Social class is, according to the program, the most important predictor of the kind of opportunities (financial and educational) that someone will have in life. We have the working-class, middle-class, and upper class. Withing each major class we have sub-classes. The black community, a racial class, has its own class structure - those who sold out by becoming like the culture of power and those who didn't.
It was said that social mobility is the hallmark of America. But is it true for all Americans? I don't think so. I believe many merely want to be reach their level of comfort and stay there. It's too taxing to constantly strive for more and more. Even if I were to win the lottery, would I change class, from middle-middle to elite? No. At my age, I'm forever trapped in middle-middle. Winning the lottery would only mean having nice things. I wouldn't start collecting pretentious art and join the country club.
Americans' life-long ambition is to fit in and impress friends and want to belong to the privileged group. So true. While I'm not a WASP, I'm glad I belong to the culture of power. When someone mistakenly groups me with Hispanics, I make it a point to correct them. Am I doing it for academic reasons, or because I don't want to be associated with a minority? Both. I'm not proud of that - but that's the world I live in.
Some of the comments in the program excerpts were downright funny. WASPS would never use artificial flowers! And the use of the term "hon" by stereotypical service workers does ring true in my experience. For the record, I don't like to be called "hon". I think its condescending coming from someone I don't know.
Surely, the United States have different social classes. But as one commentator said, the differences among the classes aren't so great as to create class warfare. After all, we all wear jeans and tennis shoes and eat fast food.
Finally, I especially liked the part of the program where strangers guess the social class of different individuals solely by looking at a photograph. The comments were stereotypical. But stereotypes had to come from someplace.
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I also liked the section of the site where you had to guess a person's social class simply by looking at a picture. I was surprised by some of the comments.
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