Twitter Reacts To David Brooks Column Containing Condescending Sandwich Anecdote

New York Times columnist David Brooks published a column Tuesday titled “How We Are Ruining America.” The column describes how upper-middle-class Americans are alienating working class Americans through social barriers and language.

One passage had some readers scratching their heads.

“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,” wrote Brooks.

The anecdote seemed to display the elitism that he was describing as ruinous to America.

“To feel at home in opportunity-rich areas, you’ve got to understand the right barre techniques, sport the right baby carrier, have the right podcast, food truck, tea, wine and Pilates tastes, not to mention possess the right attitudes about David Foster Wallace, child-rearing, gender norms and intersectionality,” he continued. “The educated class has built an ever more intricate net to cradle us in and ease everyone else out. It’s not really the prices that ensure 80 percent of your co-shoppers at Whole Foods are, comfortingly, also college grads; it’s the cultural codes.”

Commenters took to Twitter and other social media platforms to criticize the piece.