podcast

Classism is prejudice or favoritism based on social class. It affects people's attitudes, behaviors, and access to opportunities. There are four types of classism: individual, institutional, cultural, and internalized. Classism is rooted in income inequality and can lead to disparities in education, healthcare, and the justice system. It is especially harmful to the lower class, trapping them in a cycle of poverty and limiting their opportunities. Addressing and challenging classism is crucial for creating a more equal society. Hi, I'm Nella, and I'm here with Isaiah, Amira, and London, and we are going to be talking about classism. You may be wondering, what is classism? Classism is prejudice against or in favor of people belonging to a particular social class, when people from a lower social class are treated differently from those of a higher social class. In simpler terms, this means that people might be discriminant against one another based on where they fall in the social hierarchy. Classism is based primarily on advantages and strengths of dominant class groups, and this is based on systematic oppression. The system assignment of characteristics based on one's social class includes individuals' attitudes and behaviors, the system of policies and practices, which are set up to benefit those of the upper class, and lastly, culture that sustains them. As in lower, middle, or upper class, economic status, family lineage, job status, level of education will assign people to either the lower, middle, or upper class. For example, a feeling of superiority to people lower on the class spectrum than one's self would classify as classism. Even if we don't realize it, we see classism in our daily lives. Many workplaces, organizations, education spaces are built on classist structures, which makes it harder for those in the lower class to navigate and succeed. There are four types of classism. These include individual, institutional, cultural, and internalized. The individual part of classism consists of personal discriminatory attitudes and beliefs. Institutional classism includes laws that result in unequal treatment among different social classes. Cultural classism consists of different practices and beliefs that lead to different values according to someone's social class. Lastly, internalized classism relates to a person's experience as a member of the poor or working class, which becomes internalized and affects self-esteem, self-concept, and relationship with others. Now on to the big question. Why is classism happening? It has actually always existed in the United States, and throughout the past few decades, the issue has only become worse. As the rich keep getting richer, the middle class begins to shrink. Income inequality is associated with health problems, social immobility, and turning to alternative economies. This begins to affect the opportunities in education that children are receiving. Then, because of this, people are discriminated against and excluded. Even the current disparities such as race, ethnicity, health, disability, and criminal status can all be traced back to class. In my own experience, I noticed classism while volunteering at the Center for People in Need. At this place, families with lower income received groceries en suite. They got to pick from different items of food like meats, produce, beans, sweets, breads. Most of the families that walked in looked to be part of lower incomes, meaning that they are most likely in the lower class. When observing the people that received groceries, many of them were different races or spoke different languages. Observing those that came to the Center in Need helped me develop a better understanding about how we can see classism in our daily lives. Hi, my name is Isaiah Batista, and in this section of the podcast, I will be talking about the lower to middle class and some disadvantages that come with being in the lower to middle class section of society. Everything I will be talking about will be from my own personal experience, my own research, and my own time in the communities with my volunteer hours. According to the World Economic Forum, the lower class's average income is anywhere from $50,000 and below. With the economy today, those numbers are becoming harder to live off of. That type of income cannot support a whole family. And from my personal experience, most of those families have multiple children and are often at times single-parent households. It's not like the government leaves these people to suffer. They offer things like food stamps and other amenities that you may find throughout your life. It is extremely hard to move up in classes. People often end up making the same income as their parents or less. Hardly ever do they do better. So sadly, when you are born into a lower class family, you will most likely stay in that lower class family. I believe that this is a byproduct of not being able to afford things like good schooling and also a lack of parental supervision. With the schooling system, it's really nice to see the government try to help accommodate the needs of the lower class. In lower class families, it's not regular to see parents work multiple jobs or jobs with irregular hours. Lack of parental attention can cause children to act out, which can lead to crime in the worst cases. I know from my personal experience, my mom used to work from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. at night. I would only see her two days out of the whole week. And with me, that led to me wanting to seek attention, so I stole from a book fair and got in trouble for it, obviously. And obviously, I turned out okay, but that's not the same for other people. Some people just don't know how to get back on the right track, and they end up following a life of crime. That's all for my section of the podcast. I'll pass it on to Amira. Hello, my name is Amira, and I wanted to talk about the middle to upper class. To start off, the middle class refers to the group of people in a society who have a moderate level of income and wealth. And the upper class is a term that refers to the group of people in a society who have the highest social status, wealth, and power. According to Pew Research Center, the middle class constitutes 50% of the U.S. population with an income ranging from $50,000 to $99,000, whereas the upper class is made up of 19% of American adults with an income range from $100,000 to $300,000. They both have important roles in society. The middle class is often considered to be the backbone of a stable economy and democracy because they provide a consumer base that drives productive investment and consumption-led growth. A large middle class increases the demand for domestic goods and services, which stimulates the economy and creates jobs. According to Investopedia.com, the upper class is important because the members can provide opportunities and resources for talented individuals from lower classes to use up the social ladder and achieve success. They can foster creativity and entrepreneurship by investing in new technologies and markets that can benefit society as a whole. When it comes to privilege, the upper class generally is the