by Paris Wilson
One of the reasons why wealth is so hard to talk about comes from the fact that people are, more often than not, judged based on their socioeconomic standing rather than who they are. These stereotypes of people with wealth are usually harmful and can negatively influence people’s perceptions. One student responded that it was not uncommon for her to notice certain students shying from this topic because of their high economic class:
“When talking about privilege, I feel like usually [people with wealth are] the people who go quiet and maybe step out of the room or just kind of disappear a little bit. Or they never talk about themselves when we bring up those conversations because I know that a lot of kids feel like they’re not going to be liked, or people are going to think of them in a different way.”
Another student who identifies herself as part of the upper class agrees that it is simply easier to hide her wealth to ensure that people will treat her the same as before they knew her status:
“As soon as you identify yourself under one of those labels, it’s a lot easier for people to start getting mad or say, ‘Oh, you’re saying that because this,’ or ‘you’re just saying that because you feel guilty that you have this,’ ‘you don’t actually care,’ etc. It’s really easy for people to categorize: ‘Oh, that’s the rich kid.’ I think it’s easier to hide wealth so that you will be perceived for who you are via your own merits rather than labels.”
The student went on to express her fear of being labeled “uncaring” or “not compassionate.” Other interviewees identified other stereotypes of wealthy people, including “snobby,” “stuck-up,” “preppy,” “entitled,” or “egoistic” for not being aware of the struggles that others encounter because of their lower economic class.
Another student from the upper class said he felt like these hurtful stereotypes “inhibit your ability to fully get to know [people with wealth] honestly,” as it is common for people to only see others’ economic status once they know. One respondent suggested that people who have wealth may hide it because they do not want to be seen as someone who has had things handed to them because of their privilege: “[I think hiding wealth] might be a defense of like, ‘I still have to work hard. Even though I am more wealthy, I still have to work hard. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t do anything.’” Others separately agreed, saying that with wealth comes degrees of shame and embarrassment for having certain advantages throughout their life that may have propelled them farther than others could reach, like having private tutors or going to private schools with better education systems.
Many interviewees saw the stigmatization of wealth as a manifestation of a society that is not any one person’s fault. One student held that there is not anything wrong with having wealth, but that the disparities with wealth distribution in the US are a major problem:
“I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with having wealth. But the US economic disparity has grown from 8%, in I think it was the 1930s or maybe 1890s, to 20% [today]. So it’s just growing and it’s higher than ever. That’s not right. So I think there is something wrong with wealth in this country, but I don’t think that one person having more than another person is always wrong. I think that’s just how society sometimes functions.”
This disparity is part of the problem; as it gets bigger, people will feel even more estranged from the group opposite them, which will increasingly discourage talks about wealth.
Most of the stigma that surrounds wealth comes from negative stereotypes that end up not only harming the perceptions about people with wealth but creating a bigger divide between socioeconomic groups due to these perhaps untrue categorizations. This greatly contributes to the lack of dialect regarding wealth that happens in social settings.