 of goes against our sense of individual autonomy like if i work hard and do the right things i'm going to do well stephen brown is with the aspen institute's financial security program it's not just all about you and your family it's about neighborhoods about networks and it's about class raj chetty a professor at harvard and one of the researchers says that race is less important than it once was to kids prospects for upward mobility but while race is becoming less important class is becoming more important in america