most privileged, with better opportunities for school and more connections because of their social status. They also have privileges with political power because they can use their wealth to exercise it. For example, they may financially support political candidates to influence public policy. When it comes to privileges for the middle class, they typically get the same privileges, just not to the extent of the upper class. After volunteering at Center for People in Lincoln, Nebraska, I got a better view and perspective of classism. My role at the volunteering center was to give out food like beans, canned food, bread, and more basics like that. Anyone who showed up and got in line could have their fair share of food. There was no requirement to show your income or anything. For me, that was eye-opening because I always thought that food centers would make someone prove they need the food. I thought it was cool that anyone could come and get some regardless of if they were low, middle, or upper class. According to OK State, the upper class may have different views and interests on social justice issues than the middle class or lower class because they benefit from the existing social and economic structures that can create and maintain inequality. It's important for everyone to look at the bigger picture and not just seeing things from their point of view. That was all for me, and now we'll pass it on to London. My name is London, and today we learned about the different aspects of classism. Classism, or class discrimination, is an institutional, cultural, and individual set of practices and beliefs that assign different values to people according to their socionomic class, an economic system that creates excessive inequality and causes basic human needs to go unmet. Classism is a big deal because it's about more than just money. It's about access to opportunities, resources, and respect. People from different social classes don't always get the same chances in life, which isn't fair. It can limit potential. Plus, it's not just about the individual. Classism can divide communities and even entire societies. So tackling classism is key to creating a more equal world. Classism also impacts education, health care, and even the justice system. It can affect the quality of education someone receives, the health care they can afford, and how they're treated by the law. It's a cycle that can be hard to break out of. Classism can lead to systematic inequality where it's not just about individual prejudice, but also about structures and systems that maintain these disparities. That's why it's so important to address and challenge classism, to ensure everyone has a fair shot. We learned that classism is especially unfair to the lower class. It's incredibly damaging. It's like a heavy chain that restricts social mobility and keeps people in a cycle of poverty. Lack of access to quality education often means fewer job opportunities, leading to financial instability. Health care becomes a luxury rather than a right, and this can lead to chronic health issues. Classism can also lead to social exclusion, which is emotionally damaging. It's a lack of respect and recognition, which can lead to lower self-esteem and a feeling of worthlessness. The systematic discrimination can also lead to a lack of representation in politics and decision-making roles, which means the needs and rights of the lower class are often overlooked. It's a destructive cycle of inequality and injustice, making it crucial to continue to address. For my volunteer work, I had the privilege to help at a drive-thru kitchen with an organization in Omaha called Abide. This experience showed me how difficult things can really be. It opened my eyes to see that joy can be found in the hardest of times. When working, I met some of the nicest people I've ever met, despite their situation. They were beyond grateful, beyond anything I've ever seen. And some ways we can improve the issue of classism is, one, education. Knowledge is power, so when we learn about classism and educate others, it can help the cause. Two, advocate for policies that promote equality. Three, volunteer or donate. And then the final one, being mindful of our own biases. We have them, and recognizing them is the first step to overcoming them. Overall, all sides of classism, we've talked about all sides of classism and how different each side is treated and how our society has accepted these roles for years and years. Now we are going to answer commonly asked questions about classism. The first question I'll be asking is, how does classism affect access to resources and opportunities? In my own personal experience, classism, my ability to access resources such as, like, just good schooling in general and, like, even clothes. When you go to school, obviously, you're not really critiqued right away, but you start to get a sense of how your peers look at you, and it can be very harmful for children of a young age to be looked at differently than some of their peers who might have higher-income families. And to me, it was crazy, because, like, my family was not very rich or even had enough money to afford clothes that might be name-brand or anything like that. So we always had some brand that nobody's ever heard of. It was like, where's your clothes? What are you wearing? And I was like, oh, I don't know. My mom just bought it for me. But it was from a young age you really get a view of how different you are from other people. And I feel like some kids just take that for granted, and they can really hurt some other kids who might just not even know any different. They just think, oh, clothes are clothes, but the kids whose families might be better off, they're like, oh, I'm wearing Jordans or I'm wearing this or that, you know, and it's like, what are those? I don't even know. So, yeah, you can definitely see the gap even from just a young age. It's just always there. I think just how classroom affects students and school, because if you're in a lower class, you don't have as much education or the opportunity to receive an education. For me personally, I have not gone through that. I've always had enough money for resources like textbooks, pencils, just anything that I needed for school. Buying books was never an issue. So for those that are not able to afford the right resources, I think it can be really hard and challenging, and they could most likely get discriminated against or judged or something by others in their class too, which I think is hard for them. Yeah, and from my personal experience, when I was young, my mom was single, and a lot of times I would never even get to see her because she'd be constantly working. So I often lived with my grandparents for the first couple years of my life, and I feel like coming from a lower class, it can just be a completely different environment that you grow up in, and you have completely different values than maybe someone who was raised in upper class and just doesn't value things the same. So from my personal experience, I grew up with my dad working three jobs because my mom was a stay-at-home mom. She dropped out of high school, so it was kind of hard for her to find