I think about social class a lot. Mostly because so many Americans believe we have no rigid class system, or that class is only defined by money.
But social class is a much more encompassing descriptor. It can relate to education, profession, dialect, zip code, income, ethnic heritage, fashion, decorating, and even food choices. Remember when Obama was criticized for preferring arugula over iceberg and Dijon over ubiquitous American mustard?
When we are not conscious about our social class, we may also be unaware of which advertisements we display that might limit us in our social world. Yes, ornamentation and adornment are social indicators of peer group allegiance and people use those visual cues along with verbal hints to peg us before getting close. What’s that accent? Does he swear? Use slang? Is she sporting a designer label?
I think about class a lot because I am acutely aware that I am in some ways class-less and can comfortably transcend class to and connect with the human under the environmental programming. My own class is complicated: I am a Canadian/American of Irish heritage, middle income/highly educated/mother of biracial children, who lives in a diverse zip code and loves European food and good crystal and table linen. I also swear more than a “typical” woman of my class, and I have friends of many races and nationalities. My world travels have given me a comfort level with people of all classes.
In a Subway Sandwich shop this week another customer intuitively picked up on this. I looked like any middle-aged carpool mom wearing jeans and a T-shirt with my long blonde hair in a pony tail exposing my blue eyes. All this could have been misleading. But the tattooed, corn-rowed, guy in a wife-beater and sagging jeans, turned when I entered the store and spontaneous said, “Hey” and extended a closed fist for me to knuckle tap. I tapped back. And only when my smaller, older, white knuckles touched his brown fist did he become self-conscious. He lowered his head, turned his back on me and looked ashamed. I’m sure he was confused by his impulse and when the reality hit that we didn’t display the trappings of the same social class, he went mute. What a shame. We might have had a chat.
In another version of the class trap, I have a New York friend going through an expensive divorce. He is fighting tooth and nail for every drop of their shared marital fortune. When I suggested that maybe his sanity was more important than money, he quickly responded, “Money is my sanity! Who would I be without money?”
Great question. Who would we be without money? Without racial identity? Without our jobs? Without our clothes? Who is the un-armored human being available to connect with other human beings?
In some ways we so cling to the trappings of class that we miss out on amazing ways to just connect as human beings. At other times, we ignore class and wonder why some of our relationships fail. Class is sometimes that silent orchestrator of destiny. Do you know your class? Can you transcend it?