Yes, in the sense that at a midpoint in teaching adult I sensed /noticed marked but subtle differences in perceptions, absorption and manifestation from different individuals. It took about 7 years over thousands of students that it started to codify to money-class and I embarked on studying class differences themselves. The work of Ruby Payne then clarified and crystallized what I'd been seeing.
It then forced me to self review and recognize I'd been raised Middle/Upper Middle class edging towards Rich so my habits, tastes, interests, manners and expectations were different from others. The contrast of being designated Black in America and the projection expectations that can bring are not in complete alignment with my lived identity. And further a large swath of my blood family is more mired in Poverty/Poor in habits, manners, expectations and tastes.
Norms of other Black and Latinos that I accepted as part of the tapestry of people I now can recognize as distinct over culture separate blankets that are all entangled on one big bed.
As a child I wasn't allowed to eat certain foods with relatives children by my mother because she didn't want me to normalize Poverty on a broad level and specifically didn't want me eating substandard food. As an educated Francophile from her teens she'd routinely gone to high end, 4, 5 star French restaurants and understood the vagaries of quality and taste. So Spam, chitlins, hog maws, not allowed. Instead foie gras (ironically at work a few weeks ago two maintenance guys were talking in the staircase about a food, foie gras one had been offered, he wasn't sure what it was. I explained it was duck or goose, probably duck here in America. They, White were surprised at my deep knowledge something they barely grasped from being Working class but my skin-color suggesting I shouldn't know. And I'm all like the now closed Four Seasons made the best with a fried pineapple sliver on the side. They were amazed I knew and I was amazed they didn't, its like, to me if someone had all this confusion about a hamburger.), pate, caviar, lobster, porterhouses', were more normalized to me as a child, though in a blunt comparative assessment they are similar in scope of actual kinds of foods.
I used to come home from school at 11 and defrost a porterhouse from the dozens in the freezer, three inches thick and have it with a salad watching TV. It never occurred to me how the ocean view duplex apartment, the steak, the full cable, the luxurious furniture were markedly different from my cousins home experience. I think I assumed because they had two to six more siblings each and I was an only child that there was more or less based on consumption not class.
I assumed everyone had a separate office/library and that they'd all been to some form of college, worked at big companies or were the head chef at a country club like my stepfather, which allowed us to regularly go to the club for weekend getaways.
I assumed everyone had a separate office/library and that they'd all been to some form of college, worked at big companies or were the head chef at a country club like my stepfather, which allowed us to regularly go to the club for weekend getaways.
And yes "poorer" relatives were crueler to me from rape to throwing rocks at me to try and put out an eye to exclusion, judgment and now I can see it was class based. And it still happens with adults, people of color, who assume we was all Poor and made Good (Middle class)----no some of us were born into Good. That I automatically should believe some thoughts, ideals and ideologies because I'm designated Black. Like I'm automatically assumed Democrat or if class assessed I must be a Republican. I'm neither. And because Poor and Middle are so rigidly ideological, there can only be two political party ideologies.
That I'm Poor just because I work. Because I work an extra job, not that it might be a school requirement. That one can't enjoy work, especially when you have diverse skills that doing mundane, algorithmic can be relaxing because it lets me relax, think about bigger projects, plan ahead.
That whatever I study is directly, bluntly tied to a job-career. "Law school? Oh, you want to be a lawyer, huh. No? But there's no other work in the solar system you can do with a law school degree. None at all. Ever. No where
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That education and reading and learning must be tied to a job and an exact dollar to page outcome. "You're reading that for fun? You READ for fun? You enjoy school? But what job will it make you in as few days as possible and exactly how much an hour, year is that in job pay?"
The Poor and Working class tend to have a very concrete, literal perception of themselves and therefore others. I have patience with ignorance/not knowing from two decades of teaching but inside I cringe and am shocked, saddened, miffed, amused and frightened of the naturalness of such warped perception.
The Poor and Working class tend to have a very concrete, literal perception of themselves and therefore others. I have patience with ignorance/not knowing from two decades of teaching but inside I cringe and am shocked, saddened, miffed, amused and frightened of the naturalness of such warped perception.
I am assaulted daily by the ignorance of the entangled blankets of class. Where poor coworkers lament lack of money for healthcare but have the full cable package. Or have Iphone 10s, Xes? But have no 401k contributions and I don't even buy into the idea of a 401k but I know its a WA to sweep some of the gross pay off the table until I can align taxes to even out against withdrawal fees, as I dont expect it to save me in retirement, nor do I expect social security to rescue me. I must rescue myself.
Forget the insanity my students, the children and young adults of generational Poverty bring to my classrooms. The movement, acceleration rate I calculate of my effect to those students is about 70%. And that's being generous. Middle class and higher I average a 95% acceleration rate.
Don't have children before 30, higher education, completing high school. I even show them the life outcomes ratios from the Brookings Institute, Ruby Paynes work, breakdown the trap they recognize they're in. (I thought the slang "trap" was from when a guy is seduced unknowingly by a transgender. Its co-morphed from rap songs to a Poverty self awareness of being trapped in Poverty.)
Forget the insanity my students, the children and young adults of generational Poverty bring to my classrooms. The movement, acceleration rate I calculate of my effect to those students is about 70%. And that's being generous. Middle class and higher I average a 95% acceleration rate.
Don't have children before 30, higher education, completing high school. I even show them the life outcomes ratios from the Brookings Institute, Ruby Paynes work, breakdown the trap they recognize they're in. (I thought the slang "trap" was from when a guy is seduced unknowingly by a transgender. Its co-morphed from rap songs to a Poverty self awareness of being trapped in Poverty.)
So far 60% of them within my having hammered this info in, have sired children. Lol. And all love affairs break up less than two years out from the birth of a crying, shitting, needing, expensive grenade known as a baby. They've all come back I should've listened to you and now without the boon of legal marriage they have the rough ride of mandatory child support. 17% off the top, per child. Hopefully there aren't arrears and interest.
So I've turned a lot of my teaching time to entrepreneurial efforts, licensing designs, accelerating advanced students because the Poor literally bite every hand that tries to feed them. Only 18% will make it out so I've narrowed my attention to that discernible niche. The Poor have made me classist in my work to be harshly discriminatory in those I assist.
I bluntly tell students now I'm the equivalent of a MASH trauma surgeon, if you don't respond, show no signs of fruition, I must have you wheeled away to work on the next, they may possess a greater life chance, the rest are the Walking Dead. Perhaps, I suspect several will hear me.....in ten years, my teaching, information, attempts to help /accelerate will resonate then. But A, I'll be "gone" , focused on others and B, they might be too mired in life drama to be able to effect life changes.
From teaching teachers I suspect more feel this ennui and dont know how to manage I as well as I've learned. You learn from one class perspective to have lowered expectations of the other and to really see and invest in the diamond in the rough, but you test those diamonds intently before committing. In many ways its a similar psychological stance to admittance to a private club or society.
You, I am aware of the stratification lines more and its like my measured response serves the hegemony of class separation on one hand even as my work offers dismantling tools on the other.
From teaching teachers I suspect more feel this ennui and dont know how to manage I as well as I've learned. You learn from one class perspective to have lowered expectations of the other and to really see and invest in the diamond in the rough, but you test those diamonds intently before committing. In many ways its a similar psychological stance to admittance to a private club or society.
You, I am aware of the stratification lines more and its like my measured response serves the hegemony of class separation on one hand even as my work offers dismantling tools on the other.
Smile, Kyle
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
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