 Most
people at Appalachian State University, as well as many others in
the country, think that they’re invisible. They wait tables,
clean houses, work at K-Mart, Wal-Mart, or a thousand other retail
stores. They’re the working poor, and they struggle to make
ends meet and make some sort of living.
Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, “Nickle and Dimed,” focuses
on such people. Ehrenreich took a variety of low paying jobs and
tried to see if she could make ends meet.
Long story short, she couldn’t. Despite all myths to the contrary,
hard work by itself is no longer enough to get by in America.
‘Nickle and Dimed’ was chosen for Appalachian’s summer
reading book, and for good reason.
With the median income of Appalachian parents around $60,000, most
incoming students have absolutely no idea how affluent their surroundings
are, much less that there actually are people out there without
such luxuries.
How unaware such students can be hit me hard when I came to Appalachian.
Coming from a far more modest middle class background, I was shocked
that many didn’t know how to wash their own laundry, gave measly
tips at restaurants, or didn’t seem to care if their car was
towed because their parents would pay for it.
I don’t mean to sound like my upbringing was meager- my mother
is a school teacher and while times growing up were occasionally
lean, they were never truly desperate. I had shelter, a bed to sleep
in, and a loving family that valued education. Not all are so lucky.
My problem with so many students I’ve encountered is not their
backgrounds, but their sense of entitlement about them.
For some affluent students there is no sense of perspective. They
take their luxury for granted, as some sort of right, not knowing
and not caring that it comes from the sweat and toil of others.
I spoke with a professor recently who had taught a session on the
book at orientation. She told me of several students who had not
even read the book, dismissing the problems of the people in it
with statements like “well I didn’t read it, they’re
lazy and should just go get another job.”
Even for those not suffering from such delusions, ‘Nickle and
Dimed’ is a useful look at an ignored segment of society and
the challenges they face.
Sadly, it is a lesson missed by the conservative groups and politicians
who complained when the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
took the same step as Appalachian and made it their summer reading
book.
A member of one of the groups, the Committee for a Better Carolina,
attacked Ehrenreich as “a card carrying socialist.”
Our own General Assembly member, Sen. Virginia Foxx, dismissed the
book. “If the University wants to be thought of as the number
one university in the country, then they ought to give books with
more substance.”
This from the state senator who stated last spring that students
should be paying more for college. Glad to know Foxx cares so much
about her constituents.
While I don’t agree with all of Ehrenreich’s conclusions,
the book is a solid piece of research, and well written too.
If such conservative groups disagree with her findings, so be it,
but they should make some sort of legitimate argument, rather than
attacking her.
One doesn’t have to be a socialist to be angry at the fact
that it is getting increasingly harder and harder for working class
Americans to even earn the most basic of livings, while CEOs earn
millions more dollars, even when they deceive their employees and
run their companies into the ground.
It is unfair, it is wrong, and the more people that are made aware
of that fact, the better the country will be. |
