No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City

This is a progessive yet rigorous look at the working poor in the inner city. Like Elijah Anderson, Elliot Liebow, Mitchell Duneier, and Barbara Erenreich, it demonstrates that the poor are more complex than [traditional types] or ideology. Newman is a very insightful scholar who never lets her scholarship get in the way of great writing or balanced analysis. I especially appreciated the way she debunked the notion that these low skilled jobs have nothing to teach.

This is a hands-on, front line study of America's working poor, a subject so infrequently covered in news media, with gross misunderstandings and negative stereotypes. Katherine Newman and a group of her graduate students from Columbia University spent years learning virtually ALL there is to know about the lives of workers in a fast food burger chain in Harlem in New York City. Through Newman's very accessible language we get to understand who these workers really are, what makes them settle for the lowest of ranks in the American Society, and what motivates them to go and find and keep these jobs.Newman's very interesting approach is to take us into the lives of her "subjects", we get to know how and with whom do they live, who do they befriend and socialize with, how did they get their jobs and so much more. Relatively early on Newman makes a very clear point; the lives of the welfare poor and the working poor is so intertwined, and changes in welfare laws particularly those related to families with dependent children can make it virtually impossible for the working poor to carry on working. This conclusion emerges so very clearly as we get to know working poor with children whose ONLY possible childcare option is a welfare receiving relative looking after the family's young.Newman deals very effectively with the cultural misconceptions about the fast food industry, reading this book you can no longer think of hamburger flippers as unskilled underachievers. Often these are brave people who have rejected the easy money drug culture, or people who have had to compete very hard to get low paying low status employment, or have to travel over an hour each way and leave young children behind. And these are jobs that require far more skill in operating equipment, planning and dealing with difficult people on daily basis than many higher paid higher status jobs. When Newman got into the details of the what these jobs really entail, I found myself thinking of much higher status jobs as being lower skilled and these jobs and the people who hold them specially in the inner city, where these are real jobs not pocket money generators, as truly worthy of respect.Newman work covered a whole range of topics affecting the working poor including a great deal on the values of the working poor, these she found to be so "mainstream" indeed often close to conservative. Those at the bottom of the heap who put up with so much for so little had little tolerance for the do-nothing swindlers, but they did have a high level of tolerance for people otherwise. No Shame in My Game also deals extensively with education, what it means for the working poor and how the employers in the fast food industry encourage it. Indeed we see an alternate culture that encourages achievement is formed around the workplace.The book also deals with the issues of race, within Harlem along with few examples from the wider world outside of it. We see clear evidence of patterns of discrimination

I JUST SUBMITTED THIS REVIEW TWO MINUTES AGO, BUT DID NOT INCLUDE MY E-MAIL ADDRESS (A REQUIRED FIELD, APPARENTLY) SO I HAVE NOW INCLUDED THAT INFORMATION IN THE APPROPRIATE BOX. Five stars are not enough. Katherine Newman presents us with an outstanding book that is grounded in rigorous social science, yet reads like a novel. Those looking for a sympathetic but balanced view of daily life among the working poor need not look further than this book.

Five stars are not enough. Katherine Newman presents us with an outstanding book that is grounded in rigorous social science, yet reads like a novel. Those looking for a sympathetic but balanced view of daily life among the working poor need not look further than this book.

Than those pro reviewers. To finish the line. I'm not sure if that other customer even read this book. The review was way off.