When I walked into a Ralph Lauren store in Lenox Mall just to look around, and found out that two cops were following me when I went to American Eagle in the same mall. When I turned around and looked at them because I felt someone staring at me, they tried pretend like they were shopping in the store and then they left. I think this happened to me because I’m black.

-Nikki-

For a number of years, back in the ‘50’s, my Dad was a union organizer for the IUMM&SW - the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers. From time to time, he would visit coal mining and copper mining areas to talk to the workers and help them get organized. It was, to say the least, a tough - and often dangerous - job.

But once, when I was about nine years old, he took me with him on a short trip down to the coal mining area of Kentucky. I remember driving down through fields of rich, blue-green grasses where horses grazed peacefully. In the distance were immaculately painted white rail fences, big houses with columns - "Just like Tara!" I remember exclaiming. Gradually, the landscape turned to rolling hills, which were lovely, but there were no more horses, no more big houses. Finally, we reached the mine site, and I saw scarred, furrowed land, a few sparse trees left after most had been cleared. Industrial buildings, huge machines, graders and tractors littered the area. As we drove toward that area, we also saw a group of small, wooden tract houses, mostly unpainted, with swept-dirt front yards (the first of their kind I had ever seen, and I remember wondering where the grass was.)

Well, Dad had a mission, and off we went so he could fulfill it. I sat in the back of a shabby room in one of those little houses while he talked to a group of men who all seemed to me to be VERY old. Now, looking back, I realize most of them were probably in their late twenties up to their forties. Later, Dad asked me if I wanted to see something special, something hardly anyone else my age had ever seen, and - of course! - I agreed.

Fitting me with a hard hat was a source of hilarity for the miners, who thought a little blonde gal in pigtails with blue satin ribbons wearing a big old orange hard hat with a light was just the most knee-slapping sight ever. And we stepped onto a platform, into a steel-mesh cage and descended into the first level of a coal mine. As we went down, the temperature rose. It was darker than the darkest night I had ever seen. Someone switched on the light on my helmet.

When we reached the first level, we got out and walked a bit, not far, because my being there broke every rule in the book, of course. We saw some men coming up from a deeper level as their shift ended. Their faces, hands and any bit of exposed skin was black. Their clothing was begrimed with the oily, clinging soot. Most of them were hacking and coughing and spitting to clear their throats and lungs. One of them, startled to see a little gal, burst out laughing, and I was surprised to see he had only one or two teeth in his mouth.

And then we came back up into the light, and I saw a bunch of women and kids waiting at the outskirts - the women also seemed very, very old to me, and almost every one of the kids was skinny and dressed in clothing that was either way too big or way too small.

On the drive back home, as we once again rolled through those lush blue-grass fields, I held on to the little paper sack of lumps of coal one of the miners gave me as a "souvenir" - I still have a piece of it. It’s a damned good reminder of class difference.

Around the age of six or seven, I noticed they way people treated my mom and her children.  It was not related to color but with the stigma of large families.  Nine is our number.  

Very early on I remember my keen sense of reading people.  I noted it in their facial expressions, body gestures.  I could tell when people were sincere or not.  When they pretended to be nice but really weren’t.  It’s funny, you know a class division exists but at that young age sum it up to real or fake.  Since then I mastered skill of reading people, sometimes to well.

I grew up on a farm.  We all worked.  When I was four, it was my job every night to sweep the floor and the front porch.  As we kids got older, we all had jobs with more responsibility.  As soon as our feet could touch the brake/gas pedals, it was our jobs to take the truck out to the pastures and drop off hay.  Weeds/rodents  in the gardens were our problems.  Dad took care of the heavy duty chores.  There were never vacations.  Once a month, we’d go into town for a movie and ice cream.

During certain seasons, migrant workers also worked on our farm, along with their children.   So, we all worked side by side… and I thought nothing of it.  I was happy to have the company of other children other than my brothers.  They taught me their games and their music.  We shared the same hopes and dreams. I was always sad when they left.

