Class Matters Workshops
Download this brochure for more information on Class Matters workshops.
If you're interested in hosting a workshop, please click here for a brochure, or contact me about booking an event.
Order Class Matters
Order Class Matters: Cross-Class Alliance Building for Middle-Class Activists by Betsy Leondar-Wright (New Society Publishers, 2005).
Press Coverage of CM
- Tim Harris interviewed me for Real Change: Read the interview
- Marc Cooper interviewed me for The Nation magazine's Radio Nation: Listen to the interview (MP3 file)
- Ben Merens interviewed me for Wisconsin Public Radio: Listen to the interview (Real Audio file)
What Do We Mean by "Class?"
Resources
Learning more about cross-class alliances...
Classist Comments
What's the most classist thing you ever heard someone say?
(I'm not talking about someone like Bill O'Reilly or your right-wing uncle. More specifically, what's the most classist thing you ever heard a liberal or progressive person say?)
Read five interviewees' answers — and my own.
Class and Other Identities
How do you experience class differently because of your race, ethnic group, religion, gender, age, or other identity? What class dynamics do you notice within your identity groups?
Here's how a few ClassMatters.org visitors answered those questions:
- White women from working-class backgrounds
- White middle-class women
- Middle-class women of color
- White male labor activists
- White middle-class activists
- Christians and class
And answers from the Class Matters book:
Quotes on Group Process and Class Culture
Union members working with peace or environmental groups:
"The peace people don't understand that it's a war out here … The contrast between giving people hell at a bar over the union vote and then going to a [peace] conversion meting where people sit around and eat cheese and sip herb tea is really frustrating. Those people seem like they're from a different solar system. [They] are too intellectual and always wanting to work on the structure of the organization. I was at a meeting recently where they talked about the structure of committees and subcommittees again. The shipyard could be closed by the time they get the structure together. The union is used to getting down to work and getting things done ... This is a war, and you can't be nice about it … I feel a sense of urgency about it that I don't get from the peace people."
"Some of the issue of class is how it colors what you're used to in terms of meetings—like this whole retreat process. I'm just really glad I had an excuse not to go [to the coalition retreat]. I'm used to conventions. I'm used to Robert's Rules of Order, not consensus. And I prefer those, because if we're making a decision then I want a decision. Whether my position wins or loses, I prefer having the decision made by the group rather than not. And it's what we're used to in the labor movement."
Environmental activists working with unions:
"Labor groups don't process. In environmental groups sometimes you can stop a meeting and process what's going on and talk about different levels of needs and styles. I've never felt that that could happen in this coalition, indeed I thought they'd all spit up if I even suggested it."
"Labor for the most part belongs to a very formally structured organization in which ... it does matter who does what first and who calls whom first and that you go through the proper channels. We're kind of flying by the seat of our pants, a lot of us [environmentalists]."