White Middle Class

I initially wrote this as an e-mail reply to a friend, but I'm interested in getting comments on it - so I thought I'd share in a wider forum.

I'm longing for my American white middle class life back, and I live with a middle class family here.

White people go through . . . a process as they realize their privilege . . . even the ones who consider themselves enlightened, even the ones who don't want to claim their privilege, even the ones who want alternative lifestyles and views of the world. Part of the process is rejecting your identity as a white person and longing to be from a different ethnicity. Being white middle class (heretofore WMC) is a culture, but what I haven't been acknowledging enough is that there are great things about being WMC - we pay our taxes, we obey traffic laws, we value education, we plan ahead, we save money, we think nationally or globally . . . I know you're probably thinking either that middle class people aren't like this, that these aren't good things, or other classes do them too . . . but I'm telling you that I'm living in a culture where these things don't necessarily happen, or are only starting to happen, and it's a problem. I'm not saying that Ecuador needs to turn into a white suburb of Detroit . . . but in order for the country to develop and progress . . . some of the things that the white middle class does would help.

That said, there are downsides too, and we've seen them . . . and we want to reject them, to shove them out of our lives . . . without a clear idea of exactly how to do that because they're so ingrained in us. Maybe . . . we need to recognize that it's ok to take things from both worlds - or all three, if you want to count upper class too. I don't see anything wrong with the fact that I want an advanced degree, because I know why I want it. But that's an upper WMC or upper class thing to want. Nor is there anything wrong with having money saved for emergencies - as long as it doesn't become a way of thumbing my nose in God's face and telling Him that I don't need Him. At the same time, I don't want to drown in my own consumerism like so many WMC people do - I want to get that out of my head and out of my life. I don't want to live for security and comfort. The fact that you want a wife and kids doesn't mean that you want a WMC life - people here want that. People all over the place want that - it doesn't make you WMC to want a clean, dry, safe place to sleep at night and people around who love you passionately and fervently, who are committed to you. What makes you WMC is feeling entitled to those things, taking them for granted, thinking that they're not enough.