Class Today : America And Its Universal Influence On The Lives Of Americans

Reading the articles “From Beyond Outrage” by Robert B. Reich, and “A Tangle of Pathology to a Race-Fair America” by Alan Aja. Daniel Bustillo, William Darity Jr., and Darrick Hamilton, made me comprehend additional perspectives about class, ethnic groups, and education to our examination of success. Specifically, the way “A Tangle of Pathology to a Race-Fair America” explains its point of views, and the facts that it provides makes the reader fully understand how race has affected employment throughout the years. Black families were trapped in the Tangle of Pathology; representing how they had, and still continue to have, extremely low benefits and advantages compared to the whites. Race, class and education have a powerful connection, since

America is often referenced with the idea of the “American Dream” and the “Land of Opportunity.” For centuries, people have flocked to America in hopes of a better life and greater opportunity. However, if they are searching for equal opportunity, America is not the country that they will find it in. Success in the United States is limited to the opportunities available to the individual, and without equal distribution of opportunity, financial success is not reachable to those in the lower classes of American society. Notable educators and authors such as Gregory Mantsios and Diana Kendall have brought the problems of American society to attention, claiming that the rich are getting richer and the poor continue to remain poor. In his essay, “Class in America – 2009,” Mantsios discusses the myths that revolve around class in America, and then refutes these myths by describing the realities of the society Americans live in. Similarly, in her essay, “Framing Class, Vicarious Living, and Conspicuous Consumption,” Kendall writes about the realities of the classes in America while advocating for a change in the way the media portrays the class issues. The United States was founded on the belief of equal opportunity for all individuals, and many still believe that equal opportunity still holds true today. Despite the way media masks the class issues, empirical evidence and research show that equal opportunity does not exist in America due to

Social Class and Education”. It opens by discussing research conducted in the 1960’s in an effort to identify factors contributing to differences in the academic achievement of Whites and Blacks (Banks & Banks, 2013). Researchers hypothesized that the achievement gaps were mainly the result of disparities in school resources and characteristics, but found that there is a high correlation between achievement and socioeconomic status (SES) (Banks & Banks, 2013). Furthermore, attention is drawn to the class stratification which exists in our educational system and works to maintain inequality through exclusion strategies such as ability grouping and tracking (Banks & Banks, 2013). Evidence of the correlation between social class and

On Christmas Eve in 2010, my grandmother received a gift from a hospice nurse who was assisting with my grandfather’s deteriorating health. Initially both surprised and embarrassed by the gesture, her emotions quickly changed once she removed the wrapping. A single package of Ramen Noodles was revealed. Embarrassment changed to confusion as she attempted to wrap her mind around what she had received. The hospice worker drove a 1997 Plymouth Voyager that she regularly complained about not being able to run properly for more than a week. She wore old worn out clothing and my grandmother claims she had never seen the woman wear jewelry before. It was evident that she was not wealthy. Although she could not afford a gift, the nurse in her

The author, John Meacham, cites many pieces of evidence to show the current state of classes in American society. Meacham’s purpose for portraying the current state of classes is

In the essay, “Richer and Poorer, Accounting for Inequality” written by Jill Lepore, published in The New Yorker, on March 16, 2015, the author addresses the inequality of income and its correlation to opportunities for citizens in the United States. Ms. Lepore expounds the essay to serve her purpose of connecting with the reader in both a reasoned and emotional way. Effectively using the rhetorical strategies, logos, pathos, and ethos, the author brings this apathetic subject to the attention of the middle and lower class American citizens.

Although the United States may be an industrialized country, it still “…has one of the highest poverty rates in the advanced world” in comparison to other similar countries (Conley 400). This may be due to the high economic inequality between the rich and the poor with “economic rewards [being] far more lopsided” (Conley 400). The American class system is unlike any other industrialized nation in the world as the rich make an average of five to six times more income than the poor: a

In our American society, a gap between one’s aspirations and reality remains extremely wide. Currently, the United States has the least equality and opportunity than almost all other advanced industrial countries. The notion that America is a land of opportunity continues to be questioned as a multitude of studies have exposed this notion as a myth. Economic mobility in the United States is lower than most of Europe. This paper expands on the ways in which the lack of social and economic mobility is even more alarming when looking at the limited movement of African Americans up the social and economic ladder. A portion of this inequality is explained by discrimination based on race. African Americans and Latinos still earn less of the dollar than whites (Khau 2013). In addition, the disparities are explained by the fact that the life prospects of an American are far too greatly dependent on the income and education (Lareau 2002). In turn, it has become more evident and a true reality that social and economic mobility are not equally accessible for all, but rather it is more of a truth for whites in America.

