March 2013
1 post
A note
Thank you, as always, for your support. Every now and then, I get a little blip of reblogs and such, and I’m always glad to see when people feel they got something positive from what I wrote.
I am not currently active on this blog and I have not been since August of 2011. The reasons for that are complicated and personal, but an important reason is that my life is very different now from...
December 2011
2 posts
In the meantime: this blog in a nutshell.
Class rage moment: “You should be enjoying being young!”
Encountering the “at least you’re not starving in Africa!” argument.
Class rage memory: when “inclusivity” feels like a joke.
Nine things I wish economically privileged people in my life knew.
Nine ways to be a good friend in the face of economic differences.
Class rage moment: classism in the...
Goodness gracious.
I don’t know what happened here, but I appear to have acquired quite a few new followers. Hello! If any of you would like to tell me where you heard about me, I would very much like that- I haven’t been keeping track very well, and the number of hits I’ve received suddenly this past week has been a big surprise. I can tell that one of my posts has been circulating on Facebook,...
August 2011
10 posts
“Can we just accept that fact that being poor, and being on public assistance,...”
– You can just… — Feministe (via lemdi)
It’s kind of sad that wanting people, regardless of their financial situation, to be able to enjoy life in some small way opens yourself up to being called a communist. Not that it is really an insult, it’s just sad that being decent is such an anomaly.
(via...
Class rage moment: "But it's really not that much...
On a recent slow day at work, waiting for a phone call to answer, I found myself perusing the archives of the Dear Prudence advice column. I frequently disagree with Prudence’s advice, but it makes for an interesting read to pass the time. Between the standard stories of fights with the in-laws, workplace drama, and child-rearing problems, I found a letter from a soon-to-be father asking for...
3 tags
Why poor people support tax breaks for the rich? →
Why do lower middle-class and working class Americans support tax breaks for the rich? New research suggests it might not be about aspirations—i.e., “Maybe I could be rich someday.” Instead, says the Economist, people are more concerned with how social programs and wealth distribution might help people worse off than them become better off than them.
In other words: Nobody wants to be on...
Class rage moment: "You should be enjoying being...
“Stop being so serious, you’re wasting your youth! You should be out having fun!”
“You’re young and free- you don’t have a mortgage or children to take care of. What reason could you possibly have to worry about money?”
“Sharing apartments and eating ramen are just part of being young- you have to accept that and just focus on having a good...
Perspective and perception: the privilege or...
With the economy in the state it’s in, it’s clear that now is a difficult time, financially speaking, to be a young person in the United States. Unemployment is rampant, the job market is cutthroat, and higher education is ever more expensive, sending many people into substantial student-loan debt. I know very well how scary a situation this can be; I graduate with my master’s in...
cognitivedissonance:
Recently, The Heritage Foundation released a report on poverty in American, largely trying to debunk the idea that poor people are poor. They included facts like the majority of people living in poverty have refrigerators, microwaves, and air conditioners. Never mind these things might be attached to a rental unit of some kind… it’s not like those items listed are big-ticket...
readnfight:
Study: Healthy eating is privilege of the rich
Nothing new, but I am glad to see 1) data to back up what everyone knows, and 2) strong wording. “Privilege of the rich” is not a phrase I’m used to reading in mainstream news.
SEATTLE — A healthy diet is expensive and could make it difficult for Americans to meet new U.S. nutritional guidelines, according to a study published...
unconquistador-deactivated20110 asked: Hello!
I had a discussion with someone who was upper-middle class yesterday. I was relaying some of my experiences with bill struggles, grocery shopping, etc. And the only concrete feedback I received was 'Well, at least you weren't starving in Africa. You should be more grateful that you didn't have it as bad."
What's your opinion on this sort of logic?...
I had a discussion with someone who was upper-middle class yesterday. I was relaying some of my experiences with bill struggles, grocery shopping, etc. And the only concrete feedback I received was 'Well, at least you weren't starving in Africa. You should be more grateful that you didn't have it as bad."
What's your opinion on this sort of logic?...
Possessed by possessions.
rosewater-sailor:
classragespeaks:
What do you do when you find yourself wanting what you can’t afford? Do you distract yourself? Channel your energies in other directions? Make substitutions? Or do you consciously maintain the mindset that buying and possessing things is not important?
