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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wealthy in DC today gets = typical middle class life of 30-40 years ago.  [/quote]

Nope, but many of us are aware this is what you tell yourself to justify calling yourself middle class when you are not.

I think part of the problem is that a lot of people grew up being told they were middle class by their parents, who were also not middle class. Like maybe they were for a minute when their parents were really young, but these are people with white collar parents who bought real estate and invested in the stock market in the 80s and now have a lot of money. None of their family is middle class. But they cling to this self perception of being middle class because they remember eating TV dinners when they were 6 and their dad was still a resident, or their parents didn't have real money until they were 14 or 15 and vacations went from road trips to the jersey shore to multi-week European vacations. It's like a weird self-delusion.

Yes there are richer people and those people do NOT send their kids to DCPS. But this idea that you are middle class because you don't own a vacation home in Aspen is freaking weird. Some of you need some perspective.[/quote]

There are relatively few middle class people in DC. We have a ton of rich people and a ton of poor people and not many in the middle. If you live West of the park, and don't live in a tiny apartment, you almost certainly are not middle class. [/quote]

There are plenty of actual middle class people in DC. It's just that people struggle to look past race to see it.

Middle class black and hispanic families (there are tons) are viewed as poor [b]by most white people[/b]. But they aren't. I know many such families with HHIs in probably the 90-150k range. Solidly middle class.

Middle class white families are often just assumed to be wealthier than they are, [b]by other white families and by black and hispanic families[/b]. But they have similar incomes to the middle class black and hispanic families. I'd say on average the middle class white families probably have a little more money than the middle class black/hispanic families (maybe 130-190k). But, again, solidly middle class.

These are people who, like my family, live in apartments or less expensive housing in neighborhoods far from metro, or east of the river. Some of us were able to purchase real estate (condos or east of the river homes) before rates went up, so we are building wealth, but our homes are not appreciating the way the homes of wealthier people in the area, plus we are dealing with 30 yr mortgages and lower incomes so we pay a larger portion of our incomes to housing. We mostly have cars by necessity (a major difference between us and poor and working class families in DC, many of whom must rely on public transit even from neighborhoods that are poorly served). We take basic vacation, save for college but in a much more modest way than the rest of you, and MUST send our kids to public schools -- there is no other option.

We know we are often invisible to you at school. Either because you misperceive our socioeconomic status (again, assuming if we are black or brown then we must be poorer than we are, and assuming if we are white then we must be richer than we are) or because of that specific kind of situational blindness privileged people have where they only really "see" other privileged people because that is who you consider a peer and therefore the only sort of person you compare yourself to or view yourself in league with.[/quote]

All of you idiots that think you can read others minds and that they're just as prejudiced as you are. [/quote]

Meanwhile you think we're too stupid to tell that what you are thinking when you make so little effort to hide it.[/quote]

I'm aware that you're very stupid because I hear your conversations. [/quote]

I'm sorry, are you still trying to prove that other people cannot tell that you disdain them? We can tell![/quote]

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