The yearly drama of the incoming reading list at UNC-Chapel Hill. This year people are pissed that students are being asked to read Nickel and Dimed. I am just finishing this book and I, too, am pissed. Not because it is leftist or anti-capitalistic but because Barbara Ehrenreich is herself "clueless," there are points throughout the book when she is downright racist and classist. I say she may be clueless because she seems to be trying to lighten the depressing situation of the working class poor. The only problem is that her jokes are often at the expense of the poor and often colored (as in people of color, not as in African American) folk.

I am also disturbed that Ehrenreich's idea of submersive, investigative journalism includes allowing herself the luxury of going to the doctor and buying medication for a rash when her co-workers work on broken appendages because they have no medical insurance. She plops down huge security deposits for apartments while the WCP folk around her sleep in cars or seedy motels while trying to save up for a security deposit. I won't go on and on because I don't want to spoil it for you, but one of my biggest problems with Nickel and Dimed was the fact that when the going gets tough Ehrenreich gets going (literally). She has the luxury of walking away from a bad situation when she chooses.
newsobserver.com - Clueless and calculating