Hugo Schwyzer does not want me to use ‘upper-class’ here.
I love my editors. But when my piece went up yesterday about class, the editors added this tag line You should always be proud of your family—even if they are preppy, upper-class, country club members.
The second adjective made me wince. Here’s why.
I teach at a small community college with an excellent theater department. A few years ago, I got an email announcing the spring production:
Follow a year in the lives of six upper-class friends through a series of holiday-themed parties as the Pasadena City College Performing and Communication Arts Division proudly presents “The Country Club” which opens on Friday, March 23, in PCC’s Sexson Auditorium.Playwright Douglas Carter Beane’s comedy-drama tells the story of a young and charmingly neurotic woman who retreats from a failed marriage and decides to go back to her upper-class hometown in Pennsylvania. There, she finds love, friendships, and tragedies. The play consists of nine scenes and evolves around different holidays.
This dramady reflects the typical White Anglo-Saxon Protestant domain of the upper-class, said Duke Stroud, PCC professor and director of the play. “It’s a portrait of dysfunctional relationships, which are funny and dramatic at the same time.”
I knew nothing about the play, and as it turned out, didn’t get a chance to see it. But the press release got under my skin instantly. You see, I hate the use of the phrase “upper class” to describe American families.
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I grew up in culture that described itself as “upper-middle class.” And in the WASP circles of my youth and my family background, I certainly encountered plenty of remarkably well-to-do people. I know the world of “clubs” fairly well, and though that world holds relatively little interest for me today, it’s still quite familiar. (Or as John Bradshaw would write it, family-ar). And here’s the thing: if there’s one maxim “our kind of people” all agreed on, it was that talking explicitly and publicly about class was prima facie evidence that you lacked it. Nothing could be more more NOKOP (“not our kind of people”) than to describe anything, be it a social gesture or a fashion accessory, as “classy.” Once, while at a family luncheon, I used the term “classy” to describe the play of one of John McEnroe’s opponents (we had just watched a Wimbledon match on television.) From the reaction of a few of my older relatives, you would think I had dropped the f-bomb. “I think you want to say that his behavior was ‘gentlemanly’, dear,” one of my elders advised me. Another suggested that “sporting” would have been an even more appropriate choice. I was about 14, and just starting to get the picture: we don’t talk about class.
And even worse than calling something “classy?” Referring to the existence of an American “upper-class.” I was raised to believe that the only authentic upper-class that exists is to be found in Europe. As one hired geneaologist famously told my great-aunt Carmen when she speculated that we had many aristocratic forebears, “Mrs. Starr, dukes don’t emigrate.” “Dukes don’t emigrate” became the standard bon mot we all used (and still do) whenever anyone speaks of an upper class in the United States. As far as we’re concerned, we maintain the satisfying fiction that almost all are middle class: there’s lower-middle, middle-middle, and upper-middle. And the less said specifically about these strata, the better.
To be really honest, I feel protective of the very sort of people the press release from our theater department seemed to disparage. Other than the cringe-inducing use of “upper class”, it wasn’t offensive. But here’s the really blunt truth: there are very few folks on my campus—faculty, staff, students—who come from a WASPy upper-middle class background. On at least one side of my family, I do. And when I read the press release, a big part of me felt as if this play (about which I knew zilch) was going to caricature a culture that I value —and that those doing the caricaturing on stage would, on this campus that is over 80% non-white, be those who know little or nothing about the culture they lampoon.
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It’s embarrassing to cop to this. Frankly, I’m prepared to believe that there’s a certain element of both classism and racism in my response. And Lord knows, despite years and years of teaching at a diverse urban community college, despite living in a glorious, successful, interracial marriage, I still struggle with my own bigotry, my own elitism. I am not proud of it, and I continue to work spiritually and psychologically to overcome whatever vestiges of prejudice remain in my soul.
The “WASPy country-club set” don’t need me to defend them. Yes, I continue to maintain quite seriously that we don’t have an authentic “upper-class” in this country. I continue to feel uncomfortable when others discuss what sort of behaviors or clothing choices are “classy” or not. But my intellectual and political training tells me that there’s no point in defending those who have had the greatest access to power and privilege in our nation’s relatively brief history. My commitment to justice and equality tells me that there is much in what I call my heritage that is ugly, oppressive, elitist, emotionally stunted and whoppingly superficial.
There is also, I am absolutely convinced, much that is joyous, harmless, and good. And the true upper class (which is not the same as the very wealthy) is found in the aristocratic manors and castles of Europe. Not here.
—Photo jonthor6/Flickr
“There is also, I am absolutely convinced, much that is joyous, harmless, and good. And the true upper class (which is not the same as the very wealthy) is found in the aristocratic manors and castles of Europe. Not here.” This is an illusion. Inheritance taxes are much higher in Europe, which means that this sort of aristocracy (America’s fantasy) no longer exists. In fact, powerful and rich American families which have preserved their money for generations resemble this model much more closely (rich, secluded, detached from surrounding social space) That this group of people has unifying sociological traits is… Read more »
Dukes don’t emigrate? Tell that to William the Conqueror and the knights/nobles of the Conquest.
Our class system may be different from the European one, but it’s still a class system.
“Dukes don’t emigrate” doesn’t seem an adequate argument to me. I’m no historian, but I’m fairly certain any given country’s aristocracy varied over time. It seems more likely to be a title that is earned or seized and accepted by enough people to matter. Thus, we could easily have an “upper class” in the US, even by your family’s standards.
