Crossing Class Lines

Bell first encountered diverse classes when she attended Stanford University. Crossing class lines, she learned, was not necessarily positive or easy. When she took the steps of crossing the lines that had been drawn by classism, she did not always like what she found. Curiosity led Bell to ignore her fears and to take advantage of her situation by getting to know many people from diverse backgrounds. As a person from a working class background, she was shocked to hear the negative stereotypes that many of the elite students held about the working class.

Hard-working people caring for their families and homes were looked down upon by these wealthy kids. These youngsters undoubtedly learned their prejudices from their parents who, through years of experience, had learned to hide them better. But there it was in front of her—classism at its worse. An employed, law-abiding...