Preview

Social Class Struggle In America

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1059 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Social Class Struggle In America
The American Struggle Why social class? Many Americans want to know the answer to this question, but is it possible to really answer the question to “why” we have social class? It is easy to explain “what”, but it’s “why” that stumps us every time. Social class is the division or classification among people in a society. In America we have the upper class (rich), the upper and lower middle classes, and the lower class (poor). Americans base the social classes mainly upon annual income, and education. I have discovered an excellent example that highlights the struggle of our society’s lower class and also the dominance of our upper class. My chosen example is the movie John Q. John Q is about a lower class family who struggles with …show more content…
One morning during Mike’s baseball game he was sprinting to second base and suddenly falls to the ground into a seizure. John and Denise frantically call an ambulance and rush to the hospital. After thorough testing John and Denise Archibald receive the frightening news that Mike has a bad heart. The only choice Mike has is to have a heart transplant or he will die. John has extremely low income and the hospital tells him his insurance is not good enough to get his son’s name on the transplant list. John Archibald does everything in his power to earn enough money just to get Mike’s name on the list but after the first few weeks pass the hospital tells him it is too late. They are sending Mike home to die. Denise calls John and tells him to “do something”. That is exactly what John did except he was forced to go to extremes. Making sure John had all the right professionals, …show more content…
Prices on anything and everything are skyrocketing. Employee’s hours are slowly getting cut at work. Minimum wage is staying at a constant. All of these things are affecting our lives in a negative way. Many families have had to foreclose their homes and file bankruptcy. Kids have a hard time finding financial aid for school, and it is preventing them from trying to get an education. You would think everyone in the world would open there eyes and see what is happening and try to fix it, but we, the human race, are encouraging our fate; the end of time. December 22, 2012 is the universal prediction of the end of time. It is up to us to change that, but we are too ignorant to work together and try to mend the damage we have done. Why did I mention the end of time? Because, in a deeper sense, it ties in with social class. The division among people has given us a reason to judge others. Some upper class citizens feel high and mighty compared to the lower class. This is also where stereotyping comes from. We have nicknames like trailer trash, white trash, and nigger. These names come from the classification the human race made for themselves. John Quincy Archibald faced all of these problems, and that is why his situation serves has an excellent

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    In Gregory Mantsios’s essay, “Class in America” he discusses his point of view on social classes in America and the impact it has on people. Mantsios pulls information from a number of different sources. He looks at differences in wealth distribution. He discusses the health concerns. He then looks at educational success, and the correlation between social class and better economic success. He claims that, “we mistakenly hold a set of beliefs that obscure the reality of class differences and their impact on people’s lives.” (698). Gregory Mantsios succeeds at proving his claim because of the amount of evidence he presents.…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Allison Greenle1

    • 1660 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Social classes in America have been a rising issue. Many People don’t think that social classes matter very much, they believe that you are either rich or poor: there is no real in between. Whereas there are really nine classes with top out of sight being the highest class and bottom out of sight being the lowest class. In between though there is seven other classes: upper, upper middle, middle, high proletarian, mid proletarian, low proletarian, destitute and bottom out-of-sight. This is made very clear Paul Fussell’s book Class: A Guide Trough the American Status System. Fussell makes these classes very clear and well defined. In the film Grand Canyon directed by Lawrence Kasdad, characters representing different classes come together and form relationships. The main one being the upper middle class lawyer Mack and a high prole tow truck driver Simon. The two meet and gain insight on how different classes behave and act. This gives one another a special look into another social class. The different classes expressed by Mack and Simon in the film Grand Canyon are shown by the clothing worn, Housing and job titles.…

    • 1660 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the book Money and Class in America, Lewis Lapham claims that American culture idolizes the wealthy, believing that wealth is necessarily belied by quality of character and wisdom. He gives both cross-cultural and cross-historical examples to show that other cultures and at other times the highest esteem was given not only to the wealthy, but also to the intellectual, the powerful, and the artistic individuals of those societies. In contrast Lapham discusses Americans’ idolization of the wealthy, as well as their conflation of wealth and individual merit and worth. He then questions if Americans -- a supposedly egalitarian people who are all created equal. Nonetheless, this cult of wealth still pervades, though seemingly there is nothing to cause it, as similar nations are not afflicted by such an absurd ardor.…

    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although segregation and uniformity dominated the societal values of the South during the antebellum era, one of the defining characteristics which surfaced during this time period for the predominately white society is that of diversity. Due to a variety of factors including a wide economic divide, mixed political views, and differing attitudes toward the controversial issue of slavery, the class system of the white South could be divided into four social groups. These social groups consisted of the planters, small slaveholders, yeoman, and the people of the pine barrens. The standard of living between these four groups varied wildly, and the core values that each of these classes held reflected the diverse abyss which shaped the white social structure.…

