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Sophia Schultz
Mrs. Mary Martin
Advanced Composition
23 December 2014
Heres Your Wake up Call, America!
Sitting in the passenger seat of my Dads truck, I squinted down the
dark Kansas City streets, looking for a homeless man. I looked for the
obvious signs: overgrown hair and beard, tattered clothing, hobbling over a
Wal-Mart shopping cart and wielding a cardboard sign that reads, Homeless,
Please Help.
This year, I decided to make care packages for the homeless. I stuffed
essentials into a backpack, and my Dad and I set out to hand deliver them in
downtown Kansas City. As we passed dozens of people sitting on park
benches and waiting for the bus, we werent sure if they were homeless. Like
I said, we were looking for someone who practically shouted that they
needed help, but honestly, a number of the people we passed couldve used
the packages.
The first night of search ended in disappointment. My Dad said, Well, I
guess this is a good problem to have. Meaning we couldnt find a homeless
person, a completely impoverished street beggar that is. The thing is that
people matching this description make up only 1% of the 14.5% of people

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living under the poverty line. This 14.5% couldve easily used the care
packages, but in a world where you can buy designer jeans at T.J. Maxx for
twenty dollars, poverty can easily be hidden.

The woman in the picture above is clearly homeless. We know this due
to her location and starving body, but you can also see she is wearing an
Aeropostale shirt. This brand is thought to have been a middle class brand.
When we see someone wearing these shirts, we assume they have enough
money to pay for it, and that they are getting along okay. If we didnt see this
woman in the alley ways with graffiti on the wall behind her, we might not
assume she is homeless, but only poor. This is how we are deceived.
Because of the mass production of these material items that are
synonymous with the upper class and middle class, it is hard for people to
see the enormous gaps between classes. Another contributor to the
ignorance, is the reluctance to admit that the Land of the Free has classes
and that we are part of it. We Americans are blind to class and we are blindly
optimistic about the American dream. We believe that no matter what

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economic state we start in that we can rise above class and achieve our
goals. I would like to believe this, but I dont, and unfortunately I dont share
the company of most Americans. In order for people to realize the extremely
low probability of achieving the American Dream, we need to first recognize
the classes of America.
When you say the word class to most Americans, they would think of
extremely wealthy celebrities and then think of the homeless, but they
wouldnt think of the majority in between. This middle bit still ranges greatly
in income and lifestyle, breaking into upper class, middle class, and working
class and then followed by the homeless. The sad part is the majority of the
population doesnt hold the majority of wealth. Sixty percent of the
American population holds less than six percent of the nations
wealth.(2013 Census) We arent aware of the differences in lifestyles. This is
due to the media. The media portrays class, when it doesnt ignore it, as if it
were a simple step ladder. So many shows provide false hope, shows like
American Idol, The X Factor or So You Think You Can Dance. If you are
talented and work hard, you will be rewarded eventually, right? This isnt
true most of the time. Other shows based off reality will follow around the
top ten percent of the wealthiest, showcasing their luxurious lifestyle, and
the shows try to relate the rich and famous to everyday middle class
viewers. By watching these shows, the viewers are transfixed and begin to
believe they need private yachts when they can barely afford to pay their
cable bill. They spend their whole life thinking they can live like the

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celebrities and they spend their money on items that create an image of
wealth that is simply not there. This leads to even more debt and a continual
increase in the poverty rate. Still, though the purchases comfort. If I buy a
Range Rover then Im one step closer to being rich and famous. As Janny
Scott and David Leonhardt put it, Faith in mobility, after all, has been
consciously woven into the national self-image. (Scott and Leonhardt 5)
America thrives off of this promise. But how much longer can it thrive, when
so many Americans are losing the race?
Truth is, making it to the top requires parents that are already there, or
extreme luck. Today, mobility is lower than ever. Fewer and fewer children
seem to reach a higher class than their parents. Generation after generation
of rich keep staying rich and even getting richer, while the poor remain the
same. This is because, from birth, children of the rich are exposed to
opportunity and connections. They know people. You know the phrase,
You just gotta know the right people. Well, the rich do know the right
people and eventually become the right people. They will continue to have
the first pick and the most offers. Today, Americans are arguably more likely
than they were 30 years ago to end up in the class into which they were
born.(Scott and Leonhardt 1) There is hardly any movement up the classes
at all. Yet, still Americans are oblivious.
The obliviousness leads to less opportunity for the middle and lower
classes. Less opportunity for everything. Sure, we hear of rag to riches
success stories, but thats one out of a few million. Stories read to us as