So if I understand all you folks properly, no black people are “upper class” in America.
Am I right?
And if I’m not right, may I ask for some example of upper class blacks in America. Thanks in advance!
I’m kind of confused by this – are you claiming that there aren’t any hereditarily-rich black people in the US? Check out the upper-levels of the social scene in D.C. Michelle Obama is someone I think of as aristocratic in all the best and worst senses of the word.
Does this sound like the “upper class” of which Hugo speaks:
http://www.biography.com/articles/Michelle-Obama-307592
and I note: “Michelle was raised on Chicago’s South Side in a one-bedroom apartment. Her father, Frasier Robinson, was a city pump operator and a Democratic precinct captain. Her mother, Marian, was a Spiegel’s secretary who later stayed home to raise Michelle and her older brother, Craig.”
One bedroom apartment in Chicago’s South Side? Upper Class? Hmmm…
She’s successful and powerful now. She’s “upper class” now. Was she born that way? Ummm… Don’t think so.
Before we jettison “upper-class” let’s understand why it is used (and how). Roughly speaking, “upper-class” in America is synonymous with “bourgeoisie.” The bourgeoisie were those wealthy enough in France to actively participate in and influence French culture – but without being either a cleric of the church or part of the hereditary nobility. There was also a slightly less important class referred to (by Marxists) as the “petit bourgeoisie.” They had the trappings of the bourgeoisie, but lacked the political and social power. “Wealth” is not the same as “upper-class.” However, one must accumulate a great deal of wealth in… Read more »
Hugo – substituting “wealth” for “class” makes it seem like you don’t believe that we have a system socioeconomic oppression in the U.S. Which is fine – I guess you’re not obligated to believe that. But the word “class” connotes a system, and I’d argue that what we have in the U.S. is most certainly a system. I feel like when you reference socioeconomic status by saying simply, “he has more wealth than she does,” you are glossing over the struggles and hardships the poor face in the country, and lending credence to the false notion that any of us… Read more »
I think education has to factor into this discussion. Is there a class difference between the guy with an Ivy League degree making $5.0 thousand a year, and his next door neighbor making the same income on an Associate’s degree from a community college, all other things being equal?
And why is “WASP” used as a synonym for “Upper Middle Class”? Seems to me there are a lot of Protestant white Americans of English descent who could be identified as something else.
I wish this piece were longer and more detailed on this idea, because the call against the use of “upper class” remains a little vague to me. I take it to mean that the word “upper class” is often used synonymously with the WASP set that Hugo describes as his upbringing, and I agree that that being in that world doesn’t necessarily indicate any specific level of money. In my experience growing up in New England (as a non-WASP), the people who held to this culture could have quite a range of actual income — although none that I knew… Read more »
I think it is a difference without distinction between the upper-class in the U.S. vs. the upper-class in Europe. Either one is the result people becoming powerful, defining behavior norms, maintaining them (i.e. “Dukes don’t emigrate”), and utterly controlling the narrative. People in power, in control, at the top of class don’t talk about the privilege class for the same reason most white people don’t talk about the privilege of whiteness. It’s all supposed to be invisible and completely accepted as “the way of things.” Nastalgia for what a person was accultured to is valid, but I think you may… Read more »
Great piece. I guess my only response is, show me one person of truly elevated class or ‘aristocracy’ who does not also enjoy fantastic wealth, and I’ll be willing to entertain the notion they are several terms.
I’ve witnessed the behavior of American ‘princes’ and ‘paupers’ first hand and one’s class is certainly no predictor of their behavior in this country.
It seems like you inferring to the difference between using class as a noun–a group of people sharing common attributes–and an adjective–of high quality, status or style. Obviously wealth doesn’t by manners, but not wanting to use the word class doesn’t its existence.
JFB
If there was no class, then what would simple-minded people aspire to?
I agree with Hugo.
Compare Donald Trump to Queen Elizabeth. No contest.
Class in America seems primarily derived from wealth, access to wealth, and economic power. Class in Europe seems primarily derived from family background, cultural conventions, and education. Just my observation as a middle class Southern white lady with both WASP and redneck heritage who lived in the UK for four years.
Theresa and EJ, I’m asking for a distinction between “class” and “wealth” so that we stop using them as perfect synonyms; class is as much about manners (hence, the unfortunate “classy”) as it is about money. We do have a super-rich in this country, only some (a few?) of whom are upper-middle class in manners.
Hugo, how are you not just complaining about the nouveau riche of the US? Rich Americans are upstarts, not the “truly classy.” But oddly, the manners of true class tend to occur amongst Old Money.
We already distinguish between “class” and “wealth” depending on the context. A person of lower economic means can act with class (i.e. great manners), but we describe their status as lower-class (i.e. less money and social power).
“Frankly, I’m prepared to believe that there’s a certain element of both classism and racism in my response.” Well, at least you’re prepared. How exactly WOULD you define ‘upper-class?’ Of course people with class privilege don’t talk about class. See, that’s one of the fundamental elements of privilege – never having to think about it or talk about it. Kind of like how most white people don’t think or talk much about race, or most men don’t think/talk much about gender. There’s nothing wrong with being proud of your family or having fond memories of your upbringing, but there’s no… Read more »
I think you are using a cultural definition of “upper-class,” rather than acknowledging that there really is an American upper-class in the economic sense of the word. There is an American upper-class…all the statistics about the wealth gap in this nation confirm it.