The writing below is a train wreck of an essay discussing the social class structure in America. When I first received this  assignment I thought this would be an opportunity to finally speak my mind and tear our unjust social structure a new one. But the more I tried to think about it the harder it was for me to completely wrap my head around it. Because social reform is only as powerful as the people it is trying to help. And I, an upper middle class American, can not come close to fully comprehending the struggles of the lower class, despite whatever interactions I may have had (and touched on in the 2nd half of my essay). But, I did what I can to put the issue into perspective, and hopefully inspire at least a grain of thought towards the problem...

            Social class, defined by wordnetweb.princeton.edu, is a group of people having the same social, economic, or educational status; "the working class"; "an emerging professional class." If you have a job, work hard, have nice things, and live in a decent area, you can be considered middle class. A façade that has poisoned progress and kept people who are already better off ignorant to how little help the lower class receives. Many Americans believe in what the text book, “Race, Class, and Gender in the United States,” by Paula Rothenberg, refers to as, “Myrdal’s Definition.” (2001 p. 103). Myrdal’s definition states, “This definition has two novel elements. The first is racial, for users of this definition see the underclass as being almost entirely black and Hispanic. Second, it adds a number of behavioral patters to an economic definition – and almost always these patterns involve behavior thought to be underserving by the definers.” (2001 p. 103).

            The reality of the middle class cut-off-line is any one person or family that is struggling. Regardless of race or gender, if you have a job, work hard, put your kids in school but struggle to pay your bills and wont see a doctor when you’re sick because you fear the cost; you are not what society would consider to be middle class. Other examples of being on the lower end of societies class structure would be if you work at a minimum wage job such as retail, regardless of your position, because it is a simple job that doesn’t move our economy's society in various directions like stock brokers and doctors do. Also, if you live in a neighborhood that is considered poor and is mostly minorities then you are considered lower class. To be a person of color and not live in a predominantly white area, society as a whole will judge you unsuccessful.

            America was built on the principle that if you work hard you can achieve your dreams. But the harsher truth is that America’s true principle is, be white or step aside. You can argue the success of colored athletes and movie stars against that statement, but what are movie stars and athletes but simple public figures that distract from the fact that the majority of companies in America are run by white men with a select few women and people of color for unspoken legal reasons.

            Based on these examples, the United States structures its social class as the upper and middle class being made up of mostly well-to-do, white men and women who work well-paying jobs and own homes.

              The resounding effects of this inequality of social structure are listed in class lecture notes by University of Minnesota's, Prof. Enid Logan. The wealthiest one percent in America owns nearly thirty-five percent of total national wealth. The richest ten percent holds seventy-five percent of total household wealth; the top twenty percent have eighty-five percent of household wealth. The bottom eighty percent is left to divide up the remaining fifteen percent. Sixteen percent of Americans live in poverty with an average annual income of twenty-four thousand per family of four. This makes the US the nation with the most unequal in distribution of household income in the industrialized world. (2014 p. 2 Social Class in America – Lecture Notes) The gap in wealth is still growing today because of how restricting social class can be.

            Those who live in poverty generally do not receive a good education either because they lack the funds or their school does. Some will drop out of school so they can work to support their families or to take up a life of crime. Others become sick and do not have the money for medical treatment. This creates a spread of demotivation in the minds of people living in poverty. ‘I don’t have the money to go back to school.’ ‘ I’m just going to fail anyway, so why bother?’ ‘The government doesn’t care about us so why should I care about progress and growth?’ These are real things that come to mind in people who live in poverty (2014 Social Class in America – Lecture Notes).  

            These beliefs are being continuously passed down to each new generation simply because no one is giving them any hope. Many schools in impoverished areas don’t receive a lot of funding due to their low graduation rates. This keeps the school from not only getting new material and the money to pay their teachers, but keeps the school districts from creating programs that will help kids who are struggling like after school tutoring; or programs that help kids feel motivated like sports programs and clubs that further their growth in culture and team work. When kids feel like they can’t learn or benefit from going to school it pushes them in one of two directions. One being to drop out and work to help support their families, or two, join a gang so they can not only be apart of something but also feel protected from other pre-existing gangs.

            But for those who do graduate from high school and try to go on to a higher education it is still an uphill battle. There aren’t many role models of color in fields of science, medicine, law, or other professions that pay a high salary. This conveys the existence of a white patriarchy that is still growing in our society. The creation of scholarships for minorities and African-American Colleges such as Brown University has tried to break that patriarchy but have done little to slow its progress. 

            So if there are all these negative aspects of American social class structure, what is it that keeps people thinking that America is great and we do all we can to be progressive? Unfortunately it’s the general stereotypes of America which the Upper middle class and ignorant patriots proudly beat their chest over, that distract from our unjust systems. Nationalstereotype.com lists four of America’s stereotypes. “One, America is Generous. A positive stereotype of Americans is that they are very generous. The United States sends aid and supplies to many countries, and Americans may be seen as people who are charitable or volunteer.” “Two, Optimism. Americans are seen as very positive and optimistic people.” “Three, Hardworking. Americans are stereotyped as hardworking people, whether in their jobs or other matters.” “Four, Volunteerism. A 2010 Charities Aid Foundation study found that Americans were the fifth most willing to donate time and money in the world at fifty-five percent.” (http://www.nationalstereotype.com/american-stereotypes/).

