Lesson 3.5

Class is everywhere. Everyone is assigned multiple classes — neat little boxes one can be trapped in. Low socioeconomic classes based on gender, on sexuality, high socioeconomic classes limited by religion and gender, middle socioeconomic classes stuck in a living but not thriving wage with gender based jobs.

Cesar Chavez brings up a point in 1968 so accurate to today that I had to reread the date. He says “Since the Church is to be servant to the poor, it is our fault if wealth is not channeled to help the poor in our world.” Even before the pandemic, we watched as the wage gap between the different socioeconomic classes widened — the poor becoming poorer and the wealthy becoming wealthier, and the middle class was disappearing. And yet nothing was done. Often, one turns to spiritual guidance in times of stress and turmoil, and if one does not have a spiritual leader to turn to for assistance and advice, the stress grows. Religion offers a sense of purpose, a calmness, a security, within many, many people. If religion cannot help those who need it, people become desperate.

Dorothy discussed accepting money from people — from friends and loved ones and how it made her hate the situation even more, hating her loved ones and hating herself. The wealthy say that in order to stop being poor, you have to work hard (and accept $1 million from your parents). The wealthy create this idea that the only way to escape poverty is to work for it, that working hard will push you through and you will be wealthy. Well, Dorothy said her parents worked long hours and it didn’t work. When my dad got laid off in the 2008 recession, he worked a job he was overqualified for (which took too long to get because no one wants to hire someone overqualified because they will leave the job) and my mom was working two jobs to get us by, we didn’t break the barrier and become rich because my parents were working hard. It was just a few years ago that my parents finally had paid off the debts they had acquired and now they’re doing better.

This myth that accepting money when you’re poor is tacky but accepting money when you’re rich is normal is convoluted and gross. It forces a continued and worsening separation of the classes. And then if religious leaders fall into the higher socioeconomic status due to the power that is associated with religion, they tend not to help those who need it most.

This isn’t even discussing gender issues between the classes. Which I will discuss in the next post since that post is regarding intersectionality.