Rhi. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rhivolution) wrote2010-06-17 10:07 pm
rhivolution) wrote2010-06-17 10:07 pm
class, part 1.
Class. Right. This may not be as coherently structured as I'd like, so please bear with me.
I'm going to start with a little bit of personal class narrative in this post, then do a second on analysis. If you wanna skip the first part, which is really sorta unpacking, it's cool--it's just me explaining where I'm coming from. I don't do this to try for credibility, merely to elucidate my POV and to avoid derailing much into my personal story while analysing.
I was born in a fluctuatingly lower-middle-class home, then segued into a semi-stable lower-middle-class life in my late teens, due to familial circumstances. Explaining what that means is difficult and requires a lot of family history that I don't care to go into publicly. My parents are divorced. As an elementary school teacher (with a master's degree that she earned at age 50), my mother is technically, a professional, but she sure as hell doesn't get paid like one, and while she loves her job and career, I doubt she'd class herself with lawyers, professors, and doctors. My father is currently working-class; many of my living relatives of all generations are now or have been working-class.
I come from, as noted in my sticky, a very long line of dairy farmers. Of course, there are different levels of working-class. Lots of my paternal relatives like NASCAR and Jeff Foxworthy and Toby Keith. Some have even sported mullets. They milk cows and swear and live in the country and work in factories and vote Republican because they don't want high taxes. They talk a bit like the people in Fargo, and blaze orange is honestly a fashion statement.
And my maternal side is, though less playing to the alleged stereotype, still of a certain mindset. My grandpa was a janitor in the high school after he was a farmer, and for side money he and my grandma were domestic workers for a well-off family at their summer house; they saved a lot of money and now live well enough. But we still don't particularly like going to doctors unless half dead--right now, my mother has been sounding consumptive for the last week, but god fucking forbid she go to urgent care. We add water to the hand soap to use the last bit to the fullest. We wash out Ziploc bags and reuse them. We go through coupons and sale flyers religiously. All the stupidass 'money-saving tips' in news stories over the last two years? My family has been doing that since ever ago (so we're not sure how else to pinch pennies, thanks).
And yeah, that's more privileged than some, but it's still an issue, a culture, a way of life.
From those 'tropes', I got pushed into middle-classness, sort of. I'm second generation college-educated, my mom and two aunts got their degrees, and my dad went to college but didn't graduate. I got a good education at a high-end private college, thanks primarily to the largess of upper class people. While I wasn't the only person I knew from my level of class situation or a less-monied one, I was certainly on the lower end of the finance scale. I did spend a lot of time feeling inferior, and for a lot of time, I was ashamed. I still feel that way, unfortunately, sometimes. I know my mother worries about interacting with people who have more money than she does, or do more prestigious work.
Like there's a taint, like there's the smell of cow shit lingers on our shoes or something, or like people will instantly know you're wearing Hanes 6-pack undies instead of something Nice.
Thing is, she's right.
Unfortunately, some people do still care. I mean, you can skim the surface and find that out, without even digging much. Shit, look at the fashion bullshit all over the media, and how to redo your house, and getting a nice car is important, and and and.
Oh, and that's before we get to my fellow liberals. You know, the ones who call people like my relatives trash, and say that I live in a hick state, and talk about the stupid rednecks who vote Republican even when it's fiscally unwise. But now I'm getting into analysis...
I'm going to start with a little bit of personal class narrative in this post, then do a second on analysis. If you wanna skip the first part, which is really sorta unpacking, it's cool--it's just me explaining where I'm coming from. I don't do this to try for credibility, merely to elucidate my POV and to avoid derailing much into my personal story while analysing.
I was born in a fluctuatingly lower-middle-class home, then segued into a semi-stable lower-middle-class life in my late teens, due to familial circumstances. Explaining what that means is difficult and requires a lot of family history that I don't care to go into publicly. My parents are divorced. As an elementary school teacher (with a master's degree that she earned at age 50), my mother is technically, a professional, but she sure as hell doesn't get paid like one, and while she loves her job and career, I doubt she'd class herself with lawyers, professors, and doctors. My father is currently working-class; many of my living relatives of all generations are now or have been working-class.
I come from, as noted in my sticky, a very long line of dairy farmers. Of course, there are different levels of working-class. Lots of my paternal relatives like NASCAR and Jeff Foxworthy and Toby Keith. Some have even sported mullets. They milk cows and swear and live in the country and work in factories and vote Republican because they don't want high taxes. They talk a bit like the people in Fargo, and blaze orange is honestly a fashion statement.
And my maternal side is, though less playing to the alleged stereotype, still of a certain mindset. My grandpa was a janitor in the high school after he was a farmer, and for side money he and my grandma were domestic workers for a well-off family at their summer house; they saved a lot of money and now live well enough. But we still don't particularly like going to doctors unless half dead--right now, my mother has been sounding consumptive for the last week, but god fucking forbid she go to urgent care. We add water to the hand soap to use the last bit to the fullest. We wash out Ziploc bags and reuse them. We go through coupons and sale flyers religiously. All the stupidass 'money-saving tips' in news stories over the last two years? My family has been doing that since ever ago (so we're not sure how else to pinch pennies, thanks).
And yeah, that's more privileged than some, but it's still an issue, a culture, a way of life.
From those 'tropes', I got pushed into middle-classness, sort of. I'm second generation college-educated, my mom and two aunts got their degrees, and my dad went to college but didn't graduate. I got a good education at a high-end private college, thanks primarily to the largess of upper class people. While I wasn't the only person I knew from my level of class situation or a less-monied one, I was certainly on the lower end of the finance scale. I did spend a lot of time feeling inferior, and for a lot of time, I was ashamed. I still feel that way, unfortunately, sometimes. I know my mother worries about interacting with people who have more money than she does, or do more prestigious work.
Like there's a taint, like there's the smell of cow shit lingers on our shoes or something, or like people will instantly know you're wearing Hanes 6-pack undies instead of something Nice.
Thing is, she's right.
Unfortunately, some people do still care. I mean, you can skim the surface and find that out, without even digging much. Shit, look at the fashion bullshit all over the media, and how to redo your house, and getting a nice car is important, and and and.
Oh, and that's before we get to my fellow liberals. You know, the ones who call people like my relatives trash, and say that I live in a hick state, and talk about the stupid rednecks who vote Republican even when it's fiscally unwise. But now I'm getting into analysis...
no subject
I just really am glad you're starting this conversation here.
no subject
Thanks so much for reading, and I'm glad you feel it rings true--the rural/urban gap is another thing I'd like to talk about, and didn't really cover overly well in part 2, unfortunately. Maybe there will need to be part 3.
It's too damn hot for me to have spoons though.
no subject
Thank you so much for posting this and the bravery to unpack in public!! I, personally, especially appreciate it as seems you and i have a lot of overlap. Tho' interestingly, i have a quite different attitude when it comes to dealing with people up-class (i just made that up -- i hope it works), which is basically, "fuck them, they can take me as i am or not, i don't much care." But i think that's more being a Granddaughter of Liz than anything else. My grandmother was, uh, pretty stubborn and contrarian. :D
no subject
In terms of up-class (that term works really well for me) dealing, I have that too! I didn't really get into my 'fuck them' issues because that can lead to me ranting, often unfairly, about What People Do With Their Money And Don't Understand.
no subject