I entertain myself by making up mock-carts in online stores, stuff like that. I have a huge Amazon...
Possessed by possessions.
Despite being poor, most of the time, I am fairly content with the things that I own. I may not be able to afford the perfect clothes or every item I would like to have for my home, but I generally like what I wear and what my home looks like. I can’t buy every book I want to read, but I’m content to use the library. I don’t have expensive tastes or costly hobbies, and I’ve...
July 2011
16 posts
Conflicts
iamwhoiamandidontgiveadamn:
So I’m having conflicting guilt and it’s really got my life at a stand still right now. Maybe if anyone has some kind of advice, or input….
But here’s the problem:
While I personally am poor, Marcus is not. Marcus’s income allows us to have a nice lifestyle. Big screen TV, xbox kinect, DVDs, Netflix, hulu, air conditioning…you get the idea.
But it’s a lifestyle...
About this blog and its author. →
I just added a new introductory page- I tend to reintroduce myself every time I get a new influx of readers, but that probably gets tedious for the rest of y’all. If you’re interested in a brief overview of who I am and why I write this blog, there’s now a link at the top of the page as well as in the title of this post.
Class rage memory: when "inclusivity" feels like a...
One more year, one more graduation season. I’m not a graduate this year, but in the past few months, my Facebook newsfeed was swamped as friends who were the year below me in undergrad alternately jumped for joy and stressed out about what was to come next. My little brother graduated from high school this year as well, and his life seems to be a constant whirl of graduation parties and...
theplaceholder asked: hey, i just wanted to say that i've been reading your blog for a little while and i love it. i identify with so much of what you're saying and you say it in such an eloquent and concise manner.
i have slightly different experiences than you, in that i didn't always grow up "poor" -- we hovered between poor and lower-middle class until my mother married my...
i have slightly different experiences than you, in that i didn't always grow up "poor" -- we hovered between poor and lower-middle class until my mother married my...
Food Privilege Deniers Challenge
tastiejam:
charlie-tango:
Think that poor people are just lazy? That maybe if they would just get something other than fried chicken for dinner they wouldn’t be so fat? Then boy do I have a challenge for you!
For a week:
You must walk or take public transportation for a week. What? Your town doesn’t have public transportation? HAHA, you lose and must walk EVERYWHERE!
If you work at an...
beyondasleep asked: i just wanted to let you know how incredibly important your blog is to me, especially your personal accounts of your "current situation," i.e. being a poor person pursuing higher education. i am the first person in my family to graduate high school, let alone attend and graduate college, and am now working on my Masters in school counseling. i have always been poor so i feel like i am in...
“Poorer people have to think hard about a million things that affluent people...”
– David Brooks. In a article about social research and the benefits it can bring to policy making….and how Congress is seriously threatening to slash it. (via digitalfridge)
thetart:
Yeah so I’m sure this has all blown over, but I just tried to sleep off a migraine to no avail because I couldn’t make my brain STFU. So you have to hear it, and you have to hear it cranky:
As someone who had to cancel Netflix a year and a half ago to make room in the budget for a barely 3 digit car payment, your unsolicited opinion that it’s soooo dulllllllll when people worry over...
Hidden Beneficiaries of Federal Programs (link to... →
This post discusses an earlier post at the blog boingboing, regarding the strange fact that many people surveyed who answered “no” to the question of whether they had ever used or participated in a US government program actually had, but apparently didn’t think of it as such.
Mettler first asked survey participants whether they had ever used a federal U.S. government program....
Coworker: People on food stamps are just lazy.
Me: I'm on food stamps.
Coworker: Obviously I'm not talking about you.
The myth of mooch.
Recently, I was looking back at the different places across the Internet where some of my posts from this blog had ended up. In that process, I found a response to one of my earlier posts, in which I had listed a number of ways that economically privileged people can ensure that are sensitive and helpful to their poorer friends. This responder clearly didn’t get that I was talking about...
gritinthegap asked: Hello!
There are two parts here--
First, I love your blog. I grew up with a father who was affected by poverty when he was a kid, and while he got an education and a good job and was technically not living in poverty as an adult, he still has a lot of the mindsets and insecurities that come along with it. That was inevitably passed on to me and my siblings and so while I look...
