Examples of classism?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make certain assumptions about, say, undergrad business majors that I fully admit are classist. What can I say. My mother was from the "landed gentry" class in her country (mostly broke but proud of their lineage and very connected) and while I try to judge all people as individuals and recognize that different doesn't mean better, I still notice these things. There are a lot of things I was taught are fine for "other people" but not how we do it.

Undergrad business majors are objectively morons.

Why? I'm an engineer, so no real contact, but it doesn't strike me as a dumb major (unlike some I see discussed here--Golf Course Mgmt comes to mind).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Assuming the wealthy are boring, can’t dress, and don’t know how to have fun.

Assuming education is stupid.

Assuming real skills are about knowing how to change oil, rotate tires, and install wood flooring.

Assuming wealthy people are all white, depressed, and unhappy.

Yes! I grew up in a town with these people and it sucked.

[Anonymous]

Examples of classism here on display REGULARLY:

- daycare hate, particularly when couples with suggestions that posters who cannot hire nannies or quit to stay home don’t love their kids as much as people who can do those things

- basically everyone commenting on budgets in the money forum

- assuming that the reason people don’t have massive emergency funds saved or don’t max out 401k and IRAs every year or don’t have college funds for their children is that they are stupid or lazy or have sh*tty priorities

- looking down on non-professional jobs or people who don’t have advanced degrees or people who go to state schools or (GOD FORBID) community college

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I see it here on DCUM all the time...casually assuming everyone lives like you do. Example on the laundry thread... "It's so easy! Just throw it in the washer!"... never thinking that some people don't have a washer/dryer in their home. Little things like that...

Yep. Or how "it's so inexpensive to travel around Europe." No, it's not.

Ok, two very different examples. The first is not classism.

Tell us why not.

Most Americans have washers.

What about “google it” ?? Is that classist? More Americans have a washing machine than a device w/ an internet connection.

This is ostensibly an URBAN website. All the yahoos in flyover land who post here don't think about the people in east coast cities who live in postwar apartment buildings. Plenty of people in DC don't have washers.

+1!

The two of you don’t even hide your elitism in showing your disdain for “flyover country.”

Yeah, those stupid flyover people never think of the poors like us enlightened city folk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make certain assumptions about, say, undergrad business majors that I fully admit are classist. What can I say. My mother was from the "landed gentry" class in her country (mostly broke but proud of their lineage and very connected) and while I try to judge all people as individuals and recognize that different doesn't mean better, I still notice these things. There are a lot of things I was taught are fine for "other people" but not how we do it.

Undergrad business majors are objectively morons.

Why? I'm an engineer, so no real contact, but it doesn't strike me as a dumb major (unlike some I see discussed here--Golf Course Mgmt comes to mind).

It''s little better than a trade school degree.....marginally better than communications. Fluff nonsense that nobody should be paying for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to figure out the difference between, what?--wealthism?--vs classism. Plus although I can easily imagine the old money vs nouveau riche thing, not sure what it would look like if the classist person wasn't actually wealthy. Plus, I think classism has less to do with overlooking the fact that some people lack resources others take for granted (Wilbur Mills saying the furloughed fed contractors could just take out loans) than some kind of judgment about people perhaps?

Here's one thing, although I grew up working class (poor? not exactly but, say, our house did not have a separate dining room and there were a lot of second hand clothes) I have friend who grew up affluent or fairly (not spectacularly) wealthy. And some of them have siblings who were ne'er do wells when they were in their 20s--unemployed living at home not finishing college for example. Those siblings later became affluent, because they were able to later go back to school using their education trust fund, or went into business for themselves and had tons of connections, or a family friend gave them a good paying job and later the inheritance rolled in. And they seem to have zero consciousness of the fact that had they not had those advantages they'd probably be living in a generic apartment building with thin walls and having to fix their crappy car in the apartment parking lot and getting free or reduced price meals for their kids or not able to keep up on child support and working as a line welder in a place that makes, oh, commercial trailers. Even though they grew up in very socially conscious families.

Most parents would allow kids to move back home. Why not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make certain assumptions about, say, undergrad business majors that I fully admit are classist. What can I say. My mother was from the "landed gentry" class in her country (mostly broke but proud of their lineage and very connected) and while I try to judge all people as individuals and recognize that different doesn't mean better, I still notice these things. There are a lot of things I was taught are fine for "other people" but not how we do it.

Undergrad business majors are objectively morons.

Why? I'm an engineer, so no real contact, but it doesn't strike me as a dumb major (unlike some I see discussed here--Golf Course Mgmt comes to mind).

It''s little better than a trade school degree.....marginally better than communications. Fluff nonsense that nobody should be paying for.

So what's your degree in? Also, I don't think that's true at all. (Eng PP)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make certain assumptions about, say, undergrad business majors that I fully admit are classist. What can I say. My mother was from the "landed gentry" class in her country (mostly broke but proud of their lineage and very connected) and while I try to judge all people as individuals and recognize that different doesn't mean better, I still notice these things. There are a lot of things I was taught are fine for "other people" but not how we do it.

Undergrad business majors are objectively morons.

Why? I'm an engineer, so no real contact, but it doesn't strike me as a dumb major (unlike some I see discussed here--Golf Course Mgmt comes to mind).

It''s little better than a trade school degree.....marginally better than communications. Fluff nonsense that nobody should be paying for.

I earned my undergrad in communications, and what I learned has been tremendously helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think strivers worry about class a lot. We see it here all of the time, people trying to figure out the best place to live, car to drive, vacations to take, clothes and makeup and hair to give them a patina of "class"

x1000

Hilarious!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does no one know what “classist” means? This is not a thread about trying to have class or being classy.

