Lack of Class Conscious Mentality
San Francisco Giants, an American professional baseball franchise, won the World Series title every two consecutive years since 2010. Their headquarter is the AT&T ballpark in BayView San Francisco between King and Third Street. It is a very clean and sophisticated area with mostly wealthy people either watching the Giant’s game or tourists walking around for sightseeing. It is surrounded with fancy restaurants and superstructure buildings with the view of the Bay Bridge. Further down about five to six blocks from the AT&T ballpark is Third Street, a community where a majority of people of color are classified as lower or working class individuals struggling to make ends meet. It is an area where homeless …show more content…
Zinn mentions the distorted belief that “in America, if you worked hard you would become rich. The meaning of that was if you were poor it was because you hadn’t worked hard enough” (15). This Western ideology of “hard work” has been implemented within the society for so long that it has shaped people’s perspective about labor work. It is safe to say that most people make statement such as “they are poor because they are lazy”. At a young age, people are conditioned by the culture that we “reap what we sow”. Most working class people internalized this ideology because they see it play out through the media. The media portrays films people who were poor and how they became rich through hard work. Realistically, this is not the case for most working class people. The process of experiencing economic mobility is difficult for most working class people because they are not aware that we live in a classist society that perpetuate those in power and those in lower class. As a result of this, it is easier for working class people to develop a false consciousness rather than being class conscious because of the whole idea of “working harder”. They were also not aware of their exploitation because it was expected that they would make less than white …show more content…
There is a barrier between people from the AT&T area as well as people at Third Street. This occurs because there is a lack of interaction between two groups. In most cases, it is safer for most wealthy people to make statements about the working people that “they are poor because they are lazy’ or most people on third street claiming that the white race are “snobs because they money”. Society wants these two groups to be invisible off of each other so that there will be less interaction that further perpetuate its societal power. It is easier to develop a false consciousness because there are barriers that structural forces create to prevent people from developing class conscious. Institutions of power such as the media, economic structure, government and many others sustain the lack of awareness of people to be class conscious. Being class conscious means going against these systemic forces. When the working class develops a class conscious, they will be in solidarity with their own class to challenge methodical forces of societal power. Unless working class people remove themselves from false consciousness, the cycle of being placed in a “box” by white supremacy will continue. We must continue to resist and challenge these systemic forces because it will be the only solution for peace and equality among
San Francisco Giants, an American professional baseball franchise, won the World Series title every two consecutive years since 2010. Their headquarter is the AT&T ballpark in BayView San Francisco between King and Third Street. It is a very clean and sophisticated area with mostly wealthy people either watching the Giant’s game or tourists walking around for sightseeing. It is surrounded with fancy restaurants and superstructure buildings with the view of the Bay Bridge. Further down about five to six blocks from the AT&T ballpark is Third Street, a community where a majority of people of color are classified as lower or working class individuals struggling to make ends meet. It is an area where homeless …show more content…
Zinn mentions the distorted belief that “in America, if you worked hard you would become rich. The meaning of that was if you were poor it was because you hadn’t worked hard enough” (15). This Western ideology of “hard work” has been implemented within the society for so long that it has shaped people’s perspective about labor work. It is safe to say that most people make statement such as “they are poor because they are lazy”. At a young age, people are conditioned by the culture that we “reap what we sow”. Most working class people internalized this ideology because they see it play out through the media. The media portrays films people who were poor and how they became rich through hard work. Realistically, this is not the case for most working class people. The process of experiencing economic mobility is difficult for most working class people because they are not aware that we live in a classist society that perpetuate those in power and those in lower class. As a result of this, it is easier for working class people to develop a false consciousness rather than being class conscious because of the whole idea of “working harder”. They were also not aware of their exploitation because it was expected that they would make less than white …show more content…
There is a barrier between people from the AT&T area as well as people at Third Street. This occurs because there is a lack of interaction between two groups. In most cases, it is safer for most wealthy people to make statements about the working people that “they are poor because they are lazy’ or most people on third street claiming that the white race are “snobs because they money”. Society wants these two groups to be invisible off of each other so that there will be less interaction that further perpetuate its societal power. It is easier to develop a false consciousness because there are barriers that structural forces create to prevent people from developing class conscious. Institutions of power such as the media, economic structure, government and many others sustain the lack of awareness of people to be class conscious. Being class conscious means going against these systemic forces. When the working class develops a class conscious, they will be in solidarity with their own class to challenge methodical forces of societal power. Unless working class people remove themselves from false consciousness, the cycle of being placed in a “box” by white supremacy will continue. We must continue to resist and challenge these systemic forces because it will be the only solution for peace and equality among