I was raised by a man who saw no class, no colour, only people, and he loved people.
-Lizzie Cornish 1

Your father sounds like he was a wonderful person, Lizzie. He raised you well.

But with regard to seeing no colour {or "color" as we "UnitedStaters" spell it}, I hope that people don't interprete this to mean that they should never mention their or another person's race or ethnicity. I don't think that people should pretend that race doesn't matter at all-because as long as institutional racism exists, race does matter. Also, as I shared in my earlier comment, I believe that membership in a particular race and ethnicity helps shapes a person's worldview and experiences, By ethnicity I'm including ethnic sub-groups within a particular race such as African Americans who are Gullahs, Creoles, and Carribean born, or born in a particular nation and ethnic community in   continental Africa.


Also, I've noticed in real life that some people are afraid to mention his or her race or another person's race for fear of saying the wrong thing, or offending a Black person or another person who is considered to a "minority" {I prefer the catch-all referent "people of color" to the term "minority"}. However, I believe that racial referents should be acceptable in day to day interactions when they are used as descriptors. But maybe referring to a person's skin tone is an example of something that's more acceptable for people of color to do -depending on the circumstances and the way we mention it-than it is for White people to do. For instance, in attempting to describe a Black person to another Black person, it's pretty common to mention that person's gender and his or her skin color {as in "He's light skinned. or "He's a little darker than me"}. But then again, if a White person who isn't used to being around Black people were to describe a Black person by skin tone, that person may not know all the different variations of what we mean by "light skin" or "brown skin" including "red bone". Do White people make those kinds of references in descriping another White person?

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In addition, Lizzie, I think in the USA, the three classes are different than what you listed as the classes for Great Britain {upper class, middle class, and working class}. I'd list the economic classes in the USA as upper, middle, and poor. I think that the class system in the USA is much more fluid than in Europe, and a number of people in the working class would be considered part of the middle class {many of the White collar working class would be and some of the Blue Collar working class}. There are working poor {those working for minimum wage, or working half time or even working two jobs} and there are non-working poor-often because they can't find a job.