            Personally, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in upper middle class, California. The town I lived is called San Ramon and it’s a place where the middle class and above come to live. Houses in San Ramon range from $600K to $2 million dollars and the neighborhoods are quiet and up-kept. The schools are well funded and some were recently rebuilt and have the latest technology, textbooks, and programs to help kids get a top-notch education. I think it’s safe to say that I come from an upper middle class community. But that’s not to say that I didn’t interact with people of all backgrounds. San Ramon is surrounded by areas that aren’t as well off and are considered lower class. This created a mindset in the kids that I grew up with to not notice or care as much about a person’s social status as long as you were a good person who knew how to socialize. The only time a person was judged for their social class was if they came from a place that was known to be violent.  I always knew growing up that I was someone who lived in the upper middle class. Although I was aware of it, I never truly appreciated it.

            It wasn’t until I was eighteen and enlisted in the Marine Corps that I realized really how well off I was. Many in the Marine Corps come low-income urban centers or equally poor rural communities. To them, fighting to survive to earn the bare minimum was normal. For some, knowing how to acquire things without getting caught was the norm. It was a huge wake up call and I had to quickly adapt to their way of thinking in order to survive the Marine Corps lifestyle. Looking back on it now, there were many opportunities to learn about the privileges of being an upper middle class citizen and appreciate the things around me. Education and opportunities such as learning how to play an instrument and learn new skills were constantly placed in front of me, giving me the chance to expand my knowledge and understanding of how the world worked, but I saw those opportunities as annoyances and turned my back to them. My parents also took me on many overseas vacations and introduced me to that countries culture and unique history. But to a spoilt child they were just boring museums and old things. I was also given a lot of after school help to keep me from failing and feeling like I can’t accomplish anything. Yet I saw education as a waste of time for me and believed only in my physical strength and turned to the military.

             My parents came from poor beginnings and are the living embodiments of the American dream. My mother spent most of her childhood growing up in a tin house in Fiji, a third world country in the south pacific, and came to America with no high school diploma. My father grew up in California but spent most of his life moving from house to house because his family was frequently looking for work and he had to pay his own way through school. But both my parents worked hard and prospered. My mother is now a manager for a major insurance company in California and my father is an editor for a newspaper company. They would tell me about how hard it was growing up. But as a child and teenager all I took in was what was directly in front of me; a large house, newer cars, and a secure living environment filled with promising opportunities. 

            But the Marine Corps took all that away from me. Boot Camp takes away your processions, your status, your name, everything. You can only get some of those things back if you work hard and earn them. You have to keep excelling if you want to keep them. It left me with a sense of caution but a desire to build myself from the ground up. I realize that as a person with rich beginnings I have a safety net to fall back on. But it’s not one that I made for myself.

            When I see people who are well off and with little care in the world I now find myself upset by this because I know there are others out there who are either left feeling defeated or are still trying desperately to claw their way out of poverty.

            After boot camp I entered into infantry training in Camp Pendleton. While I was there I befriended Private Nelson, an African-American my age from San Bernardino. Both of us enlisted straight out of high school and by Marine Corps standards of rank, were considered equals. But because I received a better education I was placed on the path to learn a more advanced version of Infantry that dealt with explosives and mathematics for blast distance and allowed me to continue my education after I was out of the Marines. Private Nelson on the other hand, was proud of the fact that he was one the very few who actually graduated from his high school, although he was functionally illiterate and couldn’t pass the DMV drivers test and couldn’t read any of the training manuals. The Marine Corps gave us equal opportunity to succeed but because of our class difference I went on to become a high-ranking Sergeant while he barely made it past the rank of Private First Class; one of the lowest ranks in the Corps.

AHAHHA, I DON’T 8D

My abdomen hurts for no reason, which is better than the pain in my shoulder earlier from doing a cartwheel (as though I were someone without fucked up bones everywhere), but that got fixed by a large traveler bum (seriously) when I drunkenly went by work to get free coffee after watching a play at the Shotgun Players' awesome theatre that deeply reminded me of the Warehouse Rep in Mendo which is where I did pro acting and earlier in the week I had drunken sex with a (professedly) straight  coworker who I think might actually be straight and/or have a crush on me and the next day my housemates and I were offered a coyote mutt puppy which we adopted on a trail basis and he got out of the fence twice and we haven't even tried introducing him to our six cats but he gets along ok with the Great Dane (mutt) not perfectly but ok... Everything is really complicated! My torso really really hurts, I need to get tested for STD's, which is easiest to do on Thursday nights but I work Thursday and I don't wanna move shift with someone cause I need two days in a row off per week for my mental health, and I have only had that once in the past three months. The puppy does this very coyote thing that is like a whine howl and he does it frequently and loudly whenever he perceives himself to be wronged. We received him from a homeless man who trained and cared for him fairly well but was never apart from the dog for longer than a few hours and so the dog is both in a house, with a fence around it, and without his daddy for the first time ever and he is freaking out, man. I am freaking out too...

I feel as though I will never be anything other than middle aged. I am twenty-five, so this is not a rational feeling. I look sixteen or maybe twenty, I work like I'm thirty, I have the spine of someone at least sixty-five and the mindset of someone who has been five for forty years. By the time my acne clears up I will have wrinkles. By the time I can reasonably grow a full beard it may very well be gray. My metabolism is starting to slow down, or speed up, I can't tell because I mainly eat when I'm working or at restaurants for relief of stress. I am too disorganized to keep my floor clear or my clothes clean, or call the people I want to hang out with or my mother, actually I don't call my mother because she will ask how I'm doing and...

I can't tell her:

I drink too much alcohol

I drink too much coffee even when I don't because, work

I smoke too much tobacco, or at least last week I did because socializing

I am undersexed, overworked, and my hormone levels are all effed up