Silence As a Passkey

When I reflect on my experiences growing up lower-class, an image almost immediately comes to mind: imagine an elementary school in a rural-ish area, but slightly nicer, bigger, richer, and greener than you’re thinking of. School has gotten out for the day, and kids flood from the doors. They all look very similar: mostly white, mostly nice, mostly friendly, running around, talking over each other. One kid walks silently, alone. They recognize a friend from class walking in a loose group and run to catch up with them. Like a school of fish, the group seamlessly caves away from the kid and their friend. The friend briefly acknowledges the kid, then turns back to the group, where the others refuse to look in their direction. There’s something off about that kid, the one now walking alone again. They’re just like the others, but… not quite. The color of their clothes is slightly off, and the stitching patterns are different. Their shoes have no logo. They wear the same backpack as last year. This kid is “other”, and their differences are undesirable. Years later, if you ask the others about these instances, they won’t remember. I, however, am the kid, and I cannot forget. 

Most of the assumptions and stereotypes I absorbed regarding my SES were developed through institutional and cultural socialization (Harro, Bobbie). I began learning to navigate a hostile climate towards lower-class kids well before I was consciously aware of it happening. My aforementioned status as “other” is well explained in the video “Are Humans Hardwired to be Cruel to Each Other?” that we watched for class: humans tend to organize others as an “Us” or a “Them”, and “[humans] are incredibly easily manipulated as to who counts as an Us and who counts as a Them” (Big Think, and Robert Sapolsky). When I absorbed the assumptions that poor kids have bad clothes, and that being different in appearance makes you a lesser person, I began to understand how I was viewed as a “Them” in the eyes of my peers. No matter how hypervigilant I was in imitating the behaviors of my wealthier classmates, something as small as my shoes lacking a name-brand label shifted me from an “Us” to a “Them” in the eyes of others. 

I became aware of these dynamics well ahead of my peers, and I assumed that the invisible rules demanding to be followed were universally known. In elementary school, I attempted to bring this up to my peers, and every time they looked at me like I was insane. I began to realize that my peers were not aware, at all, of what was going on. In the context of sociology, this is not surprising. In The Cycle of Socialization, it’s said that “[agents] are privileged at birth, and ascribed access to options and opportunities, often without realizing it (Harro, Bobbie). To my own disappointment, my uncommon awareness of the rules did not make them easier to follow. The sticker activity we did in class offers an explanation as to why. When we did the activity, we created groups by pointing at others to direct them into groups based on similarities in sticker color or shape. Growing up, I witnessed parents arrange their kids into friend groups similarly, arranging friendships based on shared resources. Instead of same colored stickers, the shared resources came in many formats, from vacations to time, lake houses, boats, hobbies, parent professions… the list goes on. No matter how hard I tried to assimilate to the lifestyle of my peers, I could not fake resources. My family had no resources to offer. My metaphorical sticker didn’t match my peers’ in shape or color, so I was not sorted into a group. 

In my case, my SES didn’t just prevent me from being included, it actively encouraged my exclusion. Following The Cycle of Socialization model, this was the product of enforcement (Harro, Bobbie). Through these enforcements, I concretely absorbed countless assumptions and stereotypes regarding SES: the opinions of upper-class students are the ones that are valued, smart decisions and hard work determine wealth, poor people are stupid. If I ever dared to be honest about who I was and where I came from, even in subtle, conversational ways, it caused my peers to feel uncomfortable and elicited reactions akin to anger, distrust, and disbelief. The social isolation that followed provided a clear enough message: the peers and institutions I grew up in demanded my silence. Even then, if I asked, no one would know what I was talking about. 

Consequently, I stopped talking. For me, coming of age is synonymous with the realization that wealthy children are socialized to sniff out the nuance of SES. As I approached middle and high school, I began to realize the ways I had adapted to my environment. I had developed an extensive ability to code-switch when talking to my peers, changing my voice, words, posture, mannerisms, etc. I only shared superficial details about my life, listening to students, parents, and teachers talk about low-income people as if they did not exist in our area. During this phase of my life, my experiences and assumptions didn’t necessarily change, but I became critically aware of them.

When I entered college, I met more people like me. The friends I made here at Michigan often struggle to understand my experiences, viewing my circumstances as privileged. This difference in perception reminds me of the video we watched on “Symbolic Interactionism”, which explains that the opinions and perceptions held by a person are influenced by their individual interactions with “objects, events, ideas, and other people” (Brown, Sydney). Like the tree in the video, I assign a different meaning to higher SES school districts than my friends do, and as we continue to engage in conversation with each other, we have the ability to individually influence the perceptions of each other (Brown, Sydney). 

I do not deny the ways I have benefited from my circumstances - in academia, my ability to assimilate with higher SES people grants me access to spaces I would otherwise be unwelcome in. However, I cannot ignore the lived consequences of my lower SES identity. A paper written by Candice L. Odgers at Duke University suggests that low-income children who grow up in affluent areas may experience an increase in antisocial behavior, heightened risk of mental health problems, and worse performance in math and science as compared to low-income children growing up in low-income communities (Odgers, C. L.). For these reasons, among others, I hold a lot of directionless resentment towards my upbringing in a wealthy area to this day. I struggle to be genuine in social situations; I’ve been conditioned to believe that silence equals survival, assimilation equals success. At the present moment, I am sitting in the Results of my own Cycle of Socialization, and now is the time to reassess (Harro, Bobbie). Equipped with my lived experiences, I feel called to come into my own, question the status quo, and pursue a Direction for Change (Harro, Bobbie).