[lbo-talk] Re: Rightwing College Students Target Ehrenreich's 'Nickel & Dimed'

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 11:33 AM -1000 7/10/03, Ralph Johansen wrote:
>Raleigh News & Observer July 8, 2003
>
>New Book, New UNC Controversy
>Group Says 'Nickel and Dimed,' the Assigned Reading for Freshmen, 
>Has a Liberal Bias
>by Jane Stancill
>
>UNC-Chapel Hill officials might have thought a book about the 
>economic struggles of America's low-skilled workers would be a safe 
>pick for their freshman summer reading assignment.
>
>But the summer book choice is stirring up trouble again, a year 
>after the emotional debate over an assigned book about the Quran.
>
>A coalition of conservative students calling itself the Committee 
>for a Better Carolina is protesting UNC-CH's assigned book, "Nickel 
>and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America," by Barbara Ehrenreich. 
>The book chronicles the experiences of its author, who traveled to 
>three U.S. cities and worked low-paid jobs as a waitress, cleaning 
>woman, nursing home assistant and Wal-Mart employee.
>
>The Committee for a Better Carolina says the book has a liberal bias 
>and presents a radical perspective of the U.S. economy.
>
>"It's intellectually dishonest to present only one side," said 
>Michael McKnight, a senior from Roanoke Rapids and a leader of the 
>student group. "That's not what education is all about."
<snip>
>Zach Clayton, a freshman from Raleigh, said the university would 
>have been smart to require both "Nickel and Dimed" and "Sam Walton: 
>Made in America: My Story," the autobiography of the Wal-Mart 
>founder.

At 11:19 AM -0700 7/9/03, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>If Ehrenrich had written upbeat stories about plucky former welfare 
>moms making something of themselves at Wal-Mart, the right would 
>have liked that.

Instead of reading _Sam Walton: Made in America: My Story_, 
conservative students from "the Committee for a Better Carolina" 
should undertake exactly the same participant-observation research 
project as what Barbara Ehrenreich did for _Nickel and Dimed_:

*****   Harper's Magazine
Jan, 1999
Nickel-and-Dimed On (not) getting by in America.(journalist lives the 
low-wage earner life)
Author/s: Barbara Ehrenreich

At the beginning of June 1998 I leave behind everything that normally 
soothes the ego and sustains the body--home, career, companion, 
reputation, ATM card--for a plunge into the low-wage workforce. 
There, I become another, occupationally much diminished "Barbara 
Ehrenreich"--depicted on job-application forms as a divorced 
homemaker whose sole work experience consists of housekeeping in a 
few private homes. I am terrified, at the beginning, of being 
unmasked for what I am: a middle-class journalist setting out to 
explore the world that welfare mothers are entering, at the rate of 
approximately 50,000 a month, as welfare reform kicks in. Happily, 
though, my fears turn out to be entirely unwarranted: during a month 
of poverty and toil, my name goes unnoticed and for the most part 
unuttered. In this parallel universe where my father never got out of 
the mines and I never got through college, I am "baby," "honey," 
"blondie," and, most commonly, "girl....

<http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1111/1784_298/53530961/print.jhtml>   *****

Then, they'll have a chance to write their own "upbeat stories" about 
working for Wal-Mart and the like, presenting "the other side":

Report back to the class at the end of the semester!
-- 
Yoshie

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