If you're rich, your car doesn't break down; if you're poor, it does. If you're rich you don't get into a car crash; if you're poor, you do. If you are rich and you do get into a car crash your safer car and the fact that you are in the habit of wearing a seat belt means you will escape with minor injuries. If you are poor, chances are your car is older and thus not as safe and chances are greater that no one ever got you into the habit of wearing your seat belt. If you are rich your car starts every time; if you are poor, sometimes it does not.
If you are rich all of your teeth are in the right place; if you are poor some of them are missing or misplaced. If you are rich you're less likely to be fat than if you are poor, and in any case you dress better to hide the extra bulk.
These are just a few of the ways in which socioeconomic class is written onto the bodies of college students. I have two students in wheelchairs, both car crash victims, one of whom is a double amputee with burns and missing fingers. Often, I suppose, chronic diseases and health risks are associated with other factors that shape learning outcomes during high school, but one can't help be struck by the difference between the students at Salem State and those at Amherst, Wesleyan, or Williams. There are the alphas and the gammas, the haves and have not. I don't imagine any of us are naive about this fact, but in this academic year I have been struck by the degree to which class is written on the body, visible to us all. What especially strikes me, of course is the public health component of all of this, more so than the fashions or the cultures.
Anyone can drive carefully of course, but all things being equal, things are not that equal. Newer cars are built with different steel than older cars, stronger steel, better able to protect the precious cargo.