Like many Sourthern towns at that time, railroad tracks divided that little town.  The schools I attended were anglo with anglo teachers.  Our athletic teams competed against other anglo schools in neighboring counties. It was when I went to school, I realized for the first time, if you were a brown or black student, you went to the school on north side of the tracks.  It made no sense to me, and no one cared to discuss it.  It wasn’t until the race riots of the 60’s that it became perfectly clear how they felt about their schools on the north side of the tracks, with the used and outdated books and equipment that had been discarded by the south side schools.

I grew up in a family that had too many children and not enough resources. I never felt poor, because my parents made sure our clothes were clean, our shoes were polished, and we were clean and well-groomed. I knew kids who bragged about having maids and swimming pools, until in grade school, I gently commented to one girl, "But your parents earned that, not you, right?" Many of those same kids grew up not knowing how to clean their homes or wash a dish, while the kids in my family always had chores, and took pride in our sparkling, small, apartment. Those "rich" kids all grew up differently, some in trouble with the law, some lawyers, but those I chose to remain friends with treated me with respect. Poor does not equal poverty of mind.

All of my siblings have grown past our quite humble beginnings. We learned to pick our friends, like anyone else, from how they treated us as humans. In my point of view, there are not class differences—just differences in Class.

(My apologies to my childhood friend that also blogs on this site for what I am going to say)

I grew up in a middle class, racially diverse neighbor. Half my neighbors were German and the other half Black. Tree lined, everyone owned their own home - renters were a rare thing back then - and although I perceived my family as poor, my father, friends and neighbors always corrected me. I assumed we were poor because my father was raising all 11 of us by himself, he owned his own business and was the pastor of a church. People were constantly coming by our house giving us food and clothing and saying they wanted to help "the pastor and his kids out" so I assumed we were poor.

That is until a family of 6 moved on our block that was poor. They were living in a two bedroom house and they had roaches. The mother worked as a cleaning woman and the father for a local factory. But they were poor. I became best friends with one of the girls and I remember to this day the stigma the rest of my neighbors and friends inflicted on her and her family. They became "those people". 

The worst part was when an even poorer family moved on the black that were labeled "country" people. They actually killed squirrels in the neighborhood for food. The kids were always filthy and dirty and soon after the same attitudes and beliefs inflicted on my best friend, were now being levied against this new family. Ironically even my best friend and her family looked down on this "country" family.

That was my wake up call into the world of discrimination based on income, education, appearance and social class.

I really dont recall the very first time I felt the difference of class in society - I always went to public schools and early on you always knew who were the "popular" kids and who wasnt.  You always knew who the rich kids were and who wasnt but I dont remember ever not being able to play with any of those kids during school.  Outside of school we lived in an apartment community & there were tons of kids and we all played very well together for years and years and years. 

The sad thing is that today I still see the division and the worst part is I see it in Church and around the small town I live in.  You have the old rich Rivah Communities and they dont like their outsiders.  Which is funny to me b/c my families money would make theirs look small in comparision but I dont live off of my family’s name.  I also find it amuzing that when in public alone or with my daughter some people wont talk to me unless my husband is there…And we wonder why racism is still alive and its not always whites against blacks….

For me, this question is simplistic, because class has never been isolated from other distinctions, such as religion, race, community, culture. As the firstborn American of recent immigrants, in the 1920s, all my early memories revolved on who we were and how we survived.  For example, my first years were spent in an all-immigrant community where my parents spoke their primary language, as well as their public languages. Within our group, there was a majority of factory workers, some owners of small businesses, as well as employees. My father lost his job at the beginning of the Depression, and we lived on savings until he bought a store in a more assimilated neighborhood where I learned that my "foreignness" was a great issue, and where those of my own background treated me as an alien. Because of the diversity in that tenement community, I lived among working/unemployed/poor/Black/white/Jewish/Christian(mostly Catholic & Eastern Orthodox) families, and I realized that it was necessary for me to learn English to cope with an unfriendly, and sometimes hostile environment in public school, as well as among my neighbors. Residents carried within themselves  distinctions in education (in the old country),class (in the old country, as well as in the U.S.), and who owned or worked in local stores, and those who entered the garment factory system to supportfamilies. Earning a living was paramount. My parents’ education in the old country did not prepare them to be storekeepers, and in the 2nd community, where we lived for many years, my parents did not mix socially with neighbors, for they were our customers.

