Social Class Struggle In America

The American Struggle Why social class? Many Americans want to know the answer to this question, but is it possible to really answer the question to “why” we have social class? It is easy to explain “what”, but it’s “why” that stumps us every time. Social class is the division or classification among people in a society. In America we have the upper class (rich), the upper and lower middle classes, and the lower class (poor). Americans base the social classes mainly upon annual income, and education. I have discovered an excellent example that highlights the struggle of our society’s lower class and also the dominance of our upper class. My chosen example is the movie John Q. John Q is about a lower class family who struggles with
One morning during Mike’s baseball game he was sprinting to second base and suddenly falls to the ground into a seizure. John and Denise frantically call an ambulance and rush to the hospital. After thorough testing John and Denise Archibald receive the frightening news that Mike has a bad heart. The only choice Mike has is to have a heart transplant or he will die. John has extremely low income and the hospital tells him his insurance is not good enough to get his son’s name on the transplant list. John Archibald does everything in his power to earn enough money just to get Mike’s name on the list but after the first few weeks pass the hospital tells him it is too late. They are sending Mike home to die. Denise calls John and tells him to “do something”. That is exactly what John did except he was forced to go to extremes. Making sure John had all the right professionals,
Prices on anything and everything are skyrocketing. Employee’s hours are slowly getting cut at work. Minimum wage is staying at a constant. All of these things are affecting our lives in a negative way. Many families have had to foreclose their homes and file bankruptcy. Kids have a hard time finding financial aid for school, and it is preventing them from trying to get an education. You would think everyone in the world would open there eyes and see what is happening and try to fix it, but we, the human race, are encouraging our fate; the end of time. December 22, 2012 is the universal prediction of the end of time. It is up to us to change that, but we are too ignorant to work together and try to mend the damage we have done. Why did I mention the end of time? Because, in a deeper sense, it ties in with social class. The division among people has given us a reason to judge others. Some upper class citizens feel high and mighty compared to the lower class. This is also where stereotyping comes from. We have nicknames like trailer trash, white trash, and nigger. These names come from the classification the human race made for themselves. John Quincy Archibald faced all of these problems, and that is why his situation serves has an excellent