There are two parts here--
First, I love your blog. I grew up with a father who was affected by poverty when he was a kid, and while he got an education and a good job and was technically not living in poverty as an adult, he still has a lot of the mindsets and insecurities that come along with it. That was inevitably passed on to me and my siblings and so while I look...
“Conservatives are fond of telling us what a wonderful, happy, prosperous nation...”
– Dr. Michael Parenti, author of Dirty Truths
In 1996, he made a rather concise observation which still rings painfully true today. A few examples of compassionate conservatism:
“Is the government now creating hobos?” — Rep. Dan Heller (R-Nevada)
“You know, we should not be giving cash to...
Class rage moment of the day:
Watching Say Yes To The Dress- yes, it’s a guilty pleasure- and seeing one bride’s friend practically force her to break her $1500 budget by making her try on dresses far outside her price range, ridiculing her attempts to stick to a certain price point, and encouraging her to beg parents and friends for money or go into substantial credit-card debt to get the “perfect”...
Link: The Mental Burden of a Lower-Class Childhood... →
This part hit me especially hard:
But I recognize the sentiment expressed in the postcard — the ever-present possibility that you’ll un-self-consciously mention something from your childhood and be met with gleefully horrified looks and giggles, and not know what’s so funny about shrugging and off-handedly saying, “I don’t know if I really need to see a movie about it, I’ve watched my...
Seriously?
lazybookreviews:
On this preggo bulletin board I read, a woman who just became eligible for WIC mentioned that she wasn’t allowed to buy whole milk with it, just the lower-fat versions, which was a problem for her, because, oh, wait, pregnant women can really benefit from having some fat with their fat-soluble vitamins, and SHOULD possibly watch the higher carb content in skim milk if they’re at...
Shame
-rosasparks-:
No one talks about personal economic problems because it’s shameful.
I mean, sure I could say it’s no big deal and I should just eat hot dogs and squeeze cheese until I find a job, but it goes so far beyond that. When minisparks needed new shoes because her feet were being squished in her old sneakers, I had to ask grampa for money.
I pay full, no insurance prices for my...
June 2011
10 posts
melissikins:
class rage speaks: Neither here nor there.
classragespeaks:
melissikins:
classragespeaks:
As you may have noticed, I’ve been away. I meant to leave posts in my queue, but something about the Tumblr redesign has messed things up for me, making it impossible to adjust my queue settings appropriately. (Grumble grumble grumble sigh.)
Anyway. I spent the past week out of state,...
exhibitnumber1:
QueerOctopus: They pay you less than a living wage to keep the cost of the product…
queeroctopus:
They pay you less than a living wage to keep the cost of the product down. So the only products you can afford are the ones that contribute to the oppression of those just like you. And you keep buying things at their low low prices, letting them say “hey, we’re only...
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is...”
– James Baldwin, “Fifth Avenue, Uptown: a Letter from Harlem” in Esquire (July 1960)
It’s 51 years later and this quote could not be more relevant.
(via damekatharsis)
class rage speaks: Neither here nor there. →
melissikins:
classragespeaks:
As you may have noticed, I’ve been away. I meant to leave posts in my queue, but something about the Tumblr redesign has messed things up for me, making it impossible to adjust my queue settings appropriately. (Grumble grumble grumble sigh.)
Anyway. I spent the past week out of state, visiting…
I have been there, that feeling of place-less-ness because you’re...
Neither here nor there.
As you may have noticed, I’ve been away. I meant to leave posts in my queue, but something about the Tumblr redesign has messed things up for me, making it impossible to adjust my queue settings appropriately. (Grumble grumble grumble sigh.)
Anyway. I spent the past week out of state, visiting family back in the town where I grew up. I only go back there once a year these days, for a few...
Going home, part 1: the cost of space.
It’s been a long week. Moving is never a fun task, and the heat that hit my region last week was especially hard on my partner and I. Two moving trucks, two dodged parking tickets, a rented car, a plane very nearly missed, two large Fedex shipments, a highly exhausting trip to Ikea, and many hours of work later, all our worldly belongings are at least physically within our new place....
Gifts and commerce in rich and poor families.
