Personally,I don't often give much thought to what people think about my class status. I was born into an upper middle class family, but because my father passed away just as I was beginning my senior year in high school, I almost didn't get my high school diploma,and had a hard row to hoe just to get a few classes in collage.However, my passions for reading and writing have served me well,and I rarely went after a job I didn't get,and have never been fired from a job,other than temp. positions that I knew from the onset wouldn't last. Class status is all just smoke and mirrors as far as I am concerned.How much money you make, or how much material stuff you have does not define you as a person, to me.I am far more interested in a persons heart and mind than I am his bank account, or holdings. Likewise,what you wear does not interest me as much as whether you are clean or dirty. Soap is cheap.There is no good excuse for being filthy, unless you're homeless,and that is just pitiful.But I have known rich folks that lived like the Joad family, and poor folks that were spotlessly dressed,and kept their abode sparkling clean.So, now that I have made my attitudes clear, I have a few things to say about Oprah's show,Friday, April 21, 2006. Different ones, like men and women on the street clips, expressed opinions on the way they "judge" strangers they pass in public. One very thin woman, whom I would judge to be a famine victim, said she thought obese people were lower class people, or poor. Yet, I am sure if she saw Jerry Lewis when he was puffed up from the medications he was taking, she would have guessed, rightly, that he was wealthy, but had a serious illness,so in my opinion, she is one of those people who have this attitude that our society has implanted as an all pervasive mind-set, that you can call overweight people anything you want, and it's alright, because after all, they are fat, and the stream of consciousness knee jerk reaction to the sight of such is, they don't care, they're lazy gluttons who have given up and if they just put a little effort into it, they could lose the weight if they wanted to.She thought it was funny, and I am surprised that Oprah didn't jump all over that observation, but now that she has lost all that weight,(and she had so much ground to cover) perhaps she doesn't see this comment as the last legal prejudice that it is.Then there were some comments that I agreed with.One woman said she couldn't date a garbage man, because she would always associate the job with someone who smelled bad.Likewise, Mechanics were taboo, for the same reason. Then another lady claimed she thought people who had dirty fingernails were lower class people, for the simple reason, I am sure, that it is so easy to recify.But, as I said before, dirty people are not necessarily poor, they just don't care if they are dirty.Now, maybe you just caught them at a bad time, and they had been working on a car,without their gloves,and had to run to the parts store real quick,and didn't think about washing up first.Now, before you jump all over that as another sign that this person is lower class, think about Jay Leno! He works on his cars all the time,and he is far from lower class,so lumping everyone's quirks into the same "Class" just does not work, then, does it? From there, I thought many of the man on the street clips got truly shallow, when they started talking about what people wear, and how they speak, because monied persons don't all have the same obsessive drive as far as fashion and looks and being trendy,and some just flat don't give a rip about their accent,or overcoming it so they sound richer.Then there was the truly sad case of the woman who works in a eatery, and was treated poorly because people made assumptions about her status, based on her career...but when she is driving her expensive car,people look at her,and assume she is rich, when in fact the car was a ...um "Gift" from an admirer. Well, she may not know it, but that didn't sound right at all, and if I were her, I wouldn't be blatting that piece of information all over national television or people will form an even lower opinion about her, that has nothing to do with money! But, OOOPS! It's too late now, isn't it?
But then, we got to the real meat and potatoes of the show,and the grandchildren of two of the wealthiest families in the states came forward to tell their stories.Both Families are Billionaires.Jamie Johnson, heir to the Johnson and Johnson fortune was there to tell all about how he has been making films about the 1% of the total population of the United States, who have all the money.What filming he was able to make in his family home was very small,and he made a huge point of the fact that when you have that much money, you just don't want to talk about it. He said it as though he couldn't understand why his father in particular had this attitude, but I understand it perfectly.If your always running your face about your money, sooner or later, someone is going to come along and get ideas about how to relieve you of that money, or at least a big portion of it.Those with no scruples, who don't have any respect for human life, will always try to get what they can, through any means available to them, and so this young man is either so innocent the possibility never crossed his mind, or he is living in a dream world where all that money will get him out of any mess he gets into.I do believe the latter is the case, because he never considered the possibility that his father or grandfather might cut him off, if he continues to make these films. He sat there, looking like a normal fellow, saying if he needed more money, all he had to do was go ask for it.If I was his family, I would have been making a phone call right then and there, to stop his silly pursuits, until he came back down to earth again! On the other hand,rich people don't have to talk about money all the time, because they know they have it,where as the poor never stop talking about it, really.
Then, Nicole Buffet, also a Granddaughter of a Billionaire came on the show, and told how she had been brought up in a wealthy family, and given all she needed for a good education, and once that was accomplished, she now lives as a middle class person, working for other wealthy people who don't have as much as she had when she was growing up, and there is no trust fund for her, and no expectancy of inheriting anything,ever.She has asked in the past for money,and been turned down, so she just doesn't ask anymore. She would like to have more money, but basically, she is happy with her life.
On the one hand, it makes you wonder what these rich folks are thinking when they set their kids loose with anything and everything they want, or nothing,but then, you have remember that rich people aren't like the rest of us.If they ever knew what it was like to go without, they have forgotten, or they remember all too well,and there doesn't seem to be any middle ground with them.The notion of providing for their descendants just enough to keep them comfortable, but not so much they lose the will to do anything with their lives just never seems to occur to them.
It makes me just sigh with a slight sense of regret that I was never forced to walk that high-wire, burdened with the curse of great wealth,and caught on the horns of the dilemma of what to give to my kids.All? Or nothing! Lord, what a trial! Oh, who am I kidding? I would be having so much fun spoiling them rotten, they would probably never have to ask me for another thing the rest of their lives! But, see? I am not rich,so I cannot be selfish enough to be rich.Reminds me of Tevia, from "Fiddler on the Roof"..." Oh Lord, would it spoil some great immortal plan, if I had, just a small fortune?"
And like that milkman, I secretly say, Oh, Lord, Burden Me!
OUI?
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