Medcalf: Next book chosen for anti-racism book club focuses on Asian American reckoning startribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from startribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Medcalf: Antiracism book club explores caste in America May 15, 2021 3:41pm Text size Copy shortlink:
In Chris Rock s 2008 comedy special, Kill the Messenger, he discusses the limited diversity in his affluent neighborhood in Alpine, N.J. At the time, the high-profile actor and comedian lived near a handful of Black celebrities including Jay-Z and Eddie Murphy who had also achieved great success in their careers. But Rock s punchline highlighted a condition that money and status could not erase. Do you know what the white man that lives next door to me does for a living? Rock asks. He s a . dentist.
While Rock offered this example with a humorous tone, the statistical rarity of his rise, the weight of inequity and the limitations of ascribing our challenges according to race and class are detailed in Isabel Wilkerson s illuminating book Caste, the first book for the Mary Ann Key Book Club, a partnership w