View From the Bourgeois Vous (Upper-Middle Class)

After taking the Christian Science Monitor quiz, it has come to my attention that I am coined as an Upper-Middle Class American, in which I cannot deny. I see myself as more in the “middle” middle-class, but now that I am reflecting more on my life I can see how I am in the upper-middle class. Money has never been an extreme issue and I’ve been able to get almost everything that I’ve asked for without hesitation (besides video games that have been rated as mature). Looking more in depth on the quiz itself, I think the questions asked were pretty valid towards determining your social status; however, they never considered education. In my opinion, education is extremely important because the poor are seen as uneducated; therefore, timid to people that have the opportunity to get an education. I also wish the class didn’t ask about how much money you have left over after your expenditures because I don’t keep track of all the money that I spend and have left over. Other than that I have no complaints about the quiz and I feel it was very accurate in determining my social class.

Over the past couple days, we’ve been reading about social class and what others see on this issue. In the article Shadowy Lines That Still Divide it reads, “At a time when education matters more than ever, success in school remains linked tightly to class.” I believe this statement is true because most of the wealthy Americans have an outstanding education. Also, in order to fulfill the requirements of a highly regarded and well paid job, you need to have an education that aids you in performing the requirements. In the article Money Always Talks, it spoke about how the less fortunate feel uncomfortable around wealthier social classes. I can relate because, being an upper-middle class American, I have found myself surrounded by wealthy people in an area known as Maple Bluff. I felt I couldn’t engage in conversation with these people because they were talking about topics that I couldn’t relate to. The topics of conversation were about eating at the country club and about where they have travelled to. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to travel to many places or dine at a superb country club. It made me feel shy and nervous. I just wanted to leave and talk with people who could relate to me.

This leads me to an interesting point, social classes engage with their same social classes. In the excerpt of the documentary People Like Us that we were watching, it was talking about only WASP’s could be around other WASP’s, and any outsiders would be dismissed immediately. In my own experience, this is the same way. Being an athlete, I tend to hang around with other athletes. If a non-athlete approached as and tried talking about the same topics that we were discussing, we gave him a very perplexing look because it seemed that he didn’t have any credentials because he wasn’t an athlete. This is just like a regular person trying to jump into a WASP group and make casual conversation.

In our society nowadays, there are many stereotypes that split social classes and make others feel lesser than the wealthy, but one goal is everyone’s mind, rich or poor, and that goal is to be the best you can be (from excerpt of movie). This ideal makes our society strong and you can belong to any social class. As long as our society holds this ideal, I feel that our country will only continue to improve with stereotypes and social disparity.