Week 7: Social Classes

How much do you think social class matters in the U.S. today?

I think that social class matters very much in the U.S. today. Most people now treat you by your monetary value than your personal value. If you're rich, everybody wants to be your friend. If you're poor, then people are embarrassed to be seen with you. It's a very sad thing but it's very true. I know because I experienced it for many years.

My father started his own drywall company in 2004. His business was going very well for him and my family starting receiving more income. When he began his business, we were living a single-wide mobile home. Three years after he created his business, we moved into a custom-built brand new home in an exclusive area. Our house was very beautiful. We were always having parties and always spending money. People started to refer to us as the "new millionaires." My parents bought several new cars. Everybody was always coming over to visit and people would suck-up to my father. Unfortunately, his business stopped doing so well in 2009-2010. We had four cars repossessed and our house was foreclosed on this year. When that happened, most of my family's so-called friends disappeared. They stopped talking to us or they changed because we were no longer "rich."

After having experienced that personally, I do think that social class matters very much. One the stories from website that shocked me very much was the one about the woman named Val. Her father wouldn't accept anything from her. I've seen this many times. The "poor" parents don't want to accept anything from the "rich" sons/daughters-in-laws because they think that's a way of humiliation.

I don't think that this will change. I think that it will get worse. Social class matters very much and it's almost how our society is divided.