Essay on Revolution

Class In America
By: Arturo Morillo

Class In America

Injustices and discrimination have been plentiful all across the world. In Revolution 2.0, Wael Ghonim comments that class has a powerful function in the consumption of information through social media. He goes one to suggest that Khaled’s death was viewed in the light it was, just for the reason of him being middle class. This can also be seen in almost every other country in the world, even in the United States. When one looks at the media in the United States, one sees that the higher up in class a citizen is, the more they are glorified as being kind hearted and noble. This notion is also expressed in the way that individualism is expressed in the United States, as if the poor are poor because they did not strive for success. In the United States, a person’s social class position has a similar effect as to the event that happened in Egypt with Khaled Mohamed Said.

When one looks at the media for news in the United States, no matter what channel or news station one is on, one could clearly see that most citizens that are of high middle-class or of rich-class background are treated as noble. If a person that is high in a social class commits a crime, the crime is lessened in the news. An example of this found in Revolution 2.0 is how most of the media bends to the regime. Although Mubarak is a dictator and most of his followers are corrupt, in the media, they are shown as being noble hearted and as always looking for the best of the people. This holds true in the United States too. Governors and other high appointed officials gain high sums of money just for holding their positions. Even thought their words just hold false hope, with no sense of correcting any problems, most of them are still portrayed as been righteous and as saviors being able to cause change.

In the United States, because of the idea of individualism, the lower social classes are often miss-treated as if they were filthy beings, who do not deserve the same respect or standards as others. This thus sets them as animals, leaving room for other people to belittle them. By belittling them, other people could feel less sympathy for them if these people would end up being a victim of a crime. One such example is seen in Revolution 2.0 where the media ends up referring to the peaceful protesters as extremists who were thugs and criminals. Although some of the protesters were political or religious leaders and media workers, they were all portrayed as if the protest was made up of poor thugs and criminals, who just wanted to cause chaos and destruction. This is also seen in the United States, were most people who belong to or are from poor places, which are usually defined as ghettos, are seen as criminals and drug dealers or users. Society has set a label on such people, it being that they do not work hard enough to escape the crime and that they prefer to be in such conditions.

A person’s social class position affects the way he or she is portrayed in the United States. The higher up one is in the social class ladder, the more one is looked at as noble and kind hearted, while the lower in the social class one is, the more one is to be seemed as filthy and as a lesser human. Social classes tend to affect the way everybody is perceived by society, no matter what country. In the future, social classes will most likely remain the same, determining who gets benefits by keeping others down.