[Xmca-l] NYT Op-Ed: Class Prejudice Resurgent

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Hello esteemed discussants,


I am not normally a fan of David Brooks of the New York Times, but sometimes he really surprises me. This is one of those times:


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/opinion/david-brooks-class-prejudice-resurgent.html<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/opinion/david-brooks-class-prejudice-resurgent.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fdavid-brooks&contentCollection=opinion&action=click&module=NextInCollection&region=Footer&pgtype=article>


It has been my sense that we (as a culture, i.e., my American culture to which he refers) are more afraid to discuss class then we are to discuss race, and now it has become even harder, apparently.


I particularly took to this paragraph:


"Widening class distances produce class prejudice, classism. This is a prejudice based on visceral attitudes about competence. People in the "respectable" class have meritocratic virtues: executive function, grit, a capacity for delayed gratification. The view about those in the untouchable world is that they are short on these things. They are disorganized. They are violent and scary. This belief has some grains of truth because of childhood trauma, the stress of poverty and other things. But this view metastasizes into a vicious, intellectually lazy stereotype. Before long, animalistic imagery is used to describe these human beings."


Kind regards,


Annalisa