the Pareto Distribution without becoming despotic and murderous.
And there are no shortage of nations that have tried and given us catastrophic warnings of more or less where these toxic nation-destroying processes start. But right now the “social justice” movement in America is following almost exactly in their footsteps with people mostly just raging about it, and clever ideologies munging data to “emotionally activate” the ignorant masses, and altering reality to render the perceptions they wish to have (postmodernism) — as some “proof” of their compassion for the downtrodden. (When really it’s something more like hate for those who tread down on others . . . at least until they are in the shoes of those who tread down! And then they’re “righteous”!)
We need to resolve this. But we also very seriously need to NOT persist in processes that History has warned us are catastrophic.
The problem cannot be faced emotionalistically. Cool logic needs to prevail. We need to find a way to distribute wealth from the top end of the financial hierarchy down to the lower end . . . without destabilizing the good structures of freedom, growth, democracy, and competition that have arguably been VERY good things, bringing us to the comparatively good place where we are today.
So how does one do this without:
1) Destroying the entrepreneurial spirit that drives growth and innovation? Why work hard for positive goals if “someone” is going to decide you have “excess” and remove it from you? Why bother pushing for the prize if everyone’s going to end up with equal outcome? (Marxism)
2) Enabling the “victimhood entitlement” (welfare) mindset? Why work for something that will just be given to you?
How do we do this in an “equal and just” way that isn’t going to destabilize the good processes that have brought us thus far? I don’t know.
But I know we’re NOT going to do it by diving once again into failed “social justice” experiments already proven disastrous!
The people in power, and people in general, have such DISMAL recollection and/or understanding of recent History! (And almost zero knowledge of longer-term History! Which is why we’re repeating so many of the same mistakes!!)
We most certainly do NOT need to “awaken” various tribal “classism” processes. That’s what both Marxism and Fascism tried to do. People KNOW these things exist. Using erroneous data and faulty pseudo-science to elicit an emotional response is EXACTLY what both of these failed “social justice” movements tried.
Today, people on the trait-liberal end of the Human spectrum want quick, artificially-induced/enforced(!) change, facilitated by the exact same mobilization of activist emotionalism that Fascism used. But they are borrowing on the “victimhood group” thinking of Marxism.
Any true “fix” of these issues is going to have to come more organically — probably too slowly for most trait-liberals. And most trait-conservatives like things the way they are and don’t want to change.
We are hopefully wise and intelligent enough to change things by methods other than waiting for “the explosive”.
I appreciate your including a source this time. But I’m hoping that you’ll see their bias. The problems they mention are there. Arguably, they will always be there in some degree, for we are Humans. But they are not nearly at the “shocking” levels many of their rarely-cited “studies” bias for . . . and emotional activation of the masses is probably not going to work out any better for us than it has for the most infamous and shocking failed social engineering attempts of the 20th Century.
We are NOT going to solve the problem they tried to solve . . . by following almost exactly in their murderous footsteps. We are going to have to be patient and work this through by the numbers.
Not just by the numbers inflated by emotionalism.
The powerful need a class system so they remain on top. The 1% of the 1% have been killing the middle class for decades. I do not condemn someone who does well, but I do condemn someone who become rich on the backs of poor people which many millionaires and billionaires have done in this country. The good old USA.
@Gina yes, and think of all the poor should that are marginalized and exploited because they are in the minority.
@Scarlett
If there’s far more of them than at “the top” (classic Pareto Distribution). . . how exactly are they in the minority?
The problem is that various “social justice” groups have been busily dividing themselves up into political power-groups looking for a “back door” to the positions of power they crave. Often is is less that they “feel” for the oppressed — as they hate the oppressors and feel that the grabbing of power by any means is the only way to rectify this.
One cannot deny the social power various “victimhood groups” are exerting on the masses right now. Even unto a very anti-freedom process of relying on munged or uni-varied analysis to support structures of “shocked emotionalistic activation” that have proven very effective at silencing and even “banning” disparate thought and critical analysis that is obeying the rules of good science.
