America’s Darkest Secret

American society revolves around the axis of race, and in many ways race edged out other social schisms from our view.  Gender is now seeing a late resurgence as a critical, unfinished social debate.  Class, however, has never seemed to figure strongly in American self-conceptualization, partly because the American dream itself is predicated on the idea that class boundaries can be erased with a bit of elbow grease.  Hence class divisions are not seen as being self-perpetuating.  The corollary to this is also that if you find yourself poor and stuck in an undesirable class, it’s probably your fault.

Barbara Ehrenreich is probably one of the most influential social commentators on the issue of class in America today. As the Guardian points out, she’s quite controversial.  People think she’s a socialist wing nut. I don’t agree with some of her conclusions, but the issue of class is something that is worth talking about in the states, especially since a lot of the negative stereotypes that are conflated with race in this country sometimes have more to do with class than with ethnicity.

Invisible Middle Class in NYC

I ::heart:: NYC

I am not a pathological blogger, but I felt the need to write because I feel like there’s a group of us in this city of a million voices who no one ever talks about.  We read daily about the travails (sometimes comic) of the bright eyed young uns who apparently survive on beer and fruit from sidewalk stands.   We also consume the stories of the uber rich and uber famous who come to this city to die (models, film actors, you know who they are) or to raise real estate prices.  The middle class is a huge swath–I’m defining it in this town as two people, making $80,000 to $200,000 together.  You don’t pay $7,000 for an apartment in the village, but you aren’t exactly starving either.   I know these numbers are totally crazy for the rest of the country, but this is the city where no reasonable apartment without a collection of rats and assorted detritus goes for less than $1 million.  Craaa-a-a-zy.  

But the middle class is pretty quiet in this town, probably because they’re too busy working themselves to death. 

It’s also the case of envy silencing dissent.  You know what I mean–no one complains about how tight things are in this town, because they feel like it’s a moral failing.  Surrounded by our wonderful (but idiot) friends who seem to have stumbled into their mega million hedge fund job (this is gambling, right?), the middle class in this city wants to be invisible because the only time one’s existence should be noted is when you’re a stratospheric star.  The middle class feels dirty in this town, like they don’t belong. Like they can see the inevitable painful migration to Jersey out of the corner of their eye.

Doncha worry, folks! This is a forum for those who wanna get by in NYC, especially in the Upper East (the part of New York that everyone south of 59th street wishes would fall into the river).  Help is on the way.