Today I was heading into a local restaurant with my children. I reminded my son to open the door for others. He was greeted by an elderly couple who exclaimed " Wow, looks like some folks still teach manners." The grin and pride my son had on his face was beaming. A simple act of common courtesy.
Yet, maybe on the flip side the comment really was not about my son. Maybe, just maybe, the comment was really about the view of the elderly couple on society today as a whole.
Throughout the history of civilized man their have been instances of discrimination. Slavery is a perfect example . The Guild system of the middle ages is another. The Holocaust might be one of the worsts tragedies and example. The embattled times of the sixties and early seventies in our own country were an example of a whole movement to challenge any and all discrimination's ; except one. There is still one that is so subtlety invisible. One form of discrimination that is overlooked and often misplaced, given another name, or even not recognized as being so. Class.
I`m not talking in monetary terms like most people automatically think of. I came from a working, two parent home . "Blue Collar " workers was the name my father always referred to our family as. Yet down the street my best friend growing up had two working parents. A little less in the physical and material possessions. However, they were looked upon by a lot of the neighborhood as 'white trash". They did not dress very neatly, attend the local church on Holy Days, or pretend to be anything other than who they were. Yet some of my other friends would not play with us in a group together because of their own parents influences, and predjudices. Association is what grown ups referred to it in those days. Class discrimination is what it really was, or the assumption that they were of a "better" more affluent class than they.
I believe that there is still a long way to go in the battles of discrimination. Whether it be race, gender, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs. I also believe that their has been some progress. Some might even say an amazing amount of progress in the last fifty years. I am not so sure. I believe it has had it`s own Exodus from reality. That it has left one hardship, and changed it`s ugly head to another.
It`s new name is class. Most likely though it is not new. It has been present amongst us all along, we just never called it what it truly is. Discrimination by a perceived view of being better than. That somehow someone is superior to another. While as humans we all have special gifts. Some are smarter in intelligence, others have physical or spiritual gifts that stand out. However, class prejudice and discrimination comes from a view of separationism. To be in a different category, removed from. It is a form of bias that is under the radar. It is not as in your face as other forms of discrimination, and it leaves room for questioning the actual intention.
One might think they are being rebuked due to the way they dress, or the amount of money they have, ,or the achievement of education, or even social status. How is it possible, to truly believe, that one person is better than another, with all of our own personal shortcomings we have as humans. I find this particularly fascinating, and at times almost humorous. Not because it is actually funny , more in the sense of disbelief.
As a society and as a species we have evolved in many ways. New technologies have been more than tenfold in the last century and a half. Yet, the age old forms of discrimination have only evolved as well.
We have lost our way. On the Exodus journey from the slavery, and civil rights issues of our time there is still much that has escaped our attention and not brought to surface in reality. The issue of class discrimination lingers and is becoming a much larger issue. Sadly enough though, no one wishes to really say what it is out loud. It is the wall street banker blaming human service programs for the economies downfall. It is the Republicans and Democrats blaming each other based on per capita income and taxes. It is all those little , petty arguments we have, yet really not calling the name of the game. We as a society have really transcended back to a period of before the Magna Carta in many instances. The only progress is that we have entered into the Exodus of Reality.
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