Best Of Deborah Dundas' 'On Class'

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from On Class by Deborah Dundas.

"I don't understand why people feel so threatened by having to learn about a variety of different life experiences—and maybe care about them," says Jo Vannicola finally. "Most people are passive, which is part of the problem." It's easy to stay within your own community, not having to see how others live, not having to know hardships. And if you don't know those stories, you don't have to feel responsible for them.

p. 99

That's why authentic voices are so important. Once you've heard and understood different perspectives from another's point of view, it's impossible to forget them, to ignore them. They become a part of who you are. You become part of the narrative: there is no us and them—there's only us.

If we get more alternative voices into the mainstream, at least everyone stands a chance of being heard. As Vannicola says, "It breaks down that barrier between those who have and those who don't. And it makes people think differently. I think that's very challenging to people who think a certain way."

p. 100

The Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci used the term "organic intellectuals" to describe people who are not educated in universities but who have organized, who have lifted themselves out of terrible circumstances—people who are smart and who in public debates can often "wipe the floor" intellectually with people who had all the benefits of wealth and privilege, Ontario Coalition of Poverty cofounder John Clarke tells me. They emerge in poor and working-class communities and are "incredibly important people but totally undervalued.”

p.121

It's encouraging when business scions point out some of these key issues, as happened when food magnate Michael McCain announced that he was stepping down from the helm of Maple Leaf Foods in 2022. "The fundamental drivers of food insecurity [are] not food," he told the Globe and Mail. "Canada has an ample supply of food... It's all of those systemic issues that are at the core of food insecurity,"97 he said, "which include income inequality, poverty, mental illness, access to skills (including financial and nutritional skills) and racism."

p. 128