(Barone, 2014, p. 1) The richest are receiving record high incomes, while the poorest in the nation are finding it ever harder to rise above the poverty line. The author Ms. Barone divides and names the five social classes

In her book, Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America, acclaimed journalist and social activist Barbara Ehrenreich comments on the negative perceptions of the working class among educated elites. She feels that the wealthier classes are out of touch with workers, and have even grown to fear and distrust them. In recounting her experiences going from an acclaimed journalist to minimum wage laborer, Ehrenreich revealed many of the prejudices that affluent Americans demonstrate towards the working classes. While working as a maid, she senses a level of disdain from the upper class that she never felt as an educated professional. She rails against the intrusive drug and personality tests that her employers at Walmart demand, feeling that they are sparked by a sense of mistrust of the poor from the management of the company [Ehrenreich 212]. She notices that the poor are conspicuously neglected by the media, as well [117]. Upper-class society has come to think of the working class as a group of people who are idle, negligent, and untrustworthy, undeserving of social status and respect.

The Readings for Diversity and Social Justice did an excellent job of discussing the many perspectives and factors that come into play when dealing with the issues of oppression, as did the video Separate and Unequal revealed the ongoing struggle of desegregation of schools across the nation following the Civil Rights movements. But there was a fault that I personally felt prevented the whole story from being told. There was a missing perspective, the opinion of the middle class, and so I present the article below from the New York Times titled, Middle Class Is Disappearing, at Least From Vocabulary of Possible 2016 Contenders.

Jackson shows the complexity of class identities in Harlem through different arguments from social scientists about race and class. Some theorists believe that poverty is due to one’s own actions and if one should “behave properly” (4) such as working harder, stopping devious acts, finding a spouse and producing less offspring; one would be able to overcome one’s poverty. Another popular theory is that it is more difficult for people who do not have “soft-skills”(4) to thrive in the job market because these “soft-skills” provide the upper hand in competing with other candidates for a job. These “soft-skills” are viewed as the separation between the middle class and the under class. Another theory is how we express our behavior in certain locations

The economic and social class gap in America is evaluated in the book titled, Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. The text aims to illustrate her perspective and experiences by going undercover as a journalist. Ehrenreich portrays herself as a recently divorced woman with the skills of a homemaker. The objective of Ehrenreich’s experiment was to evaluate different jobs requiring little to no skills and to see if she could survive economically on a low wage income. This essay will demonstrate the problem of Ehrenreich’s experiment by showing that her experience was anecdotal, privileged, and contradicted her own rules. In addition, some solutions will be offered for future experiments that are comparable to Ehrenreich’s.

For this summary and response essay my audience is my Ivy Tech English class, and Professor Jo Johnson. The class and I have all been assigned to look into a core reading covering some form of economic justice. The essay I am writing will cover the topics and provide insights on the economy and politics of the unofficial class system present in the United States, in specific, that of the Middle class. It points out flaws and various ways the middle class is mistaken and manipulated. It also provides a deeper look into if the Americans who consider themselves part of this middle class truly have it as bad as some say.

When describing social stratification in America, the essential variables are economic. This rule is valid for a high percentage of Americans; but looking only at economic stratification especially misses the point when it comes to the gap between the Old Money social elite and the New Money elite. As Francine Ostrower puts it, "the social elite is an elite of status. It is characterized by solidarity within the group, social exclusivity and a distinctive cultural identity…[they are] a core within the larger elite" (1995:12). I will examine one way that this status distinction is preserved: through the upper-class system of philanthropy, the giving of money to