#Classism

[assiraphales]

some of the worst classism is white collar middle class americans against blue collar & minimum wage workers. “why does that plumber make more than me” because he’s been perfecting his craft for 30 years and you send emails. “they’re in the trades bc they’re too dumb to do anything else” ok take that engine apart and put it back together real fast babe. “they’re boring bc they never left their home town” have you considered they financially couldn’t? I am not saying it is anyone’s job to educate, nor you need to respect people who do not respect you, but while you maybe never sympathize we need to learn to empathize. consider why (who) allowed for massive parts of country to be uneducated and how many impoverished areas of this country haven’t had a voice for a very long time. we are all victims of the rich. remember it is up vs down

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

[theconcealedweapon]

I work as a programmer for $35 an hour.

They once forgot to pay me for 8 extra hours that they needed me to work on Thanksgiving weekend. They simply needed me to be present for 8 hours in order to quickly fix any problems that happened during their busiest weekend, and no such problems ended up happening.

When they saw the mistake and paid me for it, the gross pay for that day was $420 (base of $35 x 8 hours x 1.5 for overtime).

The first thing I noticed was how that compared to what I got paid at my warehouse job before I became a programmer. When I started the job at the warehouse, I got paid $10 an hour. For a full time week, I got paid $400.

I got paid more for that one day of doing practically nothing as a programmer than I did busting my ass at the warehouse for a whole week.

So enough about this "I work harder than them so I deserve more pay" bullshit. You're all the working class. In our fucked up system, hard work does not equal more pay. If you want more pay, you need to fight back against the rich assholes who profit off your labor and pay you jack shit, not fight with other people who are underpaid about who deserves to be more underpaid.

[justsomeantifas]

The most fucked up part is a diet rich in whole grains, leafy greens, mushrooms, legumes, fruits and vegetables is going to keep people healthy

and you know what poor areas absolutely do not have access to?

whole grains, legumes, leafy greens, mushrooms, fruits and vegetables.

It literally shortens people’s lives.

Access to healthy foods is a class issue. It’s always been a class issue.

[crippled-peeper]

telling people living off of social security to “start saving in case it collapses” is so SO out of touch that it’s almost funny. most of us have negatives in our bank accounts at the end of the month and barely eat. we barely are surviving. there is nothing to for us to “save”. what the hell are you talking about

I’m gonna need yall to actually fight back and protest DOGE and Trump or shut the fuck up. your advice sucks

[dystopian-intellectual-pigeon]

For so long, the US has been a battle of left vs right. But CEO Brian Thompson's assassination has kinda done something incredible..... The conversation has shifted from being "left vs right" to "rich vs poor." The cracks have begun to show, and maybe, just maybe, the conversation will continue...

[kingproteus]

[gayvampyr]

"poor people are happier with less" and "money won't buy happiness" is literally classist propaganda. stop buying into it and start making molotov cocktails

[assiraphales]

“people who have never left their home towns are so small minded and boring” is something I wish we could leave behind because on one hand it’s an incredibly classist statement (what if they don’t have the money to leave? what if they have family obligations? why is the default to call them uninteresting when they didn’t have the funds or privilege to go to school or travel?) and on the other………….have we considered that some ppl are happy? that keeping roots in the soil you were born, staying in a community that nourishes you, isn’t embarrassing or shameful?

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

[theconcealedweapon]

[justsomeantifas]

Lavish CEO’s Wife, sobbing hysterically after CEO assassination: I don’t know I don’t know I guess he killed millions of people for our money??? I don’t know I don’t know!!!

[disableddyke]

if your class solidarity doesn’t include people who are on SSI, food stamps, or are unable to work it’s not solidarity

[gayhenrycreel]

leftism would be a lot more efficient if people realized this: the working class and the lower class is not the same thing.

as a child, my family was middle class. dad made $100,000 nzd per year. we moved and bought a new house without renting at any point, simply so we would be in a convenient place closer to dads workplace. dad bought a $10,000 dollar motorbike just because he wanted to. we were well off and if we had better budgeting skills our family could save a million bucks by the time my parents retired.

we lost everything.

middle class people still need unions. they still need to deal with abusive bosses. they can still lose all that financial security just by divorcing the worker of the family or making a bad decision.

now im lower class, as are both my parents.

upper class people dont work. they are ceos, upper millionares, and billionares. people work for them and they dont answer to anyone. there is a huge difference between a very well paid worker (hollywood actors for instance) and a ceo who never has to negotiate his pay with a superior.

dont get it mixed up. an upper middle class person is not the same as the billionare who can buy his way into a goverment or fund a goverment to change the way the law works.

just because someone is well off does not mean you have no shared experiences. they may or may not be out of touch, but you should organize with those who also answer to a boss.

