Social Class In America

In watching all nine parts of the video "People Like Us" what I thought throughout my life is true, America tries to give this impression that all are equal, no one is less than or we are all one. When the truth is that we have never and are not and may never be one. Growing up I was often intimidated by white people I was scared to be in the city I was scared to go into Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, Macy's and other high fashion stores because I always felt like I didn't belong. It was very interesting when the woman said that they know when they intimidate you but I eel Ike hats heir plan from the very beginning and their intent is to not have you come back into the store and to tell all your friends not to either, Everything is divided by class, what you wear, your income, your race, what you do. Nothing is ever equality, as Kanye West said "they make us hate our self and love their wealth". A man said in the video that it may be impossible to change your class and it may take an entire lifetime and the class you grew up in is the class your in for life. In a way it's true and in a way its not there are countless famous people that grew up dirt poor but later became in a higher class than they imagined. Some examples might be Jay-Z, Rihanna, Oprah, Tyler Perry and many others yet it took them forever to get their name out there and for people to believe in them. It was very interesting to know that there are people that don't mind being in a low income neighborhood and actually hanging out with people opposite from them. The boy said "you actually find more genuine people here" some people don't mind mixing in with other people and coming down from their high pedestal and not following the norms of society. I believe that everything relates to racism and classism in America and that's what the article "Media Magic: Making Class Invisible" really highlighted to me. We only focus on what the media wants to show us. I believe it brainwashes us as a society and we are then blinded by a false perception of what reality is. The media shows only a little bit of the poor as this bad image being on welfare, living in the projects, being on crack. The media has a way of changing views on everything in society. We look to the media for the news and what they show is what we internalize. Professor Applewhite brought up an interesting idea in class he said we think we belong o certain classes but we don't. The media shows what they want to show and the rest they ignore. So many of us including myself have grown accustomed to saying "I'm middle class" because no one wants to be considered poor when in fact more of us are poor than we think. Everyone would rather be neutral then to be considered poor, because when you think of poor you think of homeless or broke. As for myself I though I was middle class because I never had to much or to little I had enough to get by in life and I was satisfied with that. I believe sometimes the media wants us to think its a mind thing and whatever class we believe we are is what we are. Class is defined by INCOME, nothing more and nothing less. The whole class thing has been very blurry to me because you don't really know where exactly you fit in. The media is used to change our way of thinking and conform our minds. Its a mechanism that is used to control us and prey on those that know little to nothing. The article brought out a good point "those that are in the media are upper class. So of course they feed us lies they themselves are upper class. This awkward separation makes each class, each race hate each other and once they get all of us to be at odds with one another then they got us to be there puppets so we have no awareness of what's going on. Classism is unjust!