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children will engrave these ideas of the poor becoming rich. For example, a
classic, Cinderella, a young girl who lives off of only what her stepmother will
spare her. She never associates with the nobility, she doesnt own anything
expensive or luxurious, and she lives in a small cottage. But, luck and hard
work are on her side. She just so happens to have a fairy god mother. So, she
meets the prince, becomes a princess, and lives happily ever after in
richness and fame. These stories make it seem possible, or at least are so
alluring that, becoming a princess is the number goal of most five year old
girls. The boys have parallel stories such as Aladdin, street beggar to prince.
If we didnt fill childrens heads with these unrealistic stories, they might
grow up to live comfortably in their own life, instead of aiming for Disney.
They would buy within their own means and understand they dont need to
be a celebrity to be successful. While dreaming is still important, isnt it also
important to not give false hope? When the children grow up to realize that
they didnt achieve their child hood dreams of becoming filthy rich or a
celebrity, they feel like they have failed themselves, wouldnt it have been
better to have them setting goals that their society will let them reach?
That way it is now, the rich are only getting richer and taking
opportunity from the lower classes. Some blame the homeless for not having
a job and they say, Well, I didnt start out with too much and look where I
am now! People who usually say this are the people who cant relate to the
homeless or poor at all. They were born with a decent amount of money,
attended a good high school and college, knew the right people and got a

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six-figure salary right out of school. Because of their money and position,
they are offered opportunities that they might not even be qualified for.
Someone in the lower class might be smarter, more talented, or a better
person, but when recruitment places, or jobs see where they live or their
households annual income, the colleges or job offers turn their heads to
those who can give them what they really want: money.
Class can accurately predict the chances for both survival and
success. (Mantsios 319) Its simple, the rich invest only in the rich. You dont
see expensive, high-tech schools in poor inner cities or working class
suburbs. Why? Because the upper class doesnt want the lower classes to
succeed or have any more money than they already have, because that is
how the upper class stays the upper class.

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The school on the left is The Lawrenceville School, which is one of the
wealthiest and most expensive schools in America. The annual tuition that
does not include room and board, is $44,885. The school has basketball,
tennis, and volleyball courts, its own golf course, hockey rink, and baseball
diamonds. Students sit in conference like rooms around oval tables with their
teachers. The classes are, on average, only twelve students. (He 1) Anything
a student could dream of doing is available to them. This is what makes the
rich successful.

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Now, lets take a look at the school on the right. This is Monticello
Independent School. In this county, the median household income is $16,778
and forty percent of households are below the poverty line. Residents only
contribute eight percent towards funding the school. Only sixty percent of
adults in the county have a high school diploma and only 6.3 percent have a
bachelors degree. On the Kentucky Core Contest Test, Monticello students
scored well below the state proficiency levels on mathematics and social
studies. (Allen, Hess, Nelson, and Sauter 4) The students at Monticello suffer
because they dont have as much money as the students at Lawrenceville.
Does that mean that they are less than them? No.
If we Americans would acknowledge the fact that there are classes and
that the poor are being left behind and that the rich are getting richer, we
would realize that we are causing opportunity inequality. We need to be
aware of the massive gaps between classes and try to equalize them. We can
do this through raising awareness of the medias role in dismissing the
middle and lower classes and teaching the next generation that success
doesnt always mean being a multi-millionaire celebrity.

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Works Cited
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Serving in Florida. Boston/New York. Bedford/St.
Martins, 2007. Print
Kendall, Diana. Framing Class, Vicarious Living and Conspicuous
Consumption. Boston/New
York. Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. Print.
Mantsios, Gregory. Class in America. Boston/New York. Bedford/St. Martins,
2007. Print.

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N/A. United States Census Bureau. N/A. United States Census Bureau. 2013.
Web. 23 December

2014.

Scott, Janny. Shadowy Lines That Still Divide. The New York Times 15 May
2005: Print.