We won't fix American politics until we talk about class | Joan C. Williams | TEDxMileHigh

"We don't live in a fly-over state, we live in our home" I'm not even American and I felt that one.

Im being sarcastic here but isnt it strange how topics like these arent a fixture of mainstream news/media EVERYDAY...mmm...i wonder why not.

This should be pointed out repeatedly in public discussions: When people use the term "middle class" they are referring to a group positioned well above the economic middle.

This is an important talk. Class slurs are not stigmatized like racial slurs because socio-economic status is not a protected class under the American Constitution.

What a fantastic Ted talk. Kudos to this woman. She is doing the work that will maybe just maybe save the American dream and begin to reunite the American people.

I come from the PME, and it irks me to no end the simplistic and pretentious thinking a lot of us have regarding the White working class and class in general.

This talk should be mandatory to watch in universities and in workplaces and on the massive screens in Times Square, and blaring into the ear pieces of every single news anchor in the mainstream media.

This video is criminally underviewed.

Noblesse oblige. While the working class wages has been stagnant for 30 years. The PME has more than tripled. Shutting the door on education and or jobs. See College Admissions Scandal. This is commonplace for those with money or influence. You want change you start Noblesse oblige.

It's not about class it is about lifestyle choice or lack of it. The working class and the poor have no lifestyle and are devoid of hope, they have to work to live, work till they die, with little or no saving, little or no pension but plenty of debt. The middle class have seen their income stagnate, whilst the top 15% have bombed ahead.


Who's jobs have they exported to asia? manufacturing which supported the working class, who supported the middle class management class hence both these classes of citizen suffered.


Question Joan, why is it bad to look back to the days when an American dad could work, earn a decent wage support a wife and a couple of children on one wage, retire with a pension, and live debt free. Is this the message do not look back otherwise your eyes might be opened as to what you have lost?


Who lost their homes in the 2008/9 recession not the people who caused it they prospered whilst the working/middle class paid the price either via evictions or a stagnation in salary, with no support of the elite who were in government.

What you can not get her head round is the democrat party lost, and can not understand why the middle and lower classes are in revolt.
I would respectfully point out Joan look at France for over a year a lot of the French citizens have been in revolt. Basis of which is worker working to survive, or are working and having to borrow just like Americans to eat at the end of the month. Whilst the elite in France are thriving just like America.


In equality can possibly be about your ethnic background, whilst equality when you are poor do not take this into account as you are all poor all devoid of life style choice all dollar free and debt ridden.


Look at the elite who have thrived, ask how they have thrived, in a recession enquire into their wealth, and you just might find who received the free money first always thrive, because their wealth has been given to them off the back of the rest.

I love Americans. Thank you so much for talking of this argument. Lovely watching and listening to you here at the top of the mountain of Italy.

Blue collar class is stuck in the middle with both sides attacking the blue collar while they take from the blue collar without giving anything back.
One day the blue collar will be pushed beyond the point they are willing to tolerate.

If unfulfilling jobs paid a really good wage it wouldn't be quite so bad.

So true! $200K is NOT MIDDLE CLASS!

This is the type of discussion we should see on major networks. Whether you agree with her points or not, this it intelligent discussion.

Please put this woman in the White House oh my gosh! I agree! What a beautiful good idea. Thank you

Incredibly well spoken. Thank you.

Class is made up of a lot of things- not just finance. It is the most divisive factor in the world

I prefer "middle financed", I have tons of class.

I think she's right that we have economic and social elite groups that look down on what we consider the working class - Republicans have for some time been considered economically elite, and she is probably correct in that Democrats are perceived as having embraced a sort of social elitism. But she got off the subject of class. I think abortion will always cut across class strata because it arises from an unresolvable metaphysical question that gives rise to a legal question that has to be resolved one way or another. Also, the idea that guns in some way characterize the working class seemed to have been just assumed rather than proven or demonstrated.

The inter-class adversity is caused by us being 'farmed' too hard. Ms. Williams failed to even mention redistribution of wealth as a driver of bad blood. The middle class is being eliminated by disenfranchisement of their wealth - making family life, marriage nearly impossible in family economics is their end-game.

Outstanding Ted, professor Williams! Sorry it took me four years to get to it. Life, you know. It has a messy tendency to get in the way. That said, too bad our new USSC majority has not viewed this presentation which gets to the core of our present culturo-political dilemma. This past session seriously disrupted our Republic with the abortion issue, one long settled by Roe v. Wade , and opened a wound in the American body politic which may fester for years. Loved the way you referred to guns and abortion as "proxy wars" for deeper sociological and psychological (i.e. rage, self-loathing, identity insecurity, economic uncertainty, etc.) issues roiling in the deep recesses of the American psyche.
Be well.