Class Warfare, Codified

[PETRUS]

When I was growing up, I knew a lot of kids whose fathers didn't earn a living working in the bowels of a factory like my dad.

Their dads were businessmen, doctors and bankers, but our families lived blocks away, not suburbs apart. So all of us kids attended the same schools. We cheered together at football games, discoed at the same dances and had the same teacher for algebra. Our parents didn't mingle much, but most of them voted for school levies and showed up for the junior class plays.

This is not to suggest I never felt the sting of inferiority. A working-class kid is always aware of other kids' economic advantages, but most of the time they were irrelevant. We were in the thick of it -- together. Plodding side by side through life at a young age teaches us that people have more in common than they sometimes want to believe

http://www.truth-out.org/class-warfare-codified/1321625574

More at the link.

[BeyondGeography]

1. Sounds like the 60s

I grew up the same way. The one thing most everyone had in common was working class grandparents (most of whom were integral parts of the family who lived nearby). Looking back, I think that made a difference. Present circumstances may have varied, but we all came from a similar place, which was how we ended up living close to each other. Nobody talked about money; maybe that's a reason why. Of course, working class jobs offered a lot more security back then, too.

[Javaman]

2. I grew up the son of a mechanic for the dept of sanitation in NYC.

I grew up in Nassau County, Long Island. No, not in Levittown.

We fixed our own cars. Our neighbors, business men, asked my dad for help. My dad would ask them about investing. Two of my friends dads were the local cops. They looked out for us and we gave them hot coffee on the cold nights. Another neighbor was a plumber. He helped us out one winter and my dad helped him out with a problem with his car. People helping people.

How many here know their neighbors? How many help them out in the same fashion as I state above.

when we lose middle class/working class neighborhoods, we lose so much more.

We lose a part of who we are as humans.

[Starry Messenger]

3. k&r

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. Truth. Definitely some increasingly large divisions occuring where there should be none.