Chances are exceptional that I will at some point be classified as some sort of vile miscreant for even daring to point this out!
@Gina
The power hierarchy is more a structure of Darwinian evolution reaching back as far as 7 million years, than some construct of evil despots at the top of the power hierarchy. We can now scientifically show that one of the base hormonal response systems in the brains of most creatures (serotonin) specifically guides and regulates the process of hierarchy.
Yes, those who are there want to stay there — but with few exceptions the “top positions” are fluid. Those who are not there crave to be there and will demonize those who are there . . . until such time as THEY might find themselves there.
And we live in a system where even people who were at the very bottom of the hierarchy, have with hard work and a bit of luck, risen through the ranks even unto “top” positions.
It’s really hard to find any human social constructs without some form of class rankings.
The best way around class tribalism is usually achievement.
Achievement usually requires focus on the goal to the point where a great deal of time is needed.
People underestimate how much time they can spend if they break up things into little pieces, because we’re so used to go-get-it-now. They try to do too much at once, burn-out, & give up forever.
I think it would take a bunch of mandatory measures to get everyone anywhere, & mandatory measures usually will come from a class structure, so….
@luftballooneyegouge “Achievement usually requires focus on the goal to the point where a great deal of time is needed.”- not sure what you mean, but are you implying that if everyone would just focus on the goal, anyone could get whatever they wanted?
How would you feel about knocking every person in the u.s. and Canada down to a $0 bank balance right now?
@Scarlett
They won’t get anything they want, but they’ll lessen their class bondage. It’s one of the best ways to get heard by those up the ladder, because they’ll be more likely to want to hear from somebody if they think listening can help enrich themselves.
The wealthy don’t keep all their eggs in one basket, so to zero in on bank accounts would harm the majority much more, & you’d still end up with the wealthy having the majority pull.
Class stratification formed from a slow social evolution. To try to cut in to this slow evolution with a drastic change is alot like trying to do too much at once, leading to burnout, and surrender/failure.
Society needs to fix the cracks, before trying to float a city in the sky.
@Scarlett
It sounds like he’s saying something akin to competency is factor in a positive experience within the hierarchy.
Your example of knocking everyone down to absolute $0 worth is a poignant study. Actually, most of the same people who are currently at the top of the wealth hierarchy would start to rise rather quickly. And many at the bottom (or in the hole) would start re-creating that hole and climb in. It’s not NEARLY so much an issue of “justice” as one of competency. Allowable exceptions, of course. But the key word here, is “exceptions”.
Yes, there ARE those who’s main competency is in playing the game negatively — pressing advantage in an abusive even criminal way and hoarding spoils in a manner that just leads to the re-creating of the socially destabilizing Gini Coefficient phenomenon in the society.
But there are also many who navigate their way upwards through sheer competence . . . which then can include consideration of those less fortunate. “Compassion” is most likely the wrong word to use here — because most “compassionate” ventures have to remain as “non-profit” enterprises (many of which go on to realize very great profits for their administrators!).
So do we curse and rail at this endemic Human process? Or educate ourselves unto hopeful eventual mastery of it?
For the present at least, it seems like we can either have a comparatively free and open society with inequality — or an “equality” system governed by sufficient tyrannical force to keep Gini and Pareto at bay.
@luftballooneyegouge
Class rankings — the hierarchy — is such a fundamental “truth” that our brains are specifically wired to uphold it and maneuver their way through it. And when that system malfunctions (or is toxified), the scourge of depression rises.
The positive (and harder) path through this landscape relies on competence (leading to achievement), and is a celebration of the individual within the group.
The negative (easier) path, is a sniping game of assassination, thievery, and grabbing power at the expense of others. And when this cannot happen individually, people band up into groups that then tend towards seeking vengeance on the individuals that would dare achieve power on their own.
@griz
There’s the built in hierarchy of age difference fer sure setting up a pattern of seeking paternal &/or maternal substitutes leading to inevitable dissatisfaction because only Mommy is Mommy & Daddy is Daddy.
Winning a lottery would be another way to power without competence & skulduggery.
