Just finished Detroit: An American Autopsy. About the quickest I've ever flown through a book (I'm not the best of readers). Charlie LeDuff the author isn't Steinbeck, but I appreciate how he follows a similar intent - kind of a, it's the system's fault so no one person had control to stop it, but everyone has the responsibility to be responsible. Steinbeck would be down with that.
My last girