Stained Class

           
This week in sociology we watched a video that covered a plethora of social class related topics. I’m not going to cover the entire video. Instead I’ll touch on the parts I found to be most interesting, and the general idea.           

            The part of the video that I found to be most enjoyable was the part about WASP lessons. The WASP character that they kept interviewing was the easily one of the most ironic, funny, and dissonant characters that the video featured. The part in which he made the claims about the WASP community was what I can only describe as obnoxiously truthful. I didn’t know if it was meant to be a satire of WASPs or if he believed what was coming out of his mouth. The part that I found funny was that it didn’t matter. After watching the WASPs I genuinely believed that they were a purer, more proper people. Their class is depicted in film and other media as a sort of old fashioned, very prim and proper, anti-typical American way of life. The part that I found very enlightening is the fact that the lifestyle is alive and well in the American community. Old money apparently refused to die.

            The more general idea that ties into this section and all of the other is the idea that a class is more than the money you make, it’s who you are. It is something that you are programmed to accept and do from the day you are born to the day you die. It’s your behavior as well as your financial status. Support for this even lies in the way we classify the rich. There is the working class wealth (doctors, lawyers, bankers, etc.), there are the celebrities, athletes, politicians, wasps (old money), and none of these groups belong to a singular “Wealthy” class.

            The article that we read this week talked about food and the different ways that we eat as Americans. The rich eat well, the middle class eat, and the poor eat junk. It talked about how the ability to eat healthy may actually increases with financial status. It’s kind of an odd statistic considering that most of our stereotypes of obese children look something like a fat, spoiled white child stuffing his face with Swedish chocolates, while the real stereotype is the fat minority kid stuffing his face with cheap candy and Ho-Ho’s. There was even a parallel in the video, when the two black kids said that the uptown stores where cleaner and the fruits and vegetable were fresher. The hailed localism foodie ideal is something that is only achievable for middle to high income families, not the ones on well fair and food stamps.

            The general idea that I agree with presented in the video is the idea that changing your class in America is possible but we underestimate the difficulty that accompanies the process. Most people are not in socially mobile positions like we think they are. It is much less a question of motivation as it is of possibility. Social mobility takes motivation, literacy, and connections. Look at Tammy’s case. Can anyone really look at her and have faith in her dream of becoming a teacher, or her son’s dream of climbing the social ranks? No. The majority of people can only express their feelings for Tammy’s situation in pity and disgust. Whether or not they are willing to admit that they feel that way is a different story. For every American that ascends the social ladder, there are another ten that fall off.

 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/climbing-social-ladder-starts-childhood/story?id=7768775