"Nickel and Dimed" and UNC

[Barbara Ehrenreich is national treasure! If you haven't read this book=

yet, I urge you to do so as soon as possible. --Kendall]

By Barbara Ehrenreich, The Progressive
August 4, 2003

When I was in Scandinavia last spring promoting "Nickel and Dimed,"
interviewers kept asking me to tell them about the "debate" my book had=

provoked in the United States. I had to confess that it had provoked no=

debate at all, at least none that I had heard of. In fact, when my book=

was adopted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a
reading for all incoming students in 2003, the administration expressed=

its conviction that it was a "relatively tame selection," at least
compared to last year's choice =96 a collection of readings from the
Koran. I was beginning to envy Michael Moore, whose publisher had cleve=
rly
boosted sales by attempting to suppress his book "Stupid White Men" in =
the
wake of 9/11.

Then, early in July, I got a phone call from Matt Tepper, president of =
the
student body at UNC-CH, inquiring as to what I thought would be a usefu=
l
way to direct the incoming students' discussions of "Nickel and Dimed."=
 I
suggested that the students ought to apply the book's concerns to their=

own campus, where workers have been trying to organize against heavy
administrative opposition. I sat back to wait for new students to arriv=
e
at the end of the summer so the controversy could begin.

Within about a week =96 while the incoming first-year students were sti=
ll
working on their tans =96 a controversy arrived all right. It just wasn=
't
the one I was hoping for.

On July 10, a group of conservative UNC-CH students, calling themselves=

the Committee for a Better Carolina, held a press conference, along wit=
h a
handful of rightwing state legislators, to denounce "Nickel and Dimed" =
as
a "classic Marxist rant" and a work of "intellectual pornography with n=
o
redeeming characteristics." Fine, at least I could cling to the adjecti=
ves
"classic" and "intellectual." But when I read the full page ad the
Committee for a Better Carolina had taken out in the Raleigh News and
Observer, I saw that this controversy was less about the book than it w=
as
about me.

The ad charged me with being a Marxist, a socialist, an atheist, and a
dedicated enemy of the American family =96 this last confirmed by a cit=
ation
from the Heritage Foundation on my longstanding conviction that familie=
s
headed by single mothers are as deserving of support as those headed by=

married couples. I was greeted on North Carolina radio talk shows by ho=
sts
asking, "What does it feel like to be the Antichrist in North Carolina?=
"
and similarly challenging inquiries.

I suppose I should be grateful for the chance to parse the finer points=
 of
Marxism v. feminism, and socialism
v. democratic socialism, on the kind of radio stations
that update the traffic and weather every 15 minutes.
In one week, I appeared on a half dozen radio shows,
twice with Michael McCartney, the founder of the
Committee for a Better Carolina, who insisted that the
last two books chosen as readings for incoming
students showed a pattern of liberal bias on the
university's part. We had some interesting exchanges
on whether the Koran can be considered a "liberal"
document or, even, as McCartney seemed to think,
anti-Christian.=20

I was getting into my new role as North Carolina's premier amateur
philosopher and religious studies scholar, and hoping for some in-depth=

discussion of my own "anti-Christian bigotry," as one of the state
legislators put it, no doubt referring to my description, in "Nickel an=
d
Dimed" of Jesus as a "wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist." =
On
the "vagrant" part, there can be no debate, and, although "guzzling" ma=
y
be a bit overstated, Jesus was sufficiently associated with wine ("I am=

the true vine," etc.) to be confused with the Greek wine god Dionysius =
in
the Hellenistic world =96 a subject I have yearned to expound on for ye=
ars.

As for Jesus being a socialist, I take it back. He was actually a littl=
e
to the left of that, judging from his instruction to the rich man to se=
ll
all that he had and give to the poor. If that's what it takes to be a t=
rue
Christian, believe me, it's a hell of a lot easier to be a socialist: Y=
ou
have to dedicate yourself to working for the poor, just as a Christian
should, but at least you get to keep your stuff. The topic of Christian=

altruism v. socialist pragmatism could, I thought, entertain the rightw=
ing
radio talk show audiences for weeks.

But I was being distracted and diverted. The real issue, I've decided,
isn't just the campus and its workers, but the state. According to the
North Carolina Justice and Economic Development Center, 60 percent of
North Carolina families with children do not earn enough to meet basic,=

bare-bone needs.  Nationwide, when last measured in 2000, 29 percent of=

families were in the same straits, giving North Carolina twice the leve=
l
of economic misery as the country as a whole.

My former husband, who was a union organizer in the state for several
years, said he'd never seen such poverty anywhere. At a union organizin=
g
meeting held in a motel meeting room, for example, he noticed the worke=
rs
covertly pocketing packets of Saltines left from a previous event. It's=

not a pretty picture: Well-fed suits engaging in chest-thumping attacks=
 on
an expos=E9 about poverty while at least some of their constituents are=

basing their meal plans around soda crackers. I don't know much about
pornography =96 and am eager to hear from any reader who has detected i=
t in
"Nickel and Dimed" =96 but I do know obscenity when I see it.

Barbara Ehrenreich is a columnist for The Progressive.  She is the auth=
or
of "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" and "Blood Rites:=

Origins and History of the Passions of War."
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