Does Class Matter in
Homeless Advocacy?
- HANDOUTS Presented at Conference on Ending
Homelessness, Tacoma Washington, 5.13.2015
Facilitated by Alan Preston and Anita Morales
Facilitator Bios
Anita Garcia Morales is a trainer with Class Action, a nonprofit whose mission is to
inspire action to end classism (www.classism.org.) Anita comes from a migrant
farmworker background and went on to receive her BA and Teaching Degree from
the University of Washington. After over 20 years as a classroom teacher in Seattle
Public Schools she moved to the district office where she was an Instructional
Services Coach working with teachers and administrators for the last ten years of a
30+ year career with SPS. She is currently an Equity & Race Relations Specialist for
the District. Anita also facilitates Courage & Renewal Circles of Trust, Positive
Discipline parent/ guardian workshops, equity and race trainings, and has cofacilitated a cross-class retreat series. The common thread that runs through all that
Anita does is her focus on social justice and equity. In the circles Anita convenes or
co-convenes, whether with students or adults; she does her best to honor the gifts
people bring and with participants create a nurturing and welcoming environment
that allows for taking risks, making mistakes and learning from and with each other.
To contact Anita: anitamorales1@gmail.com
Alan Preston is a Senior Trainer with Class Action (www.classism.org.) Alan
grew up with the advantages of race, class, and gender and he has committed
his career to using his privilege to challenge injustice and inequality. Alan is
currently the Managing Director for Real Change Homeless Empowerment
Project (www.realchangenews.org) where he has worked for the last five and a
half years. Alan has designed and facilitated programs on class and classism
for progressive foundations, giving circles, churches and nonprofit
organizations. Alan holds an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of
Management and a B.A. in political science from Haverford College.
To Contact Alan: alanp@realchangenews.org
Class and Social Change:
Becoming Aware & Strengthening Our Organizations - Excerpts
—Felice Yeskel, Late Founder and Executive Director of Class Action
Many of us grow up in complete class segregation, without being aware of it. We absorbed the
cultural attributes of our class of origin—the language, the worldview, the expectations, the
communication norms, and the work styles—and now we make assumptions or judgments
about other people that reflect our class perspective. So many things that we believe are “the
way things are done” are really just the way our class does things.
When we become activists, we bring our class cultures and conditioning into our organizations.
The way our class has affected us is often invisible to us, but may be quite obvious to others
from different class backgrounds.
Unlike coming to understand our gender socialization or becoming aware of the ways we’ve
internalized racial superiority/dominance (if we’re white) or racial subordination (if we’re
people of color), many of us have not had the opportunity to become self-aware about class.
We do not recognize the internalized class privileges or internalized class oppression that we
inadvertently carry. Like every other form of oppression, classism is not only present in the
world at large, but is also alive and well within our organizations.…
Professional Middle Class (PMC) members of social change movements may be confused
about their class status, because they are earning below their potential. These may be folks from
middle-class families who have relatively low incomes because they chose to work part-time
and volunteer lots of time on social change efforts, or folks who have trouble making ends
meet because of the low pay in movement organizations.
They may think that they are in the same boat as poor or working class people because they
also shop at the Salvation Army or eat rice and beans every night. They may fail to recognize
the various class privileges they still have, the extent to which their situations are the result of
their choices, or the back- up they have from family or other social connections.
If we have a hard time even correctly identifying our class position, how do we negotiate the
often-complex class dynamics that play out in our organizations? Even when our mission
statements include working to eliminate inequality in the form of racism, sexism, and
heterosexism, we may be replicating classism in our organizations and in our relationship with
the communities that we work with or organize. ..
Gaining greater awareness about how class affects what we do and how we do it is an ongoing
process. The more contact we have with folks from across the class spectrum, the greater the
opportunities for gaining awareness. As with every other form of oppression, those of us who
are poor or working class have greater access to the “outsider” perspective, and a greater
chance to see and understand classism.
