Darren Jenkins
Class-3
February 5, 2013
The Dispossessed Response
I’m not going to lie, while reading The Dispossessed I found myself very confused. This is partially due to the fact that I do not know anything about politics. William Deresiewicz studied the working class and the stigmas it holds. In The Dispossessed he illustrates his observations and talks about how the working class is viewed by society today. Deresiewicz highlights on some observations that I would have never noticed. The first is that T.V. shows today are not revolved around working class families. Personally, I think that since 80% of the U.S. workforce is considered working class, people do not want to watch a show about what they are experiencing in their everyday lives. They want to see the extravagant lifestyle that they could have had if they were given the resources and opportunities. The working class hasn’t been taught to believe that they’re entitled to do the best of everything, and they will take what life brings to them. Deresiewicz mentions that, “working class people care more about their families and their friends and the places they’re from than they do about their careers.” I agree with Deresiewicz and believe that most working class people worry more about the things that are going on around them such as friends and the place they’re from rather than worrying about making the right steps in order to get to the middle class and have a good career.
Deresiewicz also highlights that race is starting to become a surrogate for class. He suggests, “When we are shown a working class black we see a poor person-when we are shown a working class white, we don’t see anything at all.” I am not a racist whatsoever, but I don’t blame Deresiewicz for making this assumption. I have hung around people that automatically assume a black person is homeless just because he is walking down the street with plastic bags. I would like to bring up the point that racism is still a very common thing today. It seems like even if we do see a successful black person we associate them with being a very “white” black. I am actually guilty of this premise as well. Whenever I meet a black individual that dresses nice or talks proper, I immediately assume that they grew up around a white neighborhood. It is terrible to think this way, but I am sure that there are other people that feel the same way.
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