[acituan]

> but it doesn't follow you around for life, tied to your surname, determining who you can marry or what jobs you're allowed to get, or if you'll get beaten simply for walking into certain buildings or touching strangers

I am glad you’ve enumerated all those aspects because class definitely follows most Americans around, tied to their FICO score, their debt, their education credentials therefore the jobs they can get into, their neighborhood therefore surrounding crime levels, law enforcement and justice system attitude towards them, incarceration rates etc. It even determines who they can marry based on their gender (e.g statistically men don’t get to marry “up”).

We don’t like to call it caste because it probably offends some sensibilities, but class is definitely sticky in the US.