I said this earlier and the thread went right on the same vein so I gave up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming the wealthy are boring, can’t dress, and don’t know how to have fun.

Assuming education is stupid.

Assuming real skills are about knowing how to change oil, rotate tires, and install wood flooring.

Assuming wealthy people are all white, depressed, and unhappy.

Yes! I grew up in a town with these people and it sucked.

There is no "ism" or "ist" going in that direction. Classism or being classist is an attitude against people you see beneath you, or less then. In this example, when speaking of class, we're speaking about the "upper class." One cannot be "classist" against the upper class. Classism is designed to keep the power of the upper class, classism denigrates the lower class. You may have ill-will or not like the upper class, but you cannot be "classist" against the upper class. Because as a lower class, you lack any power against them.

The best example I heard recently in discussing racism, for example, is that you can have prejudice against any race. You may "dislike" a race. But for racism to exist it's Prejudice/Bias + Social Power + Legal Authority.

So you may think wealthy people are boring/depressed/can't dress/have fun. That's a bias or prejudice. The attitude remains internal, with no action going anywhere because you lack any ability for it to do so. You lack the social power or any legal authority to do it. So it's a prejudice, but it sure as hell isn't classist.

[Anonymous]

My dad was a doctor and a striver and a recent entrant into the upper middle class. Occasionally we would spend time with my mom's family who were working class and my dad would do these really mean classist things. He would basically make fun of my mom's relatives but he thought he was oh so clever and that they couldn't tell. For example, he'd always have us bring things that in his mind poor people liked -- like a Carvel cake. ANd then when our relatives would say how good the Carvel ice cream cake was and how much they had enjoyed it, he'd be all insincere about how nice it was. Then in the car on the way home he'd make fun of them for liking Carvel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming the wealthy are boring, can’t dress, and don’t know how to have fun.

Assuming education is stupid.

Assuming real skills are about knowing how to change oil, rotate tires, and install wood flooring.

Assuming wealthy people are all white, depressed, and unhappy.

Yes! I grew up in a town with these people and it sucked.

There is no "ism" or "ist" going in that direction. Classism or being classist is an attitude against people you see beneath you, or less then. In this example, when speaking of class, we're speaking about the "upper class." One cannot be "classist" against the upper class. Classism is designed to keep the power of the upper class, classism denigrates the lower class. You may have ill-will or not like the upper class, but you cannot be "classist" against the upper class. Because as a lower class, you lack any power against them.

The best example I heard recently in discussing racism, for example, is that you can have prejudice against any race. You may "dislike" a race. But for racism to exist it's Prejudice/Bias + Social Power + Legal Authority.

So you may think wealthy people are boring/depressed/can't dress/have fun. That's a bias or prejudice. The attitude remains internal, with no action going anywhere because you lack any ability for it to do so. You lack the social power or any legal authority to do it. So it's a prejudice, but it sure as hell isn't classist.

Classism can be both ways? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_discrimination

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming the wealthy are boring, can’t dress, and don’t know how to have fun.

Assuming education is stupid.

Assuming real skills are about knowing how to change oil, rotate tires, and install wood flooring.

Assuming wealthy people are all white, depressed, and unhappy.

Yes! I grew up in a town with these people and it sucked.

There is no "ism" or "ist" going in that direction. Classism or being classist is an attitude against people you see beneath you, or less then. In this example, when speaking of class, we're speaking about the "upper class." One cannot be "classist" against the upper class. Classism is designed to keep the power of the upper class, classism denigrates the lower class. You may have ill-will or not like the upper class, but you cannot be "classist" against the upper class. Because as a lower class, you lack any power against them.

The best example I heard recently in discussing racism, for example, is that you can have prejudice against any race. You may "dislike" a race. But for racism to exist it's Prejudice/Bias + Social Power + Legal Authority.

So you may think wealthy people are boring/depressed/can't dress/have fun. That's a bias or prejudice. The attitude remains internal, with no action going anywhere because you lack any ability for it to do so. You lack the social power or any legal authority to do it. So it's a prejudice, but it sure as hell isn't classist.

Classism can be both ways? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_discrimination

OK, so aside from "making fun of" someone who's wealthy, what effect does "classism" by the lower class have on the upper class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming the wealthy are boring, can’t dress, and don’t know how to have fun.

Assuming education is stupid.

Assuming real skills are about knowing how to change oil, rotate tires, and install wood flooring.

Assuming wealthy people are all white, depressed, and unhappy.

Yes! I grew up in a town with these people and it sucked.

There is no "ism" or "ist" going in that direction. Classism or being classist is an attitude against people you see beneath you, or less then. In this example, when speaking of class, we're speaking about the "upper class." One cannot be "classist" against the upper class. Classism is designed to keep the power of the upper class, classism denigrates the lower class. You may have ill-will or not like the upper class, but you cannot be "classist" against the upper class. Because as a lower class, you lack any power against them.

The best example I heard recently in discussing racism, for example, is that you can have prejudice against any race. You may "dislike" a race. But for racism to exist it's Prejudice/Bias + Social Power + Legal Authority.

So you may think wealthy people are boring/depressed/can't dress/have fun. That's a bias or prejudice. The attitude remains internal, with no action going anywhere because you lack any ability for it to do so. You lack the social power or any legal authority to do it. So it's a prejudice, but it sure as hell isn't

classist.

That is a narrow view of racism!