Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Dignity: seeking respect in back row America

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: Sentinel 2019 New YorkDescription: x, 284 p.: col. ill. Includes bibliographical references and indexISBN:
  • 9780525534730
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 362.50973 A7D4
Summary: After abandoning his Wall Street career, Chris 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. They scorn anyone who stays in a dying town or city as foolish, and mock anyone who clings to religion or tradition as naïve. As Takeesha, a woman in the Bronx, told Arnade, she wants to be seen she sees herself: “a prostitute, a mother of six, and a child of God.” This book is his attempt to help the rest of us truly see, hear, and respect millions of people who’ve been left behind. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566661/dignity-by-chris-arnade/
Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.
Star ratings
    Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)
Holdings
Item type Current library Item location Collection Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode
Books Vikram Sarabhai Library Rack 25-B / Slot 1165 (0 Floor, East Wing) Non-fiction General Stacks 362.50973 A7D4 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Checked out 24/10/2025 202771

Table of Contents

One. If You Want to Understand the Country, Visit McDonald's
McDonald's

Two. Drugs

Three. God Filled My Emptiness
Coping

Four. This Is My Home
Desolation

Five. Racism

Six. Respect, Recklessness, and Rebellion
Dignity.

After abandoning his Wall Street career, Chris 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. They scorn anyone who stays in a dying town or city as foolish, and mock anyone who clings to religion or tradition as naïve.

As Takeesha, a woman in the Bronx, told Arnade, she wants to be seen she sees herself: “a prostitute, a mother of six, and a child of God.” This book is his attempt to help the rest of us truly see, hear, and respect millions of people who’ve been left behind.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566661/dignity-by-chris-arnade/

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.