What Is Your Connection to the Working Class?
I needed an introduction question, in mixed-class groups, that did not categorize people as raised poor, working class, middle class, or owning class.
A function of classism is to separate us from each other and install fears about whether we “belong” in any group or any situation.
I did not want to begin a workshop on classism by restimulating the fears of belonging or not belonging.
I was searching for an inclusive question—one that anyone could answer, one that would bring us together.
I settled on the following: “What is your connection to the working class?” It has worked in every situation, both inside and outside of RC. Everyone gets to hear everyone’s story. No one wastes time trying to figure out what class they are (which is not important anyway). People often say that although they have known someone for many years, they now have a new understanding of who they are.
If we have plenty of time and fewer than forty people at a workshop, I also have people answer these questions in the introductions:
Where are you from?
What did your mom do for work (paid or unpaid)?
What did your dad do for work?
If not raised by working parents, how did you survive your early years?
What is one other thing that influenced your experience of class oppression—for example, war, immigration, genocide of Indigenous people, racism, anti-Jewish oppression, divorce, language oppression, sexism, addiction, “mental health” oppression, ethnicity?
What do you treasure from your background? What would you never trade away?
What was not useful in your background? What is the “stupid voice in your head” that you would like to be free of?
Some workshops are too big for everyone to say much in their introductions. Then I ask people to tell at least one other person their story—maybe in a mini-session in the first class, or in their support group.
Freeport, Maine, USA
(Present Time 207, April 2022)