Assumptions in Addressing Class and Classism
1. Class is taboo and hard to talk about in America. Class is shrouded in secrecy
and rarely openly examined or discussed. Talking about class raises strong feelings and
emotions.
2. Issues of class are deeply embedded in other aspects of personal identity. We
belong to many different social groups including race, immigration status, gender, and
sexual orientation. These aspects of our identity impact and are impacted by our class
identity.
3. Class is misunderstood. Most people in the U.S. don't have an accurate class
identity and have little language to talk about class. Differences in class conditioning and
culture can lead to tensions and misunderstandings in mixed class relationships and
organizations.
4. Class is relative and dynamic. Unlike some other aspects of identity, our class
identity is a relative characteristic and many typical class markers are “invisible”, making
it easy to make incorrect assumptions about peoples’ class. In addition, class is unique in
the degree to which it has the potential to fluctuate over the course of one’s lifetime.
5. Our class backgrounds are formative. Although our class position may change
over time, our class conditioning from childhood affects us throughout our lives. We all
derive strengths as well as limitations from our class background.
6. “Class cultures” are often invisible but strongly impact institutions and
groups. People with similar class backgrounds exhibit similar attitudes and behaviors and
tend to cluster amidst other people that think, act, and talk like them. What we ascribe to
either individual characteristics or simply “the way things are done” in the world are often
functions of our socio-economic class.
7. Classism is systemic. Structural barriers to upward mobility have excluded poor
people and people of color from increasing their class status. Systems change requires
people working together across barriers of class, race, and other aspects of identity.
8. Acknowledging class privilege is an important step towards becoming an anticlassist ally. This is especially true for middle class activists, who are often unaware of
the degree of their own privilege. Understanding class/classism is an on-going process.
9. We can only build a strong movement for change if we work together.
Lack of appreciation for differences in class background and position can lead to
misunderstandings and tensions in mixed-class relationships and institutions. There are
multiple avenues toward change: personal, institutional and cultural. Many different
groups and individuals taking small steps, together chip away at the system of classism
and build toward a more just society.
Key Definitions
Class - A relative social rank in terms of income, wealth, education, status
and/or power
 Income – the flow of money in
 Wealth – what you own (assets; stocks, bonds, land, art, etc.) less what you owe
 Education – whether you graduated college, where you went to school
 Status – occupation (yours and your parents) and “social capital” (who-youknow), and/or
 Power - access to resources and decision-making, “cultural capital” such as
language and norms.
Classism – A system of advantage and oppression based on class. Classism is the devaluing of working class and poor peoples’ views and needs.
Class Culture – A shared set of beliefs and values of people from a similar class
background. Class cultures include language, worldview, expectations, communication
norms, and work styles.
Class Privilege – Tangible or unearned advantages of higher-class status, such as
personal contacts with employers, good childhood health care, inherited money,
speaking with the same dialect/accent as people with institutional power.
Internalized classism – People who are poor/working-class internalize the dominant
society’s beliefs/attitudes towards them, and play them out against themselves and
others of a similar class. Acceptance and justifying of classism by working class and
poor people, such as feelings of inferiority to higher-class people, feelings of superiority
to people lower on the class spectrum than one’s self, hostility and blame towards other
working class or poor people, and belief that classist institutions are fair.
Class Ally – A person from the more privileged classes whose attitudes and behaviors
are anti-classist, who is committed to increasing his or her own understanding of this
issue related to classism, and is actively working towards eliminating classism on many
levels.
Class Identity: A Basic Framework
The U.S. has no hard and fast divisions between class groups. Most of us move a little up or
down the spectrums during our lifetimes. Some people grow up in one class and live as
adults in another. For immigrants, there's another layer of confusion, as their class status in
their country of origin is often different from their class status in the U.S. There are many
classification systems, with different numbers and names for class groups. Nevertheless, it
can be useful for understanding class dynamics to clump people roughly into these four
groups.