Inheritance would be another.
Finding a Red Suit aliens sent to Earth that grants the user super powers….
Being Pretty
Looking alot Like A National Leader
Barbara Eden in a Bottle
National Inquirer Blue Dot
Prayer
@luftballooneyegouge
Ah, but what happens to the incompetent inheritor of any of these things?
@griz
I’m not filling in that huge blank left by such a vague question.
That’s your cue.
@luftballooneyegouge
A simpler question then.
What outcome can be predicted from someone who gains any of these windfalls . . . but lacks competency?
@griz
Once again the only way to answer this vague question to Your liking is to make a bunch of binary assumptions with very little to go on.
It’s a waste of time.
Your class system is so funny if it weren’t so sad.
Look at the redneck stoopids that seriously believe they are mentally smarter than a black Harvard grad??
My own experiences with it. I didn’t know we were poor when I was younger, but in comparison to what I experience now; I’m sure we were. But that didn’t stop me from getting a pretty piss poor first job as a management trainee at Kmart and living in a shithole, yet believing I was on my way…and I was. I didn’t quit crappy jobs until I had a better one, and then a better one. I took sideways career steps a few times that had better upward mobility. I chose to move up rather than accept status quo. Does that make me exceptional? I don’t think so. I just wanted more and looked at the options versus believing I deserved to be where I was.
I combat it by just not accepting it, although I must say I do find myself feeling inferior to people who are dramatically richer than me who earned it. The ones that didn’t are not upper class. They are just moneyed poor people.
I don’t think I will comment on your class system. It is self evident. Ours is a little better in that multiculturalism is more mainstream up here. When I walk through The Home Depot it is unusual to hear an un accented English or in fact English at all. We seem to be able to live to some degree in harmonious acceptance of that reality. That is not to say there are racial biases. Stoopids say “eh” as much as those who say “Huh?”
i don’t buy into taking everyone’s bank balance to zero who have WORKED for their cushion. The wall street pricks that have played with other peoples’ money to get rich off other peoples’s losses deserve the guillotine for the same reason that the French chose to invent the darn thing.
but that doesn’t answer your question. Hmmm…what would it take? My son had a really good answer to this that I just can’t recall. I may have to get back to you on this.
@spitfire3dc
I’m kinda curious to how your first job was management. My first job with a paycheck was washing dishes.
Did you know somebody?
Was this after school-training geared towards management?
Did you just find an opening by chance, like walking in off the street?
@luftballooneyegouge management trainee. Basically the Kmart training program started you in the stockroom and my first day included an assignment to empty a garbage room into a garbage truck that had a previous stop at a fruit market. Trust me, I woulda preferred dishes.
I was recruited off campus and just took the interview for the practice. They then made an offer and I worked like hell to try and find an alternative before the day I was supposed to report in a town about 4 hours from where I lived with my parents.
I had to take the job because my Dad’s first question at my graduation ceremony was, “When do you move out?”
I learned an inspirational quote from my first manager there that has helped me be who I am and a few Father’s Day back, my son presented me with a panel that hangs in my off that came from those initial days. That same boss gave me a poem and said; read it, live it. I have tried. If by Rudyard Kipling.
I joke about those days, but it was the best thing I could have done to become independent and a doer, more than a talker…although it didn’t hurt my talkedness, for whatever that’s worth.
Tell me your dishwasher story. what did you take away from that?
@spitfire3dc
Thee worst on the job thing ever was they had this messed-up grease-trap-box, & one day they had us empty the thing full of rotting grease with pans by hand into a 55 gallon garbage can and take it to the grease dumpster at the end of a long parking lot with a van, so one guy had to sit back and hold the can to make sure it didn’t tip over.
I have never smelled anything worse. I don’t think it’s possible. I probably would’ve walked off if it hadn’t been my first job. Dude I was working with stole my watch too! I was 16. I just wanted money for fun stuff.
I learned to kick ass because washing dishes is a race & a battle.
@spitfire3dc
Washing dishes at most restaurants includes taking out garbage cans with hundreds of pounds of food waste to a rotting dumpster at the end of every shift.
