Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Classism in America

siderea.livejournal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 341 posts

Re: Classism in America

#291

Post by morgante »

kazinator wrote: post #173
Animats wrote: post #168

From the article: "Most people are very ignorant of the norms and values of the social classes more than one degree above or below their own." Somewhere, there must be a "how to" guide for social class. There's a questionnaire, but other than some meaningless content on Quora, not much guidance.[1] Where there is guidance, it's about language usage.[2] The classic on this being, of course, "My Fair Lady"[1]. This is…

If you're ignorant of the norms and values of the social classes more one degree below you, that's simply due to not watching television.

I didn't watch television as a child, but I do now and I'd say I'm still very ignorant of the norms/values of social classes 2 or more degrees below my own.

Keep in mind that television itself has significant class segmentation. The vast majority of characters on shows I watch are from my class or present as such.

On the occasion that I do see something from a lower class, it's quite jarring and I also have a lot of trouble differentiating race and class in such scenarios (>90% of the "lower class" characters I see are African-American).

Re: Classism in America

#292

Post by aryehof »

JPKab wrote: post #11

Because of where I grew up (rural South and Appalachia), my native accent is something that I've learned to mask in all professional settings. It doesn't matter how immaculate my grammar is: in the profession of software engineering, southern accent = ignorant bigot who can't be trusted. People's biases, conscious or otherwise, are noticeable. The irony is that I practice "code switching", so basically my coworkers h…

While I was born in Australia, I worked in the UK for many years in a job that involved traveling the country. I would often see confusion as people realized I didn't fit their social groupings and stereotypes. It was a real advantage.

Re: Classism in America

#293

Post by nfriedly »

JPKab wrote: post #11

Because of where I grew up (rural South and Appalachia), my native accent is something that I've learned to mask in all professional settings. It doesn't matter how immaculate my grammar is: in the profession of software engineering, southern accent = ignorant bigot who can't be trusted. People's biases, conscious or otherwise, are noticeable. The irony is that I practice "code switching", so basically my coworkers h…

Not quite the same thing, but I have a friend who naturally has a Midwestern accent. She told me once that when she used to be a waitress, she got way better tips by faking a British or Australian accent.

Re: Classism in America

#294

Post by majewsky »

henrikschroder wrote: post #100
arcanus wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being from Europe, I was also weirded out that almost all discussions of class in the US was about money. The subtle differences between the USA and Europe on this subject are quite interesting. Another one is that in the USA, being branded as 'upper class' is pejorative and instantly implies you are rich, spoiled and not likely to be a hard worker, if you work at all.

> being branded as 'upper class' is pejorative That's also fascinating, because in the US, wanting to be rich is seen as a very positive thing. Everyone is supposed to be living the American Dream and improving their lives, but reaching the end goal is a bad state? Hilarious. And where I'm from, wanting to be rich is seen as an ugly thing, the only socially acceptable ways to be rich is to win the lottery or be a spo…

> I have friends who are in the IT industry, making good money, and who are genuinely ashamed of how much money they make.

Not just them. I feel the same when I hear that I earn more on my 28-hour-a-week job than my brothers working full-time as civil engineers (including night shifts and lots of overtime).

Re: Classism in America

#295

Post by coldtea »

hueving wrote: post #269
coldtea wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the idea of generalizations. They don't need to be 100% fair, just statistically useful. I'd wish people would get that, and only complain when a generalization is statistically wrong (e.g. doesn't really hold for the majority of the people it lumps along), instead of everytime they find a counter-example...

Simpsons paradox though. There are more conservative people in California than there are in Georgia (e.g. more people in California voted for Mitt Romney than people in Georgia). Slicing people up into states to make nice sound bite statistics is useless and leads to stupid stereotypes.

Well, that more people in California "voted for Mitt Romney than people in Georgia" might not tell the whole story.

Are the people in California traditionalist, religious, backwards, or even racist, etc, as the people in Georgia? They might not be, regardless of who they chose to vote for -- which takes into account many factors and policies.

That said, California is also traditionally regarded as conservative (at least by us in Europe) -- it's places like Massachusetts or Vermont that we'd count as progressive. Especially since California is regarded as hardcore pro-money/big-business, which is large part of being a "conservative" here.

Re: Classism in America

#296

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

WalterBright wrote: post #219
CPLX wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Wire, which of course is an absolutely excellent longform meditation on class, has a couple really great scenes illustrating this exact thing: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xhhJVYK4nvQ http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WmGemNT7urY

For other good (albeit fictional) accounts of social class, there's "Gone With The Wind's" treatment of Rhett Butler by southern society, and "The Blue Max's" treatment of Bruno Stachel who rises from being an innkeeper's son to a role formerly reserved only for the nobility. (Neither is about money, but manners and behavior.)

UK class is all about manners. And money.

The upper classes are effortlessly sociable, polished, and polite, even if they think you're an idiot - unless you're the help, in which case they aren't.

There are some subtle markers you can only learn either by being born into them or being told about them.

E.g. when middle class are introduced they say "Pleased to meet you."

When upper class people meet they say "How d'you do?" - and if someone says "Pleased to meet you, they immediately know they're not dealing with one of their own."

I spent some time on the edges of the upper class scene, and the polish often hides drama and resentment - possibly because public school in the UK can sometimes seem to be a bizarre form of institutionalised child abuse.

It's hard to imagine someone who's set to inherit a gigantic country mansion feeling that life has given them a raw deal, but I've seen it happen.

There's also an almost complete absence of passionate creativity. I've seen working class kids (almost literally) kill to become musicians or artists. The upper classes sometimes drift into it, but the work is often derivative and shallow, and doesn't have the kick it has when someone has had to struggle.

Re: Classism in America

#297

Post by NoGravitas »

kyleblarson wrote: post #150
zeveb wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's remarkable to me how folks who would never, ever be seen to say anything rude about other races (or who would only do so very obliquely) will quite loudly smirk about how much they hate Southerners, how stupid they think Southerners are &c. It's all just class. One can be just as intelligent with a Southern accent as one can be stupid with another.

If one hasn't visited the South and relies on current events and news to derive an opinion on the area it's hard to blame them for thinking the southern states are in a race to the intellectual bottom.

I've lived my whole life in the South and think the southern states are in a race to the intellectual bottom -- though only the legislators are actually running in the race. A majority of the rest of us are just cheering them on.

Re: Classism in America

#298

Post by hedonagenda »

JPKab wrote: post #11

Because of where I grew up (rural South and Appalachia), my native accent is something that I've learned to mask in all professional settings. It doesn't matter how immaculate my grammar is: in the profession of software engineering, southern accent = ignorant bigot who can't be trusted. People's biases, conscious or otherwise, are noticeable. The irony is that I practice "code switching", so basically my coworkers h…

Wear your accent with pride, if your co-workers' stereotyping persists then they're the bigots. Otherwise it becomes a cool personality trait others can't fake.

Re: Classism in America

#300

Post by your_ai_manager »

wizardforhire wrote: post #280
benpbenp wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tendency to use "fancier" vocabulary has actually been noted as a tendency of the non-Upper class. Cf. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

Absolutely! I'd like to add, high culture is also used as a term for cultures that are insular and use lots of culturally specific vocabulary. The Southern Culture and accent is actually considered high culture by many anthropologists! By the same token... So is tech culture... Even when it's really annoying stupid fat lazy and mysogonistic and repeating the same problems in a different language that were solved befo…

I never thought I'd say that rare pepes are elements of high culture.
Post reply on HN