Essay about Pumped Up Kicks

Mantsios believes that people in the United States do not like to talk about classes, whether it is upper class, middle class, or lower class. He outlines four beliefs that are widely held about class in the United States, and then thoroughly refutes them with statistical evidence. He argues that the class

Last class we watched an informative documentary named “People like Us, Social Class in America”. America is known to be a country defined by class. Throughout the movie it showed different opinions on what class was based on by different people and the answers varied from looks, house size, career choice, race, manners, upbringing, and education. As we move through life, most times we remove ourselves from different people not in our class to then live amongst those who share similar backgrounds and who we are most comfortable with. As stated, “if there is class, there is an inequality one cannot explain and it perpetuates itself”. Revealing class can expose hope, fears, prejudice and a myriad of different emotions that we may not all be comfortable speaking about. I feel as if part two and part three were most applicable to myself because they are something that I have experienced both directly and indirectly.

There is much debate about the issue of social class in the United States. There are arguments about whether social classes are distinctly separate or fluid, dependent upon one’s community or society as a whole, and if they are subjective or objective (Hughes and Jenkins). However, despite the debate surrounding social classes, it is still important to try to define them and analyze their effects, as they are such an important part of our identity and our opportunities in society. Although our society has tried to appear as though we have no classes, and it is becoming harder to tell what class someone is in by material goods, classes do still exist today (Scott and Leonhardt). The trend has been to divide the U.S. into four major

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).

The concept of social class has been around for ages and is still a part of today’s society. Social class is not only based on the individual’s wealth but also on their social standing such as; monarchs, priests, nobles, merchants, and peasant class. The peasant class was practically ignored, which means that the higher classes would only pay attention to each other. This can be the case in society today, there are some people who feel that their career makes them higher than a janitor. Even though humans have been around for centuries, social class is still a big issue.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the “Outsiders” takes place, the divide in the social classes is very prevalent. The two main social classes that were represented were the rich Socs and the poor greasers. The two groups divide themselves by what their families incomes are either you are rich and live on the westside or you are poor and live on the east side. “ Hey can you see the sunset real good from the West side?” (Hinton,129) In the text it is showing Pony talking to the Soc girl Cherry who lives on the Westside. It is showing how divided the two groups are. People usually hand out by people they in the similar social class with a few exceptions of course. Furthermore in the story the westsiders the Socs hung out together, and the east sider the greasers hung out together dividing each other. In addition the two gangs divide themselves by how they act. “ There are lots of drive-ins in town - the Socs go to The Way Out and to Rusty’s, and the greasers go to The Dingo and Jay’s” (Hinton,19) In the text the gangs both went to there own hangouts because the Socs went to there higher end places and the greasers went to there lower end places. A real life example of this is that all of the most of the rich families would hang out at a country club with other friends in their social class and the poor would hang out a bar with there friends.Social classes create divides in the community Because the Rich Socs and the Poor Greasers live in separate parts of the city because of their income differences. That difference also leads them to handout at different places and handout with that group of people in that social classes. The Isolation of these two groups lead to all the violence that was seen throughout the book.

groups based on wealth and status. This idea of social class distinction remains a common theme

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.

There are many ways humans can recognize differences amongst themselves, some of the most notable are race, religion, gender, and politics. Many people view these issues as barriers in forming relationships. However, there is another main reason for these complications that is usually overlooked, that is socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic class can put many divisions between us, this is largely seen in iconic pieces of literature, which also express many ways to overcome the issue.

Social class describes the different "layers" that exist in society. These "layers," or classes in society, are a division that civilization has been running on ever since the beginning of mankind. In most modern societies, our system of social class division is one of opportunity. We experience a good deal of social mobility, where people through generations or in their own lifetime can move up or down the social scale. By examining the many different perceptions of social class along with S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, it is illustrated that social class has an impact on people while they are growing up, and will usually deny them from rising above adversity.

"Events in the nineteenth century made it abundantly and irrefutably clear that race as a concept sui generis superseded social class as the dominant mechanism of social division and stratification in North America." (Smedley 219) For many decades people have been using race as a way to classify humans into different social categories. Lower, Middle, and Upper classes were created to divide humans into appropriate categories using their individual lifestyles, financial income, residence, and occupation. People decided to ignore this classifying system and classify one another,

Grouping people into classes has been an everlasting issue, and it will continue to be an issue as long as people exist. Giving people a class they fall under is a result of the gap between the rich and poor. Friedrich Engels wrote, “The town itself is peculiarly built, so that a person may live in it for years, and go in and out daily without coming into contact with a working-people 's quarter or even with workers, that is, so long as he confines himself to his business or to pleasure walks. This arises chiefly from the fact, that by unconscious tacit agreement, as well as with outspoken conscious determination, the working-people 's quarters are sharply separated from the sections of the city reserved for the middle-class; or, if this does

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

Race still predominantly plays a role in everyday classism. Discriminatory housing practices traps minorities in the lower class for generations. Moreover, America’s healthcare system unfair to people who have low income. Also, Public transportation does not properly serve the needs of those who use it; as well as, it makes it formidable to secure, and maintain a stable job. Additionally, education for the poor unequal in graduation rates; along with, a social polarization against lower class students. Classism in America is an old, yet consistent problem that, creates an unfair economic divide of

Each of these groups is stratified into its own class; the group of people ranked most closely to them in property, power, and prestige. A person’s position in the stratification system affects everything about their life, from what they think and expect in life to how they see the world, as well as what opportunities they will have access to. Although, your status is still assigned at birth, but you have the chance at upward social mobility based on material possessions that you acquire, or things that you achieve. Or you may be on the other end of the spectrum and experience downward social