America Again: Satire and Stephen Colbert

Not that long ago, the head of the Mormon Church summarized what many Americans believe or at least subconsciously accept when he said, "There is a reason why one man is born white rich and with many blessings and another is born black with very few, God has determined each man's proper reward." And while he was widely and deservedly criticized for his remarks, it wasn't because a majority does not believe his views, but rather that they deemed him politically incorrect for bringing race into the question and for saying aloud what many think quietly and keep to themselves. Class is America's forbidden thought. Class and culture rigidly control who we are, who we associate with, and how much money we can earn. American class culture determines who will prosper and who will fail. The Making of the Slave Class is a book about this culture and the debilitating consequences that make the American slave class. Written for a general audience, this book is the first historical and cultural analysis of the American class system and the poverty created by it. It could be easily categorized as a work of sociology, history, anthropology or economics. The book analyzes class through all these disciplines. The American class system is a topic that has not received a great deal of attention from American writers. There are no comprehensive books on the subject that analyze class and poverty from cultural, economic and historic perspectives. This book does the job. Among the few books on the subject are such works as Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks and Class by Paul Fussell, both of which make fun of, belittle and attempt to make literary class war upon the working class in their books. This book fires back.