Review: Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America

Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America by Chris Arnade
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have driven through a few of the forgotten towns of America where the only sign of industry are at the single forlorn-looking McDonald's and in the Walmart parking lot. I would never get out of my car in such a town; I'm not even comfortable stopping at red lights. But the people on the streets of these towns don't even look up when you drive by. They don't make eye contact. Reading this book helped me understand why.

I confess, I have from time to time harbored uncharitable thoughts about back row America. Before reading this book, it never occurred to me that the men, women and families who stay in these ghost towns riddled with drugs and violence do it because it is still their home. And because they have no where else to go. And because they have no money and no hope whatsoever of finding a job to earn money.

Many of them do not have the same goals as those in the front row or in the middle rows of America. College? Careers? Single family home with 3 children? A scant few might aim for this but most just want a job and to be with their families in the town they grew up in. That's it. Strange how I had never considered this possibility. I grew up in an almost-back row town and there was no question - I planned to leave the minute I could and I did. The idea of wanting to stay or needing to stay - utterly foreign.

Author Chris Arnade, former Wall Street bond trader, discovered that the thing most sought after and most valued by the defeated people he met in his two-year tour was dignity. He traveled from coast to coast exploring the cadaverous towns, where first the industry left, quickly followed by taxpayers with resources, leaving behind a hopeless skeleton of what once was. He talked to the people left behind about the good old days when the town offered jobs and hope. He talks to them about why they stay. Many were addicts. Many had been in prison. Many had no hope for a better life.

Arnade doesn't glamorize the day-by-day struggles or legitimize the drug use or violence. He doesn't explain as much as he simply reveals. His photography captures it well. The silence of a photographic journey of the under-underclass almost says more than the words could.

The front row makes fun of their faith. The front row disregards their simple goals in life. The front row disrespects their opinions. Arnade shines a light on this as an injustice. He reveals it; he doesn't cast aspersions and doesn't bloviate about big solutions, either. He just holds out a hope for greater understanding.

This book has a great deal to teach.

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Review: The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture

The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture by Heather Mac Donald
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Detailed and meticulously researched, Heather MacDonald's work to reveal the ever-growing body of evidence that our universities have become ghettos for gender pandering and infantilizing young men and women, should be required reading - both in college and high school.

It is not light reading. It is deeply challenging. MacDonald makes arresting observations on how efforts in diversity in admissions backfires. She observes, and supports with hard numbers, how diversity admissions practices on competitive college campuses results in fewer minorities in STEM studies. She provides average GPAs for Asian students, white students, black students and Hispanic students and tracks these with average GPAs for different majors. It is uncomfortable to read. It was uncomfortable for me to read. But that doesn't mean it should not be read.

Completely left out of the diversity admissions discussion in this book are poor whites who have no chance of going to college. None. No mention of those sitting in the back-most row of the diversity debate, the ones left behind and left out altogether. I read a lot about diversity these days and it is increasingly ominous to me how very poor whites are utterly invisible to our modern culture.

MacDonald devotes much of this book to the blustering rape culture on campuses and in society, generally. She details how preposterous attempts to police sex on the campus backfires. She observes how attempts to police sexual desire actual turns the clock back and places into the hands of men the chastity of women. She presents compelling evidence that the current climate on college campuses, once again, makes the male the sole guardian of female safety. She layouts with great care the neo-Victorian worldview growing on the college campus - a view that essentially says that females have no responsibility for their own behavior, while the male is responsible not only for himself, but for his partner as well. Unintended consequences, etc.

MacDonald is very hard on spineless faculty and administrators on college campuses, who let themselves be bullied by spoiled, anarchical, privileged kids and who render powerless actual victims of sexual abuse.

Here's what I got from reading this book: The truth does not always sound nice. And nice-sounding words are not always the truth.

This is a courageous book. It presents a point of view which is not hate-filled but fact-filled. It is not biased, racist, xenophobic or genophobic. It does contain hard-to-confront info, though. It made me uneasy. It made me think. Whatever your opinion on these topics, your bank of knowledge is not complete until you read this book. It may not change your mind but it will greatly inform the debate.


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Review: The Deep, Deep Snow

The Deep, Deep Snow by Brian Freeman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a great story with very satisfying pace. I did find the dialogue a little prosaic and predictable but never did I consider putting it aside. The adventure and the who done it?? kept me interested.

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Review: David Copperfield

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

At long last, I plowed through this tome and it was well-worth it. Dickens declared this book to be his “favorite child”, maybe because of its autobiographical components or maybe because in it he so often gave voice to some of the things which troubled him about Victorian England.

Since so much of what the protagonist suffered and so much of what most of the female characters suffered are today irrelevant, this book could be an important history lesson for anyone who doubts whether or not progress has actually been made.

We are walked through all of David’s life, from birth to middle-age. He suffered, he prevailed, he worked hard, he helped others, and he was foolish at times. He was carried along by the waves of life. At times things were truly desperate but he had optimism and a will to survive - nothing heroic, but rather just the right amount of tenacity to avoid personal injury or ruin. I think this was one aspect which kept me reading. David Copperfield is not a superhero; he is highly relatable on a human level. The times were different, for sure, but many of the human problems are the same.

This book has so many crazy and persnickety characters; they were marvelously constructed and wonderfully entertaining.

I did find the character of Dora flawed. I could not convince myself that any love could overlook her vast vacuity. I also thought that the dastardly deeds of Uriah Heep were permitted to go on a little too long. As a reader, I sought relief from him long before it actually came.

Of course, the writing is breathtaking. I happen to love long, circuitous sentences excellently constructed. Dickens, of course, offers this in spades.


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Review: The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a most unusual story which started out as a strong, page turner that plucked the most sorrowful heart strings. So good. But, after 50+ pages, it simply meandered.

A hugely popular book a few years back it made it onto my 'gotta read' list but I honestly don't know what the fuss was all about. The bee theme and the symbolism throughout was truly inventive but the storyline became a lengthened peregrination of sorts with an ending that did not satisfy.

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