[hyperlexichypatia]

This is a semi spinoff of this post, but really its own thought.

When a job pays less than a living wage, it generally attracts one of two types of employees:

Desperate people (usually poor and/or otherwise marginalized or with barriers to employment), who will take any job, no matter how bad, because they need the money, or

Independently wealthy people (usually well-off retirees, students being supported by their families, or women with well-off husbands*), who don't care about the pay scale because they don't need the money anyway.**

And sometimes, organizations will intentionally keep a job low-paying or non-paying with the deliberate intent of narrowing their pool to that second category.

People sometimes bring this up when discussing the salaries of elected officials -- yes, most politicians are paid more than most "regular people," but they're not paid enough to sustain the expensive lifestyle politicians have to maintain, and that's on purpose. It's not an oversight, and it's not primarily about cost-cutting. It's a deliberate barrier to ensure that only rich people can run for office.

The same is true, albeit to less severe effect, of unpaid internships -- the benefit of "hiring" an unpaid intern isn't (just) that you don't have to pay them; it's also that you can ensure that all your workers are rich, or at least middle-class.

When nonprofits brag about how little of their budget goes to "overhead" and "salaries", as if those terms were synonymous with "waste," what they're really saying is "All our employees are financially comfortable enough that they don't worry about being underpaid. Our staff has no socioeconomic diversity, and probably very little ethnic or cultural diversity." ***

This isn't a secret. I'm not blowing anything wide open here. People very openly admit that they think underpaid workers are better, because they're "not in it for the money." This is frequently cited as a reason, for example, that private school teachers are "better" than public school teachers -- they're paid less, so they're not "in it for the money," so they must be working out of the goodness of their hearts. I keep seeing these cursed ads for a pet-sitting service where the petsitters aren't paid, which is a selling point, because they're "not in it for the money."

"In it for the money" is the worst thing a worker could be, of course. Heaven forbid they be so greedy and entitled and selfish as to expect their full-time labor to enable them to pay for basic living expenses. I get this all the time as a public library worker, when I point out how underfunded and underpaid we are. "But... you're not doing it for the money, right?" And I'm supposed to laugh and say "No, no, I'd do it for free, of course!"

Except, see, I have these pesky little human needs, like food. And I can't get a cart full of groceries and explain to the cashier that I don't have any money, but I have just so much job satisfaction!

And it's gendered, of course it's gendered. The subtext of "But you're not doing it for the money, of course" is "But how much pin money do you really need, little lady? Doesn't your husband give you a proper allowance?"

Conceptually, it's just an extension of the upper-class cultural norm that "polite" (rich) people "don't talk about money" (because if you have to think about how much money you have or how much you need, you're insufficiently rich).

*Gendered language very much intentional.

**Disabled people are more likely to be in the first category (most disabled people are poor, and being disabled is expensive), but are usually talked about as if they're in the second category. We're told that disabled people sorting clothing for $1.03 an hour are "So happy to be here" and "Just want to be included," and it's not like they need the money, since, as we all know, disability benefits are ample and generous [heavy sarcasm].

***Unless, of course, they're a nonprofit whose "mission" involves "job placement," in which case what they're saying is "We exploit the poor and desperate people we're purporting to help." Either way, "We pay our employees like crap" is nothing to brag about.

[trans-ylvania]

everything is awful right now so im making a 4 year survival plan, put in the tags any ideas you have

my ideas so far:

trust self & focus on values

get new copies of govt. papers

medical history binder

avoid self censorship

get high quality masks

research where my data is being shared

care for body as if theres already no healthcare

buy condoms

make sure vaxxes are up to date

self defense classes

renew passport

reblogs for a bigger idea pool would be very appreciated

don't kill yrself im so serious that is exactly what the government wants you to do stay alive out of spite even if yr miserable (& you will be) (joy exists in and amongst grief)