Due to the fact that I only got through the first chapter of Jensen's book before I forgot it on the plane ride into DC this past week end I will only pull from this section.
Jensen writes about class more in terms of cultural class rather than the usual majority of socioeconomic. In this chapter she experienced something that I, too, experienced when growing up, making me aware of my cultural capital, or lack there of, compared to others around me.
Growing up, I had a friend that I had known basically all my life. However, it wasn't until middle school that I realized how different our two worlds were. I always loved going over her house, it was a three story home with 5 bathrooms, 6 bedrooms, and an in-ground pool on a private coll de sac. I lived on a dead end street with a one story, technically 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom ranch. This was not the only indicator that I saw growing up. Her family was always going on vacation to the Bahamas or England,all the children went to either Bay View or Providence Country Day, both pricey private school without scholarships, and they were always out to eat.
It wasn't until my brother, then 18, and I was 12, that I realized that I was not in the same class as her, and it was a really weird, kind of shameful feeling. Her father was an engineer, the one who designed and built the Wambi rock in Mohegan Sun, and he asked my brother to help, I think now as a favor to my parents. Although she never treated me differently from the point that I could see how much, I felt, lower than her, but I didn't feel comfortable over her house again.
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