Class Segregation Quotes

Class is often invisible in America in the movies, and usually not the subject of the film.

When Welwyn Garden City was planned, the workers homes were placed in the east, downwind from the factories in the middle, whilst the bosses got the larger westside homes in Handside. This sort of social engineering, including the absence of a pub, would not be acceptable today.

Without class differences, England would cease to be the living theatre it is.

Growing up on, say, the Upper East Side, you're so isolated. If you go to the Hamptons every weekend, you never talk to a construction worker, and the construction worker would never talk to you.

In the United States of America, where, true enough, the classes already exist, but have not yet acquired permanent character, are in constant flux and reflux, constantly changing their elements and yielding them up to one another

The British Airways steward announced that the in-flight movie would be Chariots of Fire. 'Is that the only one?' I asked. 'We are also showing Gandhi,' he replied. 'Where do I have to sit to see it?" I responded. 'I'm sorry, sir, but Gandhi is only showing in first class.' The irony seemed to escape him.

I was told, continued Egremont, that an impassable gulf divided the Rich from the Poor; I was told that the Privileged and the People formed Two Nations, governed by different laws, influenced by different manners, with no thoughts or sympathies in common; with an innate inability of mutual comprehension.

We're now segregating our schools based on economics; we're segregating our schools based on where a child's parents live. And it has the same corrosive effect of destroying people's opportunity as racial segregation did.

Federal, state and municipal policies have isolated many children, especially in urban districts, into schools that are segregated by race, class and income.

When I was in seventh grade, I was bored out of my mind. We seemed to be learning the same things over and over in science and math, and two of the boys in my class were allowed to move ahead into these advanced classes, but I wasn't allowed because I was a girl.

What used to be racial segregation now mirrors itself in class segregation, this great sorting (has) taken place. It creates its own politics. There are some communities where not only do I not know poor people, I don't even know people who have trouble paying the bills at the end of the month. I just don't know those people. And so there's less sense of investment in those children.

I think there's an element where people get very comfortable in their ghetto. Which is fair enough.

Senators will associate only with men of their own class; and thus become strangers to the condition of the common people.

The big majority of Americans, who are comparatively well-off, have developed an ability to have enclaves of people living in the greatest misery almost without noticing them.

Several people, not just reviewers, took me to task for writing about what they called the working classes - something I've been doing for 40 years. I thought that was contemptible - what do they want to do, ghettoize the working class as a subject? Can you only write about your own class? I've written about royalty, am I not allowed to do that?

When I talk about the city, I talk about a city that elevates people, which is the strength of New York. We always had the ability to do that. We had the services to do that: good schools, living-wage jobs. We're moving away from that toward a two-tiered system: a small group of very wealthy people and the rest of the city, poor and working poor.

I think there are some very evil things about gentrification.

We have to think about the state of women in a more holistic way going forward. We can't be segregated by class and race as we have been. Because even the women at the top can do something about violence against women, right?

Gentrification is a form of immigration, though almost nobody calls it that.

I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.

The rich are never threatened by the poor - they do not notice them.

Britain's is traditionally a rigid class society.

You leap over the wall of one ghetto and find yourself in another ghetto.

Instead of eliminating class distinctions, suburbs were turned into class-conscious fortresses. Zoning ordinances set lot sizes and restricted the construction of apartment buildings, emphasizing single-dwelling homes to keep out undesirable lower-class families.

I went to an all-boys high school, and they accepted girls in only the two A.P. classes.