Social Class Matters in America & Blacks are Stuck in an Underclass

Class Matters The New York Times, Bill Keller 69 Reviews Macmillan, Sep 2, 2005 - Social Science - 268 pages The acclaimed New York Timesseries on social class in America--and its implications for the way we live our lives We Americans have long thought of ourselves as unburdened by class distinctions. We have no hereditary aristocracy or landed gentry, and even the poorest among us feel that they can become rich through education, hard work, or sheer gumption. And yet social class remains a powerful force in American life. In Class Matters, a team of New York Timesreporters explores the ways in which class--defined as a combination of income, education, wealth, and occupation--influences destiny in a society that likes to think of itself as a land of opportunity. We meet individuals in Kentucky and Chicago who have used education to lift themselves out of poverty and others in Virginia and Washington whose lack of education holds them back. We meet an upper-middle-class family in Georgia who moves to a different town every few years, and the newly rich in Nantucket whose mega-mansions have driven out the longstanding residents. And we see how class disparities manifest themselves at the doctor's office and at the marriage altar. For anyone concerned about the future of the American dream, Class Mattersis truly essential reading. " Class Mattersis a beautifully reported, deeply disturbing, portrait of a society bent out of shape by harsh inequalities. Read it and see how you fit into the problem or--better yet--the solution!" --Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch http://books.google.com/books/about/Class_matters.html?id=l429kaN9rUwC Drawing on both her roots in Kentucky and her adventures with Manhattan Coop boards, Where We Stand is a successful black woman's reflection--personal, straight forward, and rigorously honest--on how our dilemmas of class and race are intertwined, and how we can find ways to think beyond them. http://www.amazon.com/Where-We-Stand-Class-Matters/dp/041592913X