Low-Income or Poor:
A subset of working class people who chronically can't get income sufficient to cover all
their basic needs.
Signs that someone might belong to this class can include:
 substandard housing or homelessness;
 long-time use of public benefits, such as welfare, or charity;
 chronic unmet needs for health care, food, or other necessities;
 frequent involuntary moves, chaos and disruption of life.
Low-income people are varied in race, culture, values and political beliefs — although they
are disproportionately people of color, women and children. Because some low-income
people see "poor" as a negatively loaded term, many activists use "low-income" as a more
respectful term.
Working Class:
People who have some or all of these class indicators, and their family members:
 little or no college education; in particular no BA from a 4-year college;
 low or negative net worth (assets minus debts);
 rental housing, or one non-luxury home long saved for and lived in for decades;
 occupations involving physical work and/or little control in the workplace.
Lower-middle-class families are somewhat more prosperous and secure, but they have a lot
in common with working class people, such as less college than a BA, and/or less control
over their work, and/or fewer assets than professional middle-class families. If they own a
small business, it can only survive by the proprietor's hands-on work.
Working-class people are varied in race, culture, values and political belief. They are
majority white, but compared with the composition of the whole population, they are
disproportionately people of color and women. Working-class people are more likely to have
strong ethnic and religious identities than middle-class people.
Professional Middle Class:
College-educated, salaried professionals and managers and their family members.
Signs that someone might belong to the professional middle class can include:
 4-year college, especially at private and/or residential schools, sometimes professional



school;
secure homeownership, often with several moves up to bigger houses in a lifetime;
more control over the hours and methods of work than working-class people, and/or
control over others' work;
more economic security than working class people (although that difference is eroding),
but no way to pay bills without working.
Middle-class people are varied in race, culture, values and political beliefs; they are
disproportionately white.
Upper-middle-class families have more in common with owning class families, such as more
luxuries and travel, than most middle-class families.
Owning Class:
Investors and their family members with enough income from assets that they don't have
to work to pay basic bills. A subset have positions of power or vast wealth that put them in
the ruling class.
Signs that someone might belong to the owning class can include:
 elite private schools and colleges;
 large inheritances;
 luxuries and international travel;
 owning multiple homes.
However, people who live modestly on investment income are also owning class.
Owning class people are disproportionately white; they are varied in culture, values and
political beliefs.
* Definitions from Class Matters (www.classmatters.org)
Communication Norms in Mixed Class Settings*
Without knowing it, we bring our class conditioning into our organizations.
When groups experience conflict, it may be helpful to consider that the conflict
may not be about the situation itself or the personalities of those involved, but
about differences in the class backgrounds and patterning of the groups’
members. The table below describes some of the common differences in
communication norms of people from different class backgrounds. NB: The
groupings in the table below are generalizations and not universally accurate.
Chronic
Poverty
Working Class
Relationship
to leaders
Deference to those
with power, prone
to second guessing
self
Willingness to extend
loyalty to trusted
leaders
Speech
Patterns
Tentative and
prone to silence in
unfamiliar middleclass settings
Direct speech that
emphasizes “we”;
shorter but more
frequent speech;
more concrete and
colorful language
Most Valued
Attribute
Relationships
(one on one)
Type of Goals
Focused on
meeting
immediate and
pragmatic needs
Group Process Prefers less formal,
but will follow
preferences
rules as directed
Professional
Middle Class
Challenges leaders,
anti-leadership or
everyone’s a leader
Use “standard”
language of
educational and
career
advancement,
Longer but less
frequent speech
Interdependence and Independence and
solidarity
achievement –
measurable results
Owning Class
Comfortable
assuming
leadership and
authority,
confidence
Broad abstract
terminology; longer
but less frequent
speech
Ideas
Focused on short
term, winnable
campaigns
Longer term
orientation and
goals
Visionary with
expansive sense of
time
Familiar efficient
processes (e.g.
