one thing this pandemic has clarified is that I'm not really the same class as my family anymore.

My brother is high-risk due to chronic pneumonia and other health issues. When he was offered furlough, I said he should stay home and take unemployment (more $/week), but this hotel job is the first he's had with healthcare. Though it's stingier than Medicaid, he won't risk it.

My parents agreed. A good job is worth risking your life for. Their recent jobs haven't had healthcare. My mom has been trying to get a job (and get through to the unemployment office) since her work closed. I'm thinking about *academic jobs*, she's worried about any job at all.

My uncle is in really poor health. We want to get him out of the house he shares with my cousin because she's working at a grocery store. But he hesitates to come stay with us because he's been able to get extra handyman/contractor work as people staying home want work done.

If it wasn't for the stimulus, SNAP, and my dad's SSDI, we'd be going into debt, which doesn't worry me, but is scarier than COVID if you've been turned down by enough low-wage jobs and haven't been able to fill prescriptions because you don't have health insurance.

Every zoom meeting and dinner party is with other people who spend their days in zoom meetings. My family's (and most people's) relationship to work and ideas of security are so different from those of us in the zoom bubble.

If you are in a position to help, working-class friends in WI have received critical support from @MiCentro's COVID relief fund: http://www.micentro.org/lca-covid-19-relief.html

I also know that @MaketheRoadNY does crucial work for immigrant and working-class communities in NY https://maketheroadny.org/ 

I can't understate the impact of being White. My mom grew up on a nice block that they would have been redlined out of if they were Black. Grandma's home loan & good job as a secretary at a White school let her raise 6 kids alone. The house paid for much of her end-of-life care.

My dad grew up right on the race line in Milwaukee. They are both brilliant, but with the shit they did as teens, he and my uncle could easily have been caught up in the prison system if they were Black. Instead, they've had a lot of jobs at places where everyone is White.

Like many White people, we have better-off relatives that help out here and there. My aunt was able to tell me about liberal arts colleges and financial aid because she went to one. I would not have applied to the fancy college I went to without her advice.