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How Classism Creates Conflicts in Activist Groups

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Dr. Betsy Leondar-Wright, author of Missing Class and program director of Class Action, informs us about conflicts in activist groups that arise from classism.  Click here for free audiobook download from Audible, and earn $15 for the PBC Podcast!

Class Action is a national nonprofit aimed at ending classism. Leondar-Wright has published several books on class and racial divisions in the US, and her new book, Missing Class: Strengthening Social Movement Groups by Seeing Class Cultures offers many insights–some humorous–into the way that class differences and class attitudes affect the work of activist groups.  She studied about 25 different groups of people who shared a particular mission, but diverged on how to address it, how to interact, and how to talk to each other about it.

In addition to some of the groups studied by Leondar-Wright, we talk about Occupy and its efforts to build a leaderless, classless approach to mobilization around income and wealth inequities.  We also touch on the current conflicts at Pacifica Radio, and the remarkable cross-class unity of the activists who broke into the FBI office in Media, PA in 1971.  Their efforts exposed the FBI Cointelpro program, and the group maintained zero visibility for over 30 years.