ABSTRACT
We are a country with an ever-widening gap between rich and poor, but as hooks notes, no one wants to acknowledge this fact. While we have begun to make strides in advancing women and creating opportunity for certain ethnic groups (Hispanics more so than African Americans), 38 million people live in poverty and are largely missing from our discussions about access or an ongoing source of programming on college campuses (hooks, 2000; Walpole, 2007). With the diffi cult and unprecedented economic times ahead, poverty and issues of class will become more important and increasingly signifi cant.1 hooks (2000) and other commentators worry that we are becoming more and more class segregated, even as we become more racially diverse; “the evils of racism and much later sexism were easier to identify and challenge than the evils of classism” in a capitalist society (p. 5). Infrequently we talk about money, but never about class. In fact, hooks (2000) suggests that “race and gender can be used as screens to defl ect attention away from the harsh realities class politics expose” (p. 7).
