Social Classism And Poverty

The social and political stigma that surrounds poverty is called classism. Classism is the prejudice against a specific person or a group of people because they are in a different social class. Classism has been around since the existence of social classes. It was an enormous social problem in 18th century England when the wealthy toured the slums for amusement. The New York Times stated, ““Proper” people of that era had both a disgust and fascination for those who lived in these untouchable realms. They went slumming into the poor neighborhoods, a sort of poverty tourism…” (Brooks 2014, para. 8) At that time, the rich viewed the less fortunate more as animals, rather than actual humans who did the dirty work for them. This was a social problem
because a person was judged based on how much money they made and where they lived. In turn, classism becomes a political problem when it hinders a person’s capability to get a job.