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The middle classes and upper classes don't know whether
they want to transform [the working class] and make them
middle class, or withdraw from them, romanticize them, demonize
them. I don't think we've ever quite gotten to the point
where we just sort of understand each other.
—John DiIulio, educator
Once, Baltimore was famed as a blue-collar city with a friendly
workingmen's bar at the corner of every street of rowhouses
and waitresses who would call you "hon" when they took your
order at the diner. Nowadays, with most of the big factories
gone and gentrification in full swing, blue collar life
is increasingly a thing of middle class nostalgia, something
for suburbanites to celebrate on a weekend visit to town.
There's even an annual Hon Fest, where middle-class contestants
in beehive wigs and exaggerated "Balmer" accents glorify
(or mock, depending on your point of view) the rituals of
blue collar life. And for those wanting an even richer contact
with the working class, there are so-called "dive-bar crawls",
where groups of suburban kids descend on unsuspecting neighborhood
bars and try to ingratiate themselves with the locals, who
they deem more "authentic" and real.
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