Jensen's main point in the second chapter of her book "Reading Classes" is to lay out how classism exists in how she defines separate classes for the sake of her writing.  Like Johnson's explanation of Individualism in "The Forest and the Trees" Jensen also points out how Classism (as other forms of systematic oppression) shift the attention away from the structural issues that contribute to class divisions, and toward individuals who are "too lazy" to attain a higher class.  Jensen states that "classism says that people with more wealth deserve it because they earned it" and it is individualistic attitudes like this that ignore the hard work that working class people do (50).

On another note, Jensen also states that  "classism sees and judges louder, more expressive and emotional human behavior as flaws of personal character, which is called tasteless rather than customs of class or ethnic cultures" (45).  I found this interesting when thinking about how Johnson stated that "when blacks or women express anger in the workplace, for example, they risk triggering stereotypes of blacks and women as overly emotional" (65).  I think that these two quotes are important when thinking about how race, class and gender are connected when examining classism.  In all cases, being overly emotional is seen as a negative, while restrained behavior is seen to be "higher class"--all of this works to keep oppressed groups from acting out of their (justified) rage against the machine of systematic "isms" that the privileged are so unwilling to address.

Chapter One: The Forest, the Trees, and the One Thing

"It's easy to think that social problems must come down to flaws in individual character.  If we have a drug problem, it must be because individuals just can't or won't say "no."  If there are racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and other forms of privilege and oppression, it must be because of people who for some reason have the personal "need" to behave in racist, sexist, and other oppressive ways" (9-10).

This is a very basic way to explain how individualism exists in multiple systems of oppression and how it infiltrates every aspect of our lives.  From here, it is easy to see how one could entirely miss the systematic nature of oppression and how it stretches beyond merely the occasionally blip of a psychopath in an otherwise neutral sea of humanity.  It is easy to say that everyone is inherently good, to shift the question of oppression from a larger system and onto an individual, making conversations about oppressive systems easily derailed.  Especially when conversation turns to internalized racism, sexism and so on, which are harder to detect because they slip under the radar that spotlights mouthpiece bigots (most famously, politicians).  Focusing on these people is pointless when trying to dismantle the entire system.

Javon Johnson - "cuz he's black"

"The privileged in our society require a class-structured social order in order to maintain and enhance their economic and political well-being.  Industrial profits depend on cheap labor and on a pool of unemployed to keep workers in check.  Real Estate speculators and developers create and depend on slums for tax evading investments" (477)

“[Women] are pushed into military duty due to poverty and lack of other options”

“Some 42% of female veterans say they joined the military because jobs were hard to find, compared with one-quarter of men”

“31% military women are black […] this is almost twice the share of active-duty men who are black (16%)”