A David Brooks op-ed published in the New York Times on Tuesday morning has some people a little confused.
The piece, titled “How We Are Ruining America,” is Brooks’ account of how upper-middle-class Americans have a step up in society. Brooks talks about “informal social barriers” that are “segregat[ing] the lower 80 percent.”
Brooks shares a strange anecdote about taking his high school-educated friend to a sandwich shop:
Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named “Padrino” and “Pomodoro” and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican.
Dan Proft and Kristen McQueary did their best to address society’s sandwich divide: