Slim's Table: Race, Respectability, and Masculinity by Mitchell Duneier, Ovie Carter (Photographer)

Product Details

Synopsis

At the Valois "See Your Food" cafeteria on Chicago's South Side, black and white men gather over cups of coffee and steam-table food. Mitchell Duneier, a sociologist, spent four years at the Valois writing this moving profile of the black men who congregate at "Slim's Table." Praised as "a marvelous study of those who should not be forgotten" by the Wall Street Journal, Slim's Table helps demolish the narrow sociological picture of black men and simple media-reinforced stereotypes. In between is a "respectable" citizenry, too often ignored and little understood.

"Slim's Table is an astonishment. Duneier manages to fling open windows of perception into what it means to be working-class black, how a caring community can proceed from the most ordinary transactions, all the while smashing media-induced stereotypes of the races and race relations."—Citation for Chicago Sun Times Chicago Book of the Year Award

"An instant classic of ethnography that will provoke debate and provide insight for years to come."—Michael Eric Dyson, Chicago Tribune

"Mr. Duneier sees the subjects of his study as people and he sees the scale of their lives as fully human, rather than as diminished versions of grander lives lived elsewhere by people of another color. . . . A welcome antidote to trends in both journalism and sociology."—Roger Wilkins, New York Times Book Review

Annotation

At the Valois "See Your Food" cafeteria on Chicago's South Side, black and white men gather together, finding companionship over hot coffee. Duneier spent four years at Valois writing this moving profile of the black men who congregate there. They take center stage in stories that illuminate a new iamge of black masculinity and respectability. (Univ. of Chicago Press)

Booknews

Sociologist Duneier spent four years at a cafeteria on Chicago's south side, and explores how working-class black men who gather there live by a distinct set of values. Identifies a blacks not seen in the media stereotypes of the ghetto underclass and the rising middle-class. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)