Unlike the present generation, we were not exposed to television and daily reminders of wealthy people, but we were conscious of our relationships to employers, those who were native speakers of English, those who had accumulated money to enlarge their businesses, and those who had employees. And, eventually the more prosperous families moved to “better” communities, and purchased single or two-family houses. As for us, “we never made it to Flatbush!” We never owned a home or a car.

I consider myself very lucky that I always knew who I was, and was never overcome by envy or anger about who I was not. Because I was an only child, my parents provided security  and material goods, as my friends with many siblings would claim, and what we had were shelter, food,clothing (which my mother and I sewed) and savings, because my parents were pragmatic, and always worried about the inevitable emergencies. I learned arithmetic on my father’s manual cash register, and I was always conscious of money worries and responsibilities, because my mother and father worked together in our store and supported my paternal grandparents when their store failed.

Unlike my peers, I received an allowance, and was responsible for making decisions about spending it. I bought books, material to sew clothes, magazines, but I knew my limits, and if I wanted to order something by mail, my father charged me ten cents for the check.

School made an American of me, and my teachers, some from my own background, who were hostile to my  religious observances (taking  days off from school for holidays) taught me to behave, speak, and express myself in a more suitable manner, such as  always being conscious of the milieu, not using gestures while speaking (the American model). And, when I went to work after graduatingfrom high school, my Jewish last name was an excuse for employers not to hire me, and it was not a covert action on their part.

A long time ago, a friend from India said that being poor in his country was very different, for the poor only knew the poor. However, we, the immigrants, and the children of immigrants,  always have a double-consciousnessof our "position," an awareness that the predominant culture does not possess. And, we do not think of ourselves as "the advocates of the unfortunate," because  we were among those who had to help ourselves. It was a daily lesson and goal.

My childhood prepared me to cope with class, social, religious, and racial diversity from the moment I was born; my later immersion in art, music, theatre, dance, literature andhistory prepared me to live in the world, not in that narrow American view of emulating or envying the white moneyed upper class, and patronizing the poor;  worldwide travels as an adult expanded my view that every society has its distinctions and values, based on inequities, discrimination, and political power.

And, when I married a man from a British colony, who had grown up in a tropical village without electricity or running water, and I lived with his family as a young mother, I knew that I could survive anywhere.  There was no hierarchy in my worldview. And, to this day, I do not associate only with those who share my racial, religious, economic, or educational background.

As for the differences in class, again I feel fortunate, because it did not shape my inner world when I was very young. And, because my husband & I began teaching in public schools in our late 30s, and were part of a diverse group, my children and I do not consider racial, religious, ethnic, or class differences as obstacles to overcome; they are the essence of who we are and were. Before teaching, I held many jobs to support myself, and to acquire 3 academic degrees, like other "minorities" in this vast country. I have never relied on race, family history, inheritance, or status to reach my goals.

However, it was much harder for my daughter who had to work while attending 2 Ivy League universities where her classmates "lived on their dividends." My son,  a musician,  performed all over the world, and also has that “double consciousness,” so within my family, we have all the strains and issues of class, opportunity, ethnic diversity, and more. 

Present times now reveal how misguided were those who wanted to rise in class by borrowing excessive money to build “estates”  to emulate “the Ralph Lauren landed gentry,” and I feel great pity for them, because they believed in the illusion of entitlement; however, I do not identify with them, and my children do not identify with them, because it was all a myth. The hierarchy of class which Americans used to minimize has blown up in their faces. And now we all experience financial dangers because of that delusion.