class_inequality flowerock I'd say economic status/class is more common here. Maybe I think so because I'm white, but am also likely viewed as lower class or even homeless by most who are just looking in from the outside. They don't know what we went through when we tried to move into a house, they don't know that the police couldn't help us and that it was dangerous, that we've been robbed, jumped, had our vehicle wrongfully towed, been injured, and more, none of it. They don't know that we both work full time, sometimes more than one job and while we don't necessarily pay rent, we are still paying, and paying and paying... we pay taxes, car insurance, debt, tickets, bills, home maintainance, licenses be able to sell what we make with our own hands. Yet we get dirty looks and the police called to come bother us, wasting their time and everyone's tax dollars for no good reason. I was stopped for a bag check twice last week at the grocery store, not sure why, but it felt like they thought I was stealing, obviously, they found some toilette paper, a couple dollars and coins, a scarf... all mine, none of it even new enough to be freshly stolen. I was having a conversation with a guy at the dog park one night and we were getting along just fine until we talked about where we both lived, I joked that some people were scared of people who live like we do, he stopped talking and said he was scared by walking away. I shower, I wear clean clothes, I pluck my eyebrows and trim my nails and smile. I'm fairly small, I don't feel intimidating or upsetting. Discrimination is about more than appearances, whether the appearance is optional or not. So here I sit eating lentils and Salad with my dog, not wanting to go outside because a cop car has been parked there, cop in and out, for over an hour and I just don't want to deal with them. Every sounds and movement of a passing car makes me tense and worry that I'm being towed or vandalized or robbed. 151111 ... unhinged the door to discrimination IS appearance though. it is an acknowledged fact that it is a natural working of the human brain to be biased. biased to the people we perceive as similar and biased against the people we perceive as different. because i work a low wage job i am very often treated as stupid. or lazy. and this is due to a discrimination based on occupation which is already enforced by what jobs in this country are well paying and which ones are not. i was raised to pick a profession that would fulfill my spirit, not just my pocketbook. the old tired conservative argument that i should re_educate myself in a profession that makes more money is insulting to me. and also a reason why many people with tech jobs experience burnout. if everyone needs a teacher to become something new why do teachers make next to no money? as the ranks of the working poor expand, so does the notion that we are all lazy stupid and uneducated. that we deserve this life. that i deserve to have a long commute to work because i have to move further and further outside of seattle to afford a place to live; that only people with means deserve a place in this city as if they are somehow more deserving of those means. that people involved in real estate deserve to create another housing bubble in the name of profit while so many people suffer with the burden of rent. inequality takes many forms. these forms are interconnected. the solution will involve all of them. we need to stand together, not divide ourselves apart. 151112 what's it to you? who go blather from