Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America

"Dignity captures the raw material of what we’re talking about. It’s comprised of photography with accompanying text written by a disaffected former Wall Street guy with a PhD, trying to understand the gap between his world of affluent finance professionals and the world of people struggling to get by. He began this work by visiting a neighborhood in the Bronx. His hunger to understand inequality took him to McDonald’s and other community gathering spots around the country, from the Bronx to Bakersfield, California. His photographs and essays allow the people left behind by affluent America to define themselves. He leaves us with the question: How can we bridge the gap between front row and back row America? Seeing the people in Dignity , period, is important because of the way our lives are organized. Our professional and personal circles are circumscribed: our children hang out with children of people like us; we travel among people like us. When we see pictures of people wheeling their kids in shopping carts while they collect discarded cans on the streets to recycle for coins to make ends meet, it reminds me that, as Arnade relays in his book, we have similar hopes and emotions. The chasm is between the realities and opportunities of life in front row and back row America."