@luftballooneyegouge
An interesting discussion.
My first paycheck as a young teen was cutting lawns on homes for sale by a successful real-estate mogul in my home town. I made good enough money to hire some friends, rent some professional equipment. The rich mogul suddenly stiffed me, refused to talk to me, and left me owing for equipment rented and pay role for my now ex-friends!
I’ve done graveyard shifts at convenience stores where I was robbed.
Later I washed dishes at a summer camp. But in each case, luck played less and less a role. It became a matter of proficiency (competence) and the resume that built.
Competently washing off whatever scorched mess off the pans the cook handed me, led to my being noticed and “poached” from by the director for a higher position. As I handled that, more and more responsibilities came — each handled with proficiency and without complaining.
Which led to a combined role of procurement and acquisition, head driver, head plumber — a job that frequently involved dealing with grease traps and malfunctioning septic-chamber pumps. (I had to practically dive in head-first to retrieve the pumps that the previous plumber hadn’t bothered securing lines to).
One often needs an opening; a stroke of fortune or luck; or being “connected” to start out with — unless one grabs hold of the entrepreneurial reigns and creates their own opening.
But from there it’s greatly a factor of competency and proficiency. Those who have it, find more and more doors opening. Those who don’t have it, find more and more doors closing. And from there the divergence becomes exponential.
Reset everything to zero (like happens in a catastrophe), and almost immediately many of the same people start climbing up from zero, and many of the same people start digging a hole.
So is competency a “gift”? A skill? An attitude?
I would say it’s more the latter two.
I like what @spitfire3dc said about “the monied poor”.
@griz
“a job that frequently involved dealing with grease traps and malfunctioning septic-chamber pumps. (I had to practically dive in head-first to retrieve the pumps that the previous plumber hadn’t bothered securing lines to).”
pink eye
‘merican traffic
@luftballooneyegouge
You’re kinda like that guy in the Bible, God gave Satan the go ahead to fuck with.
@luftballooneyegouge
Pleased to know I vex you, and you’re keeping track!
@griz
Pleased to hear your suffering matches your insufferability.
@luftballooneyegouge
You’re just jealous!
@griz
Jealous of what, your trucker pee bottle?
….your jorduhn peterson autographs??
… your lot-lizard filled little black book???
….your pictures of trees?
…. your dream catcher made from fast-food straws, hair you found in a drain, & feathers from the birds you hit?
Who wouldn’t be?
@luftballooneyegouge
That’s spooky you would know about the dream-catcher!
Are you stalking me??
@griz
No, but my nightmares are.
@luftballooneyegouge
Are they mares, or just old nags?
Still, the dream-catcher catches them all!
@spitfire3dc
I like what you said about the “monied poor” who didn’t work for their riches. An astute observation. I saw something similar on an old TV show where people were given a spotlight to complain about how winning the lottery ruined their life!
The mindset and competency (or lack thereof) pre-existed. The windfall of money just enabled it to very demonstrative levels.
@griz @spitfire3dc
WOO WOOOOO WOO THIS IS THE PC-POLICE!!! PULL OVER!!!
Doesn’t using the word ‘poor’ that way cause confusion with the impoverished being easily put into a derogatory category regardless of the circumstance that makes them impoverished?
How about ‘circumstantially-wealthy’?
I mean look at all those syllables!!
We live in a capitalistic society in the US and capitalism = classism. Until that changes the civility, morality, logic and common decency will not prevail. Just why would people in a rich country leave their neighbors to die for a lack of basic medicine, their young without good jobs or retirements, make their elderly work until their dying day, cripple students with lifelong debt, charge new mothers half of average income just to have a baby — not to mention shrug when their kids begin massacring each other at school? What motivates the kind of spectacular, unique, unimiaginable, and gruesome cruelty that we see in America, which exists nowhere else in the world? Money.
I’ve been poor all my life. Though in the US being poor is different than being in a 3rd world country. People treat the poor differently. They walk past them as if they’re invisible