In this section of the book Nickel and Dimed, Barbara travels to Maine. She is amazed that almost everyone she see is caucasian. She describes how everyone is caucasian, the students, the housekeepers, the panhandlers. And everyone spoke english. This is very funny to me because now that I look at Edina, I notice that almost all the people I see are caucasian. I had never really thought about that before. Thats the mark of a good book when it causes you to see things differently.
She finds that the low paying workplace is still not a good place to work, even when you move to significantly different surroundings. She at first thinks "Maybe if you give white people a whole state to themselves, they treat aone another real nice."(52) She still pays just as much, if not more. The managers are still abusive. And you can't survive without 2 or 3 jobs. You turn out to be working 3/4 of the day and can't support yourself.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
First I want to ask what race is Barbara?
Second, I like how she realizes that everyone (caucasian and other races) are the same. People who were born wealthy and in power, and stay that way discriminate. I doubt it has to do with the race they're discriminating against, just the social class. I think that the stereotype that caucasian people are the ones discriminating comes from the fact that mainly caucasians have had powerful places in society. I think this is quite funny to me because I personally like to think of myself as a non-discriminatory person and I am white. Barbara shows a different type of prejudice because she is showing a dislike towards the white discrimination of other races. I don't discriminate and Barbara would probably classify me as someone who does because of my race. That bothers me.
This sounds like a very interesting story. I have the same question as Carolyn; what race is she? Edina is a very caucasian city, it's odd to remember the whole world is just like our little Edina bublle, it is very diverse. I think that's one hard thing to get at Edina, they have a great education program, but you don't get a taste of what the real world is like. I mean, not everyone out there could get braces when they were twelve and now have perfectly straight, not everyone is magically tan in the middle of the freezing winter either. Imagine.
Edina is extremely sheltered. Living here, we are able to get a lot of things that other kids could only dream of. I am really interested in this book because it kinda allows us, coming from Edina, to see how the real world is. People actually have to work 2 or 3 jobs just to survive! not everyone is a president of a company...
Post a Comment