Perhaps definitions vary for "humble beginnings" but where I come from having two parents with any college degree let alone a graduate degree is not "blue collar" or "working class."
Yeah I was trying to be as generous as possible. I'm sure she grew up broke, as grad students make poverty wages, but obviously with tons of cultural capital.
"Blue collar" and "working class" are signifiers of vocation, not education. While having a college or graduate education often puts one in the middle-class or higher, there are legion exceptions, and I'm one of them. Like many people I got a college degree without getting a college education (an extremely common phenomenon in this dumbed-down era), and many of us have been held back by the weight of student loan debt and/or personal trauma baggage. Then there are the folks with little or no formal education who have careers that are prestigious or lucrative (or both), often because of hard work and intelligence or talent, but perhaps just as commonly because of luck and/or cunning. It's time to unpack this association between education and status because it's more than the latter that we take for granted among the educated; it's also enlightened and functional behavior and parenting, which is a big and consequential mistake.
Personally, I use the word class in accordance to its literal definition which includes societal/social standing and not simply a matter economic means. I have known plenty of people who are "blue collar ballin" but have had no exposure to the various ideals or individuals that credentialist society highly regards.
All politicians play these games, but I think Kamala's version of "stolen valor" is almost more insulting than Tim Walz's.
What divides people more than anything is socio-economic status, so while Kamala's parents might have been grad students, they obviously did all right and gave her upward mobility she hardly had to work for and she even saw as her birthright, being from an academic background.
On the other hand, JD Vance, whatever else you think of him, was born into circumstances where that upward mobility was hard to imagine and yet he pulled himself out.
Just like it's easy to be a "soldier" if you're in the national guard and think you're never going to see war, it's easy to be less-well-off when you know it's just a pause before your parents find good jobs at universities and you are in the system. And we all know what Tim Walz did when he found out his unit was heading into actual danger. He suddenly decided to bail. So is Kamala the same? Does she have the spine to see tough times through?
What is galling about Harris' claiming Oaktown as her hometown is that she also has made a big deal about how school busing helped "a little girl like her". But Oakland never had a busing program, and Berkeley rather famously was the first decent sized city in the US to have one. (And, in case it matters, Berkeley is my hometown: BHS '81).
I really enjoyed what you’ve spelled out here. It’s an obvious but poignant point.
I was born at Alta Bates and went to a lot of Cal games, but would NEVER say I’m from Berkeley…because I didn’t grow up there!
Perhaps definitions vary for "humble beginnings" but where I come from having two parents with any college degree let alone a graduate degree is not "blue collar" or "working class."
Yeah I was trying to be as generous as possible. I'm sure she grew up broke, as grad students make poverty wages, but obviously with tons of cultural capital.
"Blue collar" and "working class" are signifiers of vocation, not education. While having a college or graduate education often puts one in the middle-class or higher, there are legion exceptions, and I'm one of them. Like many people I got a college degree without getting a college education (an extremely common phenomenon in this dumbed-down era), and many of us have been held back by the weight of student loan debt and/or personal trauma baggage. Then there are the folks with little or no formal education who have careers that are prestigious or lucrative (or both), often because of hard work and intelligence or talent, but perhaps just as commonly because of luck and/or cunning. It's time to unpack this association between education and status because it's more than the latter that we take for granted among the educated; it's also enlightened and functional behavior and parenting, which is a big and consequential mistake.
Personally, I use the word class in accordance to its literal definition which includes societal/social standing and not simply a matter economic means. I have known plenty of people who are "blue collar ballin" but have had no exposure to the various ideals or individuals that credentialist society highly regards.
All politicians play these games, but I think Kamala's version of "stolen valor" is almost more insulting than Tim Walz's.
What divides people more than anything is socio-economic status, so while Kamala's parents might have been grad students, they obviously did all right and gave her upward mobility she hardly had to work for and she even saw as her birthright, being from an academic background.
On the other hand, JD Vance, whatever else you think of him, was born into circumstances where that upward mobility was hard to imagine and yet he pulled himself out.
Just like it's easy to be a "soldier" if you're in the national guard and think you're never going to see war, it's easy to be less-well-off when you know it's just a pause before your parents find good jobs at universities and you are in the system. And we all know what Tim Walz did when he found out his unit was heading into actual danger. He suddenly decided to bail. So is Kamala the same? Does she have the spine to see tough times through?
What is galling about Harris' claiming Oaktown as her hometown is that she also has made a big deal about how school busing helped "a little girl like her". But Oakland never had a busing program, and Berkeley rather famously was the first decent sized city in the US to have one. (And, in case it matters, Berkeley is my hometown: BHS '81).