Essay On The Importance Of Social Standing In America

Many people assert that social standing is of less importance in America than in other cultures. While this is certainly true in some cases (India’s strict, traditional Caste system comes to mind), it really depends on the cultures that you compare it to. Compared to much of Europe today, America is much more divided by class and race. While we like to celebrate the equality that American culture so reveres, the huge gap in wealth, power, and standing between those at the top and those at the bottom shows that Americans are not, unfortunately, all on an equal standing.
Poverty rates in the United States reflect this. The poverty rate for African Americans and Hispanics, as well as other minorities like Native Americans, are much higher than for non-Hispanic whites. Poverty is an obvious indicator of low social standing. As people in situations of poverty are limited in where they can live due to the necessary low cost of what they can afford, they tend only to be able to interact with other people who live near them, likely also of low social standing. They are forced by economic factors into clusters; in urban areas, these are often referred to as “the hood” and “the ghetto” or “the core” for African Americans. The poor standard of living breeds crime and violence, thus making the areas even less desirable for people of any means at all to escape them and leading to what is often referred to as “white flight”, whereby middle and lower-class residents fled or are fleeing to the suburbs.
In the suburbs, then, another kind of social stratification appears, where the middle-class interacts mainly with each other and is free to ignore the social problems plaguing the lower class. They develop beliefs that those stuck in poverty choose to be there and could “pull themselves up” if they chose. Since they are no longer confronted with poverty, they are free to ignore the vicious cycle that its fewer opportunities reinforce and the unique challenges faced by those having to deal with the cycle. They feel that, since they had succeeded, surely everyone has the same opportunity that they did. They do not think about problems like the digital divide, the increasing gap between the skills of those who have regular access to the Internet and technology, for example. They can ignore the implications that this has for children growing up in poverty to secure future employment compared to the future prospects of their own, computer literate children. They are insulated from these harsh realities.
Then there is the American upper class, who tend to rarely interact with other classes as well. They often have little idea what struggles the other classes face. For example, a wealthy banker once expressed his surprise to me during the economic downturn when I mentioned I knew people who were losing their homes.
While the demographics of social stratification in the United States is in constant flux, it was always present, ever since its inception. While in 1776 some would argue that America was more free than most of Europe, it would also have to be pointed out that this generalization would probably have to exclude the African American population, most of whom at that time were being exploited as slaves, given no compensation for their work, and indeed, would not even be considered fully human by the United States Constitution. In fact, an argument could be made that the spiral of poverty for African Americans began with slavery.
In Kate Chopin’s short story “Desiree’s Baby”, this ingrained social and racial inequality is underscored. Desiree and Armand are at first overjoyed at new parenthood, so much so that they are both initially blinded to the emerging African-American features of their child. Armand is the first to notice, and he becomes distant. Desiree finally has the epiphany one day that their child is part African-American. She confronts Armand about it, who insists that she must be part black. He, despite previously loving both his wife and child, is able to completely stop loving both of them based solely on his assumption that they are both of lower standing, and that he had been deceived into marrying someone ‘lesser’. But after they have left and he is burning all of Desiree’s things, he finds a letter from his mother to his father which makes clear that he, in fact, is the one with a black parent. It is unfortunate that we do not get to find out what Armand’s reaction to this revelation is. In any event, the story is a wonderful example of the importance placed on social status, linked to race, in antebellum America, and is valuable in exploring its roots and progression up to the present day.
It is an unfortunate fact that, even in this self-described land of prosperity and freedom, many are to this day unable to achieve these ideals based on the crippling cycle of poverty, also often linked to race. And socially insulated the classes from each other only exacerbates this problem, as the other classes do not see the problems experienced by the others first hand and therefore are able to downplay their importance dramatically. Perhaps if everyone had the experiences that Desiree and Armand surely experienced, and were forced to walk in the shoes of someone of lower social standing, we would be able to empathize more with those who experience it daily.