Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ames.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!ames!barry
From: barry@ames.UUCP (Ken Barry)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Middle/Working class; response to N. Weidenhofer
Message-ID: <481@ames.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Aug-84 16:28:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.481
Posted: Fri Aug 17 16:28:38 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Aug-84 03:45:31 EDT
References: <382@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 36

>> : D. London
>  : N. Weidenhofer

>> Most people on the net are middle class; most people in the States are
>> working class.

>	One of the things that I think IS great about America is that,
> for the most part, these are the same class.

>> 	This has got to be one of the most stupid, near-sighted, close-minded,
>> unobservant statements that I have ever heard/read. James Baldwin (or Leroi
>> Jones, I don't remember which [if you don't know who they are, read!]) said,
>> "the purpose of blacks in american society is to define bottom". For N.W. to
>> sit at his computer, with his x-thousand dollar a year job, and say that, for
>> the most part, blacks (and hispanics and immigrant workers, etc.) have it 
>> about as good as he does is totally unbelievable. I don't know why I expect
>> americans to know about other countries. If N.W. is at all representative,
>> you don't know much about your own!

	David London manages to read a lot into a short quote, methinks.
I am so ignorant that I thought Weidenhofer was only saying that blue-collar
and low-level white-collar workers in America made up the bulk of what's
usually called the "middle-class". But no, David (no doubt much better-read
than I) can read between the lines, and has kindly pointed out that there are
poor people in the US, and that they aren't as well off as people who
have "x-thousand dollar a year jobs".
	If David is right about Americans being less well-read than the
rest of the world, I can only conclude that how much one reads is less
important than how carefully one reads, and how well one understands
what one has read. Go back to Evelyn Woods for a refresher, David.

-  From the Crow's Nest  -                      Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Electric Avenue:              {dual,hao,menlo70,hplabs}!ames!barry