by Matt
September 17, 2018

Assuming people have a nanny for their kids; assuming people can just get something taken care of “professionally;” assuming people can just pick up another of whatever they break, lose, or run out of; assuming “go to the doctor” is situationally good advice; these are all manifestations of classism that I’ve overheard one time or another.

Here’s an insidious kind of classism: “You get out of this [church/group/political org] what you put into it.” How often do we hear that and not think, wait, that kind of morale booster falls very differently on someone whose material situation leaves them with neither time nor money to give, but who nevertheless really needs the services, networking, or support that church or group gives them?

Hopefully, the more aware we are of how life’s inevitabilities land in very different places for different people, the more transitive our own material comforts will seem, and the less we will feel our desserts outweigh the fact that nothing is really ours.