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Class In America Summary

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Gregory Montsios talks about the different classes we have in America and how Americans do not like to talk about it. Myth 1 talks about the United States being a classless society. I find that very hard to believe. It is a good thought but not true. You see poverty all around you. In San Antonio we have homeless people all over the city. You see them on street corners asking for money or work. We also see the working class going to their everyday jobs. This can include the upper class as well. I really do not pay intention to the wealthy people living in San Antonio. I cannot imagine how many millionaires we have living in San Antonio. What frustrates we…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although, one’s gender or race is not taken in count, social class has always part of America. One of biggest factors where one is placed in the social status is how wealthy or poor one is. For example, many rich people do not want to pay taxes so that their money goes to the poor who they think are poor because they are lazy and do not work. But, the truth is that the rich in America easily have access to opportunities and rights that the poor do not have. It is an ongoing battle the rich blame the poor and the poor blame the rich. However, in America the rich have the most power so the rich win the…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    the south social classes

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The slave south held a society that was not too complex. Social classes played an important role for the southern culture. Two major classes defined the simplicity of the south: yeomen farmers and free blacks, which contributed to the society at the time. Although yeomen and free blacks, to certain circumstances, were considered a middle class, the plantation owning whites still had the upper hand when it came to constitutional rights. Free blacks generally did worse than yeomen, but they usually prospered more than slaves. Most lived in unoccupied areas, and with little to no resources to rely on such as land and political recognition, they struggled to survive.…

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    You have represented a dividing line between the middle class, the working class and poor. In your eyes, these are the most important classes in the United States because they illustrate a real, and the most common family status. Your writings have given us individual accounts of the struggling classes and many of the challenges we may face from day to day, and how this matters more to us because we are not all a part of the upper class.…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The other major change that has been well researched is the emergence of a sizable black electorate. After the passage of voting rights legislation in 1965, the Lyndon Johnson campaign reached out to the black community (Black and Black 1987). This led to increases in the registration of black voters and the shift from a southern electorate dominated by white elites to one where the Democratic Party sought a biracial coalition (Black and Black 2002). Because of the change in the racial composition of the Southern electorate, Democrats no longer needed a majority of white votes to win (Black 2004). They needed a smaller percentage of the white electorate in the Deep South where there was a higher concentration of blacks.…

    • 1917 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Everyone is born in a specific social class, that being, we have no choice to choose our own social class from birth. Unless members of the family are able to change their social status, it’s more likely to remain in the same class. Social class is an important factor we have as an individual because depending on the social class, we are able to experience in a wide variety of opportunities to no opportunities. Lower class family were classified to be unstable, reduce marriage options, (Lower class person seeking for it’s opponent with higher class for secure reasons), and overall, it’s all about surviving than experimenting and taking adventures. Follows up with the working class and then then the middle class, while the working class is still…

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The social structure of Britain has been highly influenced by the concept of social class. In sociology, the term ‘social class’ is most often used to refer to the primary system of social stratification found in modern capitalist societies. Social stratification refers to ‘the presence [in society] of distinct social groups which are ranked one above the other in terms of factors such as prestige and wealth’.…

    • 1749 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Classism, an issue of oppression which exposes the ever-increasing differences and inequality between social classes in our society, and primarily measured by the wealth possessed and the amount of income a family or an individual earn, is every day more evident. For the last, few years we have witnessed the financial gap between wealthier and middle-class Americans widen as the years go by, but never as rapidly than after experiencing the last financial crisis of 2008. The effects of that financial crisis were disastrous, especially in the middle class. Americans lost millions of jobs, and wealth evaporated by the loss in value of real estate properties…

    • 936 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Class in America

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages

    For years, the United States has been selling the idea of what is known as “the American Dream”. This means that in America, anyone can recreate him or herself and climb up the ladder of social class. The standard way of thinking about class has it that the only factor that separates the classes is money. I’ve always believed that social class is determined by upbringing, education, and money, and that all three need to be good in order to become a member of the upper class.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to the Webster dictionary, social class is defined as a group of people who share economic and social status. Social class is separated by one’s wealth and how they present themselves. James W. Loewen once said that “social class is probably the most important variable in society. From womb to tomb, it correlates with all other social characteristics of people.” Here he is stating that social class is something a person will have to deal with for from birth to death; it will develop a person and their unique characteristics (compound sentence). Social standings are ubiquitous, which makes the idea of this quote so intriguing. As the world becomes more complex, the division between social classes becomes more apparent…

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    If people aren’t earning enough a lot of money, all they need to do is work harder they’ll get ahead.…

    • 1104 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays