By Shakâar Mujukian, September 10 2016
Thereâs a viral and ironic trend that iâve been lately noticing in and beyond my TQPOC community: my wealthier friends own everything but their class privilege.
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Class is different from other identities: itâs invisible, nuanced, and people generally donât like to talk about it. This is because class is also powerful. It divides real people into the categories of âworthyâ and âunworthyâ of basic necessities. Poor people are socially motivated to be too ashamedânot proudâto identify as poor because of the many ramifications that accompany it, and wealthy people are uncomfortable with their desirable comfort.
Class is powerful for another reason: it shapes how we view and in turn treat groups of people. Class structurally disenfranchises and criminalizes marginalized communities: itâs how anti-Black and anti-Latinx racism, transphobia, misogyny, and nearly every other kind of oppression legally operate and take real form.
Thatâs why itâs necessary to treat class how we treat race, color, gender, and sexuality. But first, we need to start by talking about it. (Checking your class privilege once is like saying âIâm a white maleâI have privilege,â and stopping there.) We need to have an ongoing, honest conversation and not abuse the ways in which we self-identify for our own benefit.
Our community has a phobia of privilegeâespecially when itâs ours. Because privilege isnât cool anymore, weâre taking great measures to downplay ours and only selectively highlight the ways in which weâre oppressed. Because class is relatively invisible and awkward, itâs easiest to hideâespecially when weâre marginalized in other ways.