The other day, I had an interesting conversation with my partner, who grew up in a much wealthier family, about how each of our families goes about transferring possessions- either through giving or selling- between family members. It was really illuminating for me, in a small way, to think about what those differences say about class divides between our families.
It started with a mattress. My...
Slight hiatus
Hi all! Just letting you know that I will be back eventually- but not yet. I’ve been down with a nasty case of food poisoning this week, and will be spending the next two weeks or so moving and dealing with associated responsibilities, so I won’t have much time to post. I’ll try to slip in a post here and there- but for now, just know that I will be back eventually.
Thanks for...
Women In Academia: Budgeting In Grad School →
ailanthusaltissima:
Here’s a chunk of my article for Persephone. Click through for the whole damn thing.
I feel as if my experiences as “grad student poor” are temporary. I come from a stable place financially, and even though I am not making much money now, I am getting paid (through stipends, fellowships, and TAships – I refuse to take out a loan) for actively working towards a degree...
May 2011
41 posts
tenderstatue:
class rage speaks: Why I’m afraid of budgeting.
classragespeaks:
wildunicornherd:
classragespeaks:
[…] The “budgeting” procedure I inherited from my parents looked something like this: First, pay for the non-negotiable essentials- housing, utilities, my prescriptions. Then, spend as little as possible on other necessities, like groceries, school supplies, and...
snackalupagus asked: "Some will be spent in little outbursts on non-necessary things, when the pressure of never being able to afford to have fun becomes too much, and looked upon with guilt and despair afterward."
This really resonated with me and I think it causes people to judge me as financially irresponsible. Then again, poor people "aren't supposed to need fun."
This really resonated with me and I think it causes people to judge me as financially irresponsible. Then again, poor people "aren't supposed to need fun."
class rage speaks: Why I'm afraid of budgeting. →
wildunicornherd:
classragespeaks:
[…] The “budgeting” procedure I inherited from my parents looked something like this: First, pay for the non-negotiable essentials- housing, utilities, my prescriptions. Then, spend as little as possible on other necessities, like groceries, school supplies, and clothing. Whatever is left is to be squirreled away fearfully, desperately, with the creeping...
Things that bother me:
criptheatrequeer:
When folks who don’t have a lot of excess spending money because they are in school, but whose every necessary expense is taken care of by their parents, act like they understand me when I’m talking about poverty.
=/
=/
=/
ABSOLUTELY. This is something that bothers me a great deal as well, and I’ve met tons of these people in college and grad school.
In certain...
Why I'm afraid of budgeting.
Something that really fascinates me is thinking about the psychological effects that growing up poor has has upon me, and the ways in which my habits, assumptions, reactions, and “instinctive” preferences have been shaped by that upbringing. Some of these effects have been distinctly negative; in combination with my existing tendencies toward depression and anxiety, they definitely...
5 things nobody tells you about being poor →
sesquipedelia:
hell of relevance, yo
Huh! Not what I usually expect from Cracked.com, and it has its issues (sex slave jokes are not actually okay, people), but this makes a lot of really great points about things that are seriously important. I particularly liked this analogy:
So in answer to the inevitable, “You need to dream bigger, and strive forth to get a new career for...
this ain't livin': In Shocking News, Not All... →
There’s a lot of snobbery about ingredient availability that always puzzles me on a lot of levels. I want to say that food snobs are just not aware of how they sound, and maybe don’t know about the issues that they are breezily ignoring with snide statements about how other people cook. But a lot of them clearly are aware of these issues, and think that shaming people will somehow address them,...
squee-gee:
Proposed WIC Cuts Would End Food Assistance for 325,000 to 475,000 Low-Income Women and Children — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
drinkthe-koolaid:
House Republicans are proposing a cut in the WIC nutrition program that would force WIC to turn away 325,000 to 475,000 eligible low-income women and young children next year. This cut — part of the 2012 appropriations bill...
foulowl-deactivated20110604 asked: I like Stone Soup (http://thestonesoup.com/blog/), an Australian blogger who focuses on reducing each recipe to five ingredients or so and has published quite a few that focus on affordability and ingredients that are easy to find in any supermarket. Her photography is awesome, too. (Lately she's been on a weight loss thing, which I'm obviously not thrilled about, so I've been...
