Joe:
I read with interest your commentary about the "haves" and "have nots" in our society -- white version. I agree with your summarization -- totally accurate and on target. I am currently attending a college (public university) and am completing a master's now at age 53. I experience daily the invisible dividing line and always feel like an "imposter" sitting next to the mostly middle class white student population. The particular field that I am in, Family Life Education (similar to social work, with a certificate in holistic health) all but mandates that there exists a "them" and "us". Otherwise, who would be the "client"?
Your observations are sadly a commentary on our elitist system, and this is only a public university! I've sat in class as fellow classmates laughed and joked about "trailer trash," "Appalachian family trees," etc. (still open fodder and presumably not politically incorrect yet) -- amazingly one of the few subjects/objects of scorn still socially acceptable in this "touchy feely" field that I've entered. I never tell them that I live in a trailer! And the jokes go on.
Incidentally, I'm Native American and Mexican-American -- and just trying to survive.
Mary
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Dearest Mary,
Isn't it strange, this glass wall between us and that other class? We know it is there because we reach toward their world and bump into it. But they, the more privileged, can't see it and indeed refuse to even when it is pointed out to them.
And I know what you mean about that feeling of being an "imposter." I am going through that right now with the book and the speaking engagements, etc. I am often gripped with terrible feelings of guilt about it. At age 60, after decades of writing, I still feel like I am a fraud, like I should not be allowed to do this because my class of people don't know enough to be allowed to talk to millions. Like the true white middle class by virtue of their very birth knows some secret that I do not. Like they all have a script in this play of life, but I do not.
Ever have that feeling?
In brotherhood,
Joe
