Classless Society Gender Inequality Is Essay

Class is not simply about dollars and cents, says Langston, it is also about race and gender: "The experience of Black, Latino, American Indian or Asian-American working classes will differ significantly from the white working classes, which have traditionally been able to rely on white privilege to provide a more elite position within the working class." White workers received better, unionized jobs, for example, and even white working class children can more easily blend in with the elites than their African-American counterparts. This is one reason, perhaps, that the working class has struggled to find unity in America -- the racial divides within the nation have often pitted members of the so-called lower classes against one another in a non-productive fashion, and women or men within specific ethnic groups may be the target of particular forms of social injustice that limit their advancement.

Non-middle class people must speak two languages -- in some cases, Spanish and English, but in other instances the language of their parents and the language of the schools and elite institutions. This communicates the message that the child's true self is not worthy of success, or that he or she must reject his or her family and culture to succeed. If this bi-cultural class fluency is not achieved, then a lack of success or 'tracking' into lower-wage, lower-skilled jobs (that are often more unstable than white collar jobs because of their ability to be replaced by technology) is a worker's fate. However, because it is rationalized that to work at a blue collar job means that a worker is less intelligent, this is not seen as an injustice.

All forms of class privilege are rationalized as a function of meritocracy in America -- if someone is smart enough, theoretically it does not matter where they came from. The parental money that gives the student a good education and makes life less psychologically and logistically difficult is concealed, as are the many connections that lead the middle class individual through school and the workplace. Without unity and an honest evaluation of the realities of American society and the 'bankruptcy' of American capitalist ideals, the members of the working class will be trapped in an unfair game of Monopoly money, forever mired in rules that do not favor their advancement, says Langston.