Class exists, but I can't access it's static members?

programming flash
1

This is weird.

I have a document with a main class. So, I can refer to the main class as ‘ClassName’, and the the class have a static var, xxx.

If I do a trace(ClassName), I get object [ClassName], but if I do trace(ClassName.xxx), I get 1178: Attempted access of inaccessible property categoryMenu through a reference with static type Class.

Is this a bug with Flash? How can it be an instance of the class, but not have the properties of the class?