Reaction to Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America
They [the affluent] don't ride public busses and subways. They withdraw from mixed neighborhoods into distant suburbs, gated communities, or guarded apartment towers; they shop in stores that, in line with the prevailing market segmentation, are designed to appeal to the affluent alone. Even the affluent young are increasingly unlikely to spend their summers learning how the other half lives, as life guards, waitresses, or housekeepers in resort hotels.
American life has increasingly come to be less about keeping up with the Joneses and more about keeping away from the Smiths. The efficiency with which we as a society have embraced escapist, ghettoistic tendencies with regards to race and, especially, class gives credence to the nearly dogmatic belief and well known folk caveat that birds of a feather flock together.
This seemingly valid, but as we all know fallacious, observation assuredly has its roots in fact. That question is not our concern, enticing as it may be to delve into. What is our concern are the depths to which those roots reach in "early-twenties-metro-Detroit-area-male" life, my life. The following is a brief catalog of my time at Oakland U, how it relates to the issue of socio-economic stratification in America, and the position I take on that observation, flawed or accurate as it maybe.
I am a transfer student from Wayne State University (which is located off of east bound Loge just east of the I-94 interchange for commuters and between Cass and Woodward from Forest to 94 for locals). Before that I lived on the east side of Detroit so, while the neighborhood was lower middle class, I was never far from poor families and individuals. Though I myself was never poor, my experience of merely seeing poor people helped me to identify with their experiences such as they were. This limited experience was, more or less, par for the course for Wayne.
Wayne State is not an oasis of education for the downtrodden. On the contrary, most of the students there are the children of middle class suburbanites. Yet, the process of studying close to the poor somehow creates a sort of "proximity solidarity" between the students and the underprivileged. Believe me, this sounds more romantic than it actually was. I've never caught the homeless guys wearing dresses in front of the UGL (Under Graduate Library) sharing a latte with recreation center beauty queens at Zoots. What I did take notice of only became apparent after I transferred over to Oakland.
It seems simple enough to be readily apparent, but it really isn't. Proximity to the poor encourages sympathy towards their situation. A major difference between the students of Wayne and those of Oakland, in my opinion, is their empathy towards the situations in life the poor find themselves. I know that thus far I'm guilty of overgeneralization, but my observation stands as a comment on a noticeable majority, not the whole, of the O.U. student body.
Many of the students here at Oakland have no idea of what it means to be poor. In a sociology class a little over a year ago, during a discussion regarding social relativity, some students and the instructor attested to the belief that $100,000 was a nominal salary because of the amount that wage earner probably paid for "necessities" like high mortgages, clothes expenses of one hundred dollars a month or more, and car payments. Of course not everyone is fortunate enough to have a car payments or mortgages. Some poor people struggle to get decent (if any) jobs while relying on an inefficient and non-punctual bus network.
By removing ourselves from the consequence of this social structure that has been so good to us, but so unjust to so many others (this becomes even more apparent when comparing inter-nation wealth levels) we side step what would normally be a healthy dose of guilt. If all we see is success, failure not only becomes alien but also unacceptable. A culture develops in which the poor are their own worst enemy and, convieniently, there is no one around to refute that assumption.
Obviously, I think that rich and poor people should have more contact. This could be accomplished many ways, all of which would probably never work because the truth is most people don't want to be exposed to the poor or the guilt that may involve. We can implement all of the social policy that we want; with no volunteers to man the programs and learn from them they are a waste of time. What we need is more social pressure on people to be better people. But that's like saying the definition of honesty is always telling the truth.
They [the affluent] don't ride public busses and subways. They withdraw from mixed neighborhoods into distant suburbs, gated communities, or guarded apartment towers; they shop in stores that, in line with the prevailing market segmentation, are designed to appeal to the affluent alone. Even the affluent young are increasingly unlikely to spend their summers learning how the other half lives, as life guards, waitresses, or housekeepers in resort hotels.
American life has increasingly come to be less about keeping up with the Joneses and more about keeping away from the Smiths. The efficiency with which we as a society have embraced escapist, ghettoistic tendencies with regards to race and, especially, class gives credence to the nearly dogmatic belief and well known folk caveat that birds of a feather flock together.
This seemingly valid, but as we all know fallacious, observation assuredly has its roots in fact. That question is not our concern, enticing as it may be to delve into. What is our concern are the depths to which those roots reach in "early-twenties-metro-Detroit-area-male" life, my life. The following is a brief catalog of my time at Oakland U, how it relates to the issue of socio-economic stratification in America, and the position I take on that observation, flawed or accurate as it maybe.
I am a transfer student from Wayne State University (which is located off of east bound Loge just east of the I-94 interchange for commuters and between Cass and Woodward from Forest to 94 for locals). Before that I lived on the east side of Detroit so, while the neighborhood was lower middle class, I was never far from poor families and individuals. Though I myself was never poor, my experience of merely seeing poor people helped me to identify with their experiences such as they were. This limited experience was, more or less, par for the course for Wayne.
Wayne State is not an oasis of education for the downtrodden. On the contrary, most of the students there are the children of middle class suburbanites. Yet, the process of studying close to the poor somehow creates a sort of "proximity solidarity" between the students and the underprivileged. Believe me, this sounds more romantic than it actually was. I've never caught the homeless guys wearing dresses in front of the UGL (Under Graduate Library) sharing a latte with recreation center beauty queens at Zoots. What I did take notice of only became apparent after I transferred over to Oakland.
It seems simple enough to be readily apparent, but it really isn't. Proximity to the poor encourages sympathy towards their situation. A major difference between the students of Wayne and those of Oakland, in my opinion, is their empathy towards the situations in life the poor find themselves. I know that thus far I'm guilty of overgeneralization, but my observation stands as a comment on a noticeable majority, not the whole, of the O.U. student body.
Many of the students here at Oakland have no idea of what it means to be poor. In a sociology class a little over a year ago, during a discussion regarding social relativity, some students and the instructor attested to the belief that $100,000 was a nominal salary because of the amount that wage earner probably paid for "necessities" like high mortgages, clothes expenses of one hundred dollars a month or more, and car payments. Of course not everyone is fortunate enough to have a car payments or mortgages. Some poor people struggle to get decent (if any) jobs while relying on an inefficient and non-punctual bus network.
By removing ourselves from the consequence of this social structure that has been so good to us, but so unjust to so many others (this becomes even more apparent when comparing inter-nation wealth levels) we side step what would normally be a healthy dose of guilt. If all we see is success, failure not only becomes alien but also unacceptable. A culture develops in which the poor are their own worst enemy and, convieniently, there is no one around to refute that assumption.
Obviously, I think that rich and poor people should have more contact. This could be accomplished many ways, all of which would probably never work because the truth is most people don't want to be exposed to the poor or the guilt that may involve. We can implement all of the social policy that we want; with no volunteers to man the programs and learn from them they are a waste of time. What we need is more social pressure on people to be better people. But that's like saying the definition of honesty is always telling the truth.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
killerbellum:
i like tacos too!!! 
oninotaki:
You better be home when I get there