work, just never seeing my dad really. And then growing up, my dad slowly climbed up the ladder, I guess. He finished college, he got a master's degree, and now he works at a super good job that can provide well. But I think moving to Omaha, after I lived in Utah and we struggled there, I moved here for my dad's new job, and I started going to a private school, and I saw both sides of the world very differently. And I kind of noticed when I finally got access to all these things, I started acting differently and realized how ungrateful I was being. And so I think it's important for me to remember how hard my family has worked to get where we are and to just always stay grateful. For our next question, we're going to be giving different examples in movies or TV shows of classism, how it's portrayed in a good or bad way. Usually whenever you watch a movie, if there's someone who's not as well off as other people, like if they're poor, they're usually in crime, like they're the robbers or they're the gunmen or something like that. Or they're dirty and they're just uneducated. It's usually whenever you see someone who's not well off in a movie, it's always that. If they're not middle class or upper class, then they're always the bad guy or they're always the person who's on the street asking for money or people who are asking the rich people for money. I know there's a scene in a movie where this mom is running up to this rich guy who is very mean to her and throws her down. And she was just asking for money. And she didn't look to be a hobo or anything like that. She looked like she had decent clothes. But it's just to see that as just something that's portrayed in Hollywood and in the movies is insane to me, how they're just treated like second-class citizens. And that's all I have. I think when I grew up, I watched a lot of Disney Channel movies or TV shows. And I think the way that they portrayed all the characters and their lifestyles really had an effect on me growing up as well. For example, Jessie, they had two parents that were like movie directors and they lived in a huge penthouse. They had five kids. And they were all kind of spoiled and they weren't grateful for what they had. And I think just watching that just gave me more, I don't know, not to say an attitude and stuff, but just I wanted to have everything that I wanted myself to be spoiled to. And when that didn't happen, then I would give that attitude. I think that in the TV show, it really showed that they were part of that upper class. Yeah, so for me, I really liked the show Good Luck Charlie. And thinking about classism with that show, I think that Good Luck Charlie is like one of the only shows where it's like middle class because the dad's electrician and the mom was just like an office job. And for me now in my life, like with my parents and how they live, it's very relatable. So I just think it's interesting how you don't really think about it, but a lot of shows just have a really big impact on classism and what we think about it. So we've brought up examples of middle, upper class. And I think when I think of classism in TV shows, I watched iCarly growing up, like religiously, like me and my brother even still rewatch it today. And I think one of the most unrealistic parts I've noticed growing up is that Spencer was taking care of Carly this whole time, and he went to law school for years and then dropped out and became an artist that barely sold any of his art, and yet they lived in this huge house, were able to do whatever they wanted. And I think that's just unrealistic, especially seeing how you need, I mean, to have a bunch of these luxuries, you need to have a steady income. And I think that goes with one another. For our final question, we're going to be answering how classism plays a role in our everyday lives. For me, classism plays a role in my life every day just by being the person I am with my values and what I grew up on. Every day of my life, my mom told me that hard work is number one over talent always. And it's very clear to me that that's still true to this day. I mean, obviously, talent, you need it, but hard work, if you do nothing with your talent, then you're not going to get anywhere. You have to work hard, too, with your talent. So it was very just inspiring to see my mom come from where she was, a single mom of four kids, fresh out of jail, to where she is now, where she's pretty high up on the ladder of a corporate company. And it's just insane to me to see that her hard work paid off. And I bring that into every day of my life with my values, that hard work is all you need, and just, yeah. I also agree that I think that classism plays a big role in showing what values that I have in my life, but I also think that classism also, just like seeing what everyone else in the lives that they're living is like, is also something that I see in my daily life. For example, when we did that one activity in class where we took steps forward or steps back based off of our lives or what we had, opportunities and stuff, I think that I did take a lot of steps forward, and I saw that other people took steps back when I took steps forward. And that really put that concept of how everyone's life is different and how they grew up is probably way different than how I grew up. And you just have to be able to compare that not everyone has all the opportunity and not everyone has the same life. And I think knowing that will just help you and your values and how you treat others and how you see the world and how you can just be better and then overall help the problem. I think classism affects me every day in a way that I can really understand what I'm thankful for and everything that I do have. And it also helps me kind of navigate where I want to be in the future, and I want to be able to have things of my own and be able to buy things that I need and not be where I was when I was really young. When I think of classism in my everyday life, I think of coming to Nebraska-Westland because I went to a private high school. And although my parents were able to afford me to go there, I was on scholarships. It wasn't even like we were paying for full or whatever. And I think coming here, it's just kind of changed the people I've hung out with because when I went to my old private school, everyone – I mean, I had friends with three houses and friends who would always be like, let's go do this and this. And one thing my parents have always made me do is earn my own money. Like, they never really, like, give me money unless I really need it. I've kind of always had to earn what I want. So it was kind of difficult for me to put on this face of, like, wanting to fit in and trying to do all these things, but, you know, not being able to always have that. And I think coming to Westland, I've kind of been surrounded by people who are on all different spectrums of classism. And I think coming here, it's way less judgmental than going to my private high school. So, yeah, I think that's just one way that classism has affected my life. All righty, we are done with the podcast. Hopefully, you have a better understanding of classism and know different ways you can help the change.