Dignity
"Widely acclaimed photographer and writer Chris Arnade shines new light on America's poor, drug-addicted, and forgotten--both urban and rural, blue state and red state--and indicts the elitists who've left them behind. Like Jacob Riis in the 1890s, Walker Evans in the 1930s, or Michael Harrington in the 1960s, Chris Arnade bares the reality of our current class divide in stark pictures and unforgettable true stories. Arnade's raw, deeply reported accounts cut through today's clickbait media headlines and indict the elitists who misunderstood poverty and addiction in America for decades. After abandoning his Wall Street career, Arnade decided to document poverty and addiction in the Bronx. He began interviewing, photographing, and becoming close friends with homeless addicts, and spent hours in drug dens and McDonald's. Then he started driving across America to see how the rest of the country compared. He found the same types of stories everywhere, across lines of race, ethnicity, religion, and geography. The people he got to know, from Alabama and California to Maine and Nevada, gave Arnade a new respect for the dignity and resilience of what he calls America's Back Row--those who lack the credentials and advantages of the so-called meritocratic upper class. The strivers in the Front Row, with their advanced degrees and upward mobility, see the Back Row's values as worthless.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
3mentions
2people
2019–2022years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Seems like people are criticizing this partially because it's pitched as an alternative to normal tourism. Just wanted to point out that Chris Arnade has done quite compelling photo journalism based on his way of engaging with communities, so what might seem like non sequitors or edge lord stuff might be in service of an implicit goal of his that most travelers don't share. Not that he does himself any favors with some of the framing.
Highly recommend his book Dignity. https://www.amazon.com/Dignity-Seeking-Respect-Back-America/...
Some of his work in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/chris-arnade
- > I want to know why these folks won't LEAVE shitty redneck states and head to places with more opportunity.
I know of two reasons.
1. The "blue states" have, quite deliberately, stopped building housing. This closes a traditional way out of rural poverty, and I think/speculate it's a major driver behind the opioid crisis.
2. The book "Dignity" by Chris Arnade documents the life of dirt poor America. I strongly recommend it. It talks a lot about how many people belong somewhere, and won't move because of that.
https://www.amazon.com/Dignity-Seeking-Respect-Back-America/...
- Those are definitely skills many at the bottom lack. They weren't part of my basic education, but I'm sure we went to different schools.
Regardless, people without those skills exist. Us HN people never meet them, and have a hard time imagining their lives, but they're still out there.
I completely agree that our educational system is fucked and needs to be fixed. I don't see how that would help the people who already went through the fucked up version, even if it ever got fixed, which I think we can agree isn't likely the next decade at least?
To learn about how the "permanent underclass" lives, You could do worse than reading "Dignity": https://www.amazon.com/Dignity-Seeking-Respect-Back-America/...
