Class, custom and myth proclaims, does not exist here in the American Republic.
It's patent bullshit, and nearly everyone actually knows that. Attempt to bolster the economic conditions of the majority (everyone from lower-upper class on down) and you hear shrieks of accusing you of committing "Class Warfare."
Watch what happens if someone gets engaged to someone of a significantly different economic class; there will be chatter at both ends. "Marrying up" (up? Up? Up what? Well, upper class--oop, wait, there's no class in America) and "Marrying beneath one's status" or the like. Someone's "too good" for someone else. Too good...
But wait. We don't talk about class--but we do have a favored euphemism.
It's race. (Not surprisingly, the neutrality of the article is disputed.)
(Here, for what it's worth, is where I stand...
[Many scientists argue that]... race definitions are imprecise, arbitrary, derived from custom, have many exceptions, have many gradations, and that the numbers of races observed vary according to the culture examined. They further maintain that "race" as such is best understood as a social construct...
And I'll just point out that the scientist who first floated the idea that there were races of humans, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, later recanted the idea--his ongoing research having persuaded him that the theory was a bad on in the first place. But it opened a Pandora's Box, conveniently providing European colonial powers a handy "scientific" explanation that justified their conquests and occupations. Other empires, like Rome, hadn't needed an ideology of race. Modern ones had a nifty new bit of propaganda....)
"And whether your blood be high land or low,
And whether your skin be black or white as the snow,
Of reason there's none, and why should there be
As long as there's fire in the blood and a light in the eye"
(lyrics from Ar Fal Lo La Ro), traditional
Words matter, so let me be clear here on what I mean in this diary by "class";
A social stratum whose members share certain economic, social, or cultural characteristics: the lower-income classes.
Now, that's not to argue that the two--race and class--are identical concepts. That would be nonsense. But it's a convenient conflation, both because it serves the purpose of euphemism (we can talk about the thing we can't talk about by talking about it using words that are definitionally not about the thing being talked about, even though...) and because it muddies the waters.
Although people still claim that there's some genetic basis to the concept of race, that's really rather absurd. All that really means is that there are populations that share certain genetic traits, genes and markers more frequently than other parts of the population. But the argument that there are meaningful races is absurd. Nearly all parts of the world represent mixed populations. The degree of mixing varies, and superficial traits (the ones we depend on most--like skin pigmentation and various minor facial characteristics) disguises the genetic traits that might actually mean something.
One might argue that simply means that there are really races and that we've simply misidentified them, but that makes the argument that there are races even more tendentious.
But I'm drifting from my key argument. American race issues are more significantly about class (and I recommend reading that link...) than they are about anything actually having to do with race. Because of historical facts, certain groups came here or were brought here and treated as only marginally human. Yes, there were variations in the character of that marginality, and those have impacts. But they have impacts that affect what people are in what socio-economic class--which makes my fundamental point that it's class, not race, at the heart of American race problems. And that is why efforts to solve those problems go awry.
The most perfect political community must be amongst those who are in the middle rank, and those states are best instituted wherein these are a larger and more respectable part, if possible, than both the other; or, if that cannot be, at least than either of them separate.
Aristotle
The conflation of race and lower class is a convenient one for those with an interest in maintaining the status quo. Those who are part of the lower classes, but who are assured that they're not--despite their experience...--are granted a certain set of myths and delusions to help disguise the reality they experience (people frequently prefer a good myth to facing reality in its ugliness, particularly if it provides them an excuse and a scapegoat). For those in privileged conditions, it's awfully convenient to have the elements of the lower classes at odds.
All my life through, I've been so Black And Blue.
I'm white inside, It don't help my case
'Cause I can't hide, what is on my face, oh!
lyric from Black and Blue, Fats Waller
If the mass of people in the lower classes can be convinced that variations of skin color, cultural differences, ethnic history... etc., mean that they aren't essentially the same as those other folks, then they can be set at odds--and that means that class warfare can be practiced by the upper(-upper) classes without facing any risk of a unified resistance.
And there's the rub.
As long as African-Americans, White trash, Latinos, Irish, Italians, Indians and others can be designated, "othered" and set up as the scapegoat, there's someone for other groups to stand on at the moment. And the powerful and wealthiest benefit most. Let's you and him fight.
Again, it's not that there's not racial bigotry and discrimination. That's a reality. You can prove it.
But it's a convenient cover, a skin to pull over the more brutal and unpalatable fact that there is a class system in America, and all those who aren't in its upper reaches are the victims of the class war that's gone on for a long time.
It's demonstrable that members of every group despised have been adopted into the upper classes. Enough wealth, a patina of respectability, good education, proper English... and you're in. You've become white--regardless of skin color.
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.
William James
But in the end, what's terrifying to those with a lot to lose is the idea that The People will catch on and start fighting the class war for real. And the day that happens... is when you'll see serious violence wielded against the common folk--as well as see just how little real racism most people are invested in.
I'd argue that this is why so many people have such conflicted and conflicting feelings in discussions about such things as whether Sen. Obama is "black enough" to be considered black, to be--if he ends up being--the first black president. By virtue of his experience growing up, he's not informed by the experience of growing up in the economic class that a disproportionate number of black Americans exist in. Confusing the experience of relative poverty with the experience of race and racism (a real thing) allows for that kind of confusion, and the apparent nonsense of declaring (as some have suggested) Bill Clinton to have actually been the first black President.
Meteor Blades warned me that I'd want my asbestos Milanese armor of proof if I were so bold as to post this. Flame away. Or not. It's been my custom not to post tip jars (my quirk...), but I'll put one up to catch the flak.
For the purposes of the poll... I offer the following guideline.
Fussell's model classifies Americans according to the following classes:
1. Top out-of-sight: the super-rich, heirs to huge fortunes
2. Upper Class: all other "old-money" millionaires
3. Upper-Middle Class: owners of successful businesses, rich CEOs, people who can afford full-time domestic staff, and some high salaried, prominent professionals (examples include surgeons and some highly-paid types of lawyers and bankers)
4. Middle Class: office workers, corporate executives
5. High Prole: skilled blue-collar workers
6. Mid Prole: workers in factories and the service industry
7. Low Prole: manual laborers
8. Destitute: the homeless and the disreputable (but still free)
9. Bottom out-of-sight: those incarcerated in prisons and institutions
And no, my poll categories aren't identical.