Roberts Rules)
Stylized group
processes (e.g.
shared facilitation,
hand signals)
Stylized group
processes (e.g.
shared facilitation,
hand signals)
*Developed by Alan Preston and Anita Morales drawing on resources from Class Action and Betsy LeondarWright’s 2014 book entitled Missing Class.
Class Differences in Messaging
PERSUASIVE MESSAGING
To persuade someone unfamiliar with or unsupportive of your cause, draw
from the best of two class speech styles:
Working-class/poor activists’ strengths:
 Colorful metaphors & sayings; analogies
 First and second person
 Emphasize the impact on individuals
College-educated activists’ strengths
 Abstract terms that encapsulate the essence of a cause, or
convey an analysis
 Third person
Activists’ typical vocabulary varies by class
Words used more by collegeeducated activists:
(used 5 to 50 times as often per
10,000 words as by working-class
activists)
 Network
 Outreach
 Activist/activism
 Context
 Strategy / strategize
 Principle
 Connection
 Perspective
 Nonviolence / nonviolent
 Socialist / Socialism
 Anarchist / anarchism
 Autonomy / autonomous
 Hierarchy / hierarchical
 Consensus
 Solidarity
“Everybody words” (used at equal
rates by activists of all classes)



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




Coalition
Goal
Issue
Community
Situation
Conflict
Decision
Power
Story
Task
Recruit
How to get involved with Class Action
• Attend one of our upcoming events. We’re having a community gathering at the
Hillman City Collaboratory on Saturday June 20th from 2-5PM with contributors to
Class Action’s newly published anthology, Class Lives. Alan and Anita are also
holding an all day public workshop at the 2100 Building in the Rainier Valley on
October 9th

Sign up for our listserv, online at www.classism.org or on today’s sign-up sheet,
to learn about new resources.
• If you use social media, ‘like’ our Facebook page (facebook.com/ClassActionNow)
and follow us on Twitter (@ClassismExposed).
• Sponsor a Class Action workshop at your workplace, school, religious
congregation or other organization.
Find out more at www.classism.org/programs/bring-class-action-to-you
• Follow our blog, Classism Exposed, at www.classism.org/blog. Do you have a
story or opinion about class and classism? If you write it up in ~500 words and
email it to info@classism.org, it may be published on Class Action’s blog.
• Do you know any first-generation college students, or low-income students from
a working-class background? Tell them about our support groups, annual FirstGen Summits, and our and resource page: www.classism.org/resources/resourcesgeneration-college-students
• Ask your local library to buy Missing Class and other Class Action publications.
Consider buying one of our books to read and lend. Start a classism book group.
Classism materials available from Class Action
(www.classism.org/store)
New! Missing Class: Strengthening Social Movement Groups by Seeing Class Cultures
Book by Betsy Leondar-Wright
Reading Classes: On Culture and Classism in America
Book by Barbara Jensen
99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It
Book by Chuck Collins
Created Equal
40-module curriculum: The only high school curriculum on class and classism
Talking Across the Class Divide: Cross-Class Dialogue Manual
Class Action’s founders guide others to replicate their transformative experience
Class Matters: Cross-Class Alliance Building for Middle Class Activists
Book by Betsy Leondar-Wright
The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide
Enough DVD and curriculum
Conversation-provoking 11-minute video created by 13-year-old Zoe Greenberg
A few good books about class
Bageant, Joe. Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War. Scribe
Publications, 2009
Brooks, David. Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. Simon
and Schuster, 2000
hooks, bell. Where We Stand: Class Matters. Routledge, 2000
Lubrano, Al, Limbo: Blue Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams, John Wiley & Sons, 2003
Stout, Linda, Bridging the Class Divide and other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing,
Beacon, 1996
Tea, Michelle, Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class, Seal
Press, 2004
Zweig, Michael. The Working-Class Majority. 2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011