Power And Privilege Shape My World

My social class is important because I grew up in a very small town called Topsham, and I grew up in a middle-class family; we aren’t rich but we always had enough to get by. Due to that, I always had what I needed to be successful: Loving parents, food on the table, a bed to sleep in, new clothes to wear, a car etc.

In reality class always matters and it shapes our interests in life. We all come from different background and ethnicity. I believe that class is shaped mainly by income and occupation. However, many people think if a person is wealthy, therefore, he belongs in the upper class. But there are other factors that define class and it is more than just how much money you have. It can be the network of people that surrounds, traditions, and academic status that can also define class. Many of it has to do in which family you have been born and network that creates it. All of my family members have been born and raised in Russia; they completed universities, got jobs, and had enough income to support a family. “Each of us is born into a family with a particular class identity and class history—sometimes it is a mixed or hybrid identity—but almost always it is part of a network of other relationships—to other families in a community, to work and jobs, and to institutions” (Zandy 112).

Throughout my life many labels others have placed on me. From birth I was the eldest child so I was supposedly very responsible while my sister was younger, and even more responsible than I am. I was born into a family considered middle class, so this affected how my future was. As I got older wealth became even more noticeable because others judged me and put the label of poor on me because I didn’t have name brand cloths or the latest shoes. My parents worked in a factory so we got the label of working class family.

No matter where you go in the world, people are divided. They can be divided by their wealth or state of living these are social class. In the novel “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton social classes a very apparent the rich and the poor. In The Outsiders, social classes create a divide in the community. The isolation of these two groups leads to the tension and violence that is seen in the book.

After I read the article, I had to sit back and digest the material for an entire day. The article force me to do some soul searching regarding my position on power, privilege, and oppression. Have I been so oblivious to my surroundings? I quickly thought about the six core values of social work: service, social justice, dignity and worth, importance of human relationships, integrity, & competence. Will I be able to help others; because like Spencer (2008) I took somethings in life for granted? It was ironic when I was reading the article that Martin Luther King Jr, Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandella came to mine. They all fought for the injustice and sacrificed much to change the minds of the one in the position of power.

According to Elizabeth Lowell, “Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.” Sometimes what every situation needs is an outsider to flip the script and create a new outlook on everything. In Shirley Jackson’s novel, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” the speaker, Merricat, is an outsider of society on many levels, such as mental health, gender, and that she is an upper class citizen in a poor area. Although Merricat is mentally unstable, her outsider’s perspective criticizes the social standard for women in the 1960s, indicating that social roles, marriage, and the patriarchy are not necessary aspects in life such as it is not necessary to have the same outlook on life as others.

Moving into society is a transitional phase, marked by new challenges, opportunities and relationships. Transitions in life can change an individual’s perception of the world and obstacles may arise which test individual’s strength. This is shown through analysis of the novel ‘The Story of Tom Brennan’ by J.C. Burke (2005) and the memoir “At least it’s not contagious’ by Samantha Miles (1995). Hindered by emotional turmoil and an uncontrollable situation in Mumbilli, the protagonist Tom Brennan relieves his devastated life in the new realm of Coghill through forming new relationships and accepting new avenues for personal

In the essay “Black and Middle Class”, written by Shelby Steele, Published in “Readers for Writers” book, in 2014, Shelby uses Logos, Pathos, and Ethos to explain how being black and Middle class can have several effect on the black person who is trying to achieve the class ,but have to take his race in the matter.

By allowing social status, skin color, and money to be the main defining factors of a person’s worth, that person struggles to live an open and ambiguous life. A woman cannot define precisely who she is and what she represents until the moment of her death, though she is constantly surrounded by criticism and the stereotypes of society. If a man or his community have already decided that he is superior, worthless, or content when he has only lived a portion of his life, he will struggle to maintain this rigid identity for himself, resisting even small or positive changes in himself.

From the start the novel is laden with the pressures that the main characters are exposed to due to their social inequality, unlikeness in their heredity, dissimilarity in their most distinctive character traits, differences in their aspirations and inequality in their endowments, let alone the increasingly fierce opposition that the characters are facing from modern post-war bourgeois society.

The short story "Class" by Sherman Alexie tells of the struggles of an American Indian man and tries to demonstrate how he reacts to his contrasted feelings and diverse world around him. The central theme of Alexie's short story is contrast, and this theme is evident throughout the story, even in the smallest of details. The actions, emotions and even the language of the characters contrast and these contrasts clearly illustrate the difference the characters have in class.

People are keenly aware of their class status, perhaps not in terms of the specific categories but they instinctively know that in relationship to others whether they are a part of the upper, middle or lower classes

A Social Worker’s reflection on Power, Privilege and Oppression, this is the title of Michael Spence’s article, but what really does that mean? Spence talks about his personal experiences in life that dealt with all three of these aspects, power, privilege and oppression. In this paper this writer will also talk about power, privilege and oppression in regard to Spence’s outlook on the topic. What is power? How does it relate to Social Workers and social situations? Is privilege really something that can be given to you just based on race and where you grew up, or how you were raised? Lastly Oppression, what causes one type of social group to be oppressed?

With regards to my own experiences with social class, I recall times from my own childhood. I grew up in a college town full of highly educated people. Most of the children I grew up with came from very affluent families who lived in very lavish, costly homes. My parents did not have the educational background or financial means to provide the lavish life that most of my friends were living. As younger children, my mother always did a good job of providing for our needs. Other than the outward differences of the home I lived in (which was nice, but modest), or the cars we drove, I was unaware of the differences, those became more apparent as I grew older. Most of my friends took family vacations at least twice every year that involved flying

Social class can be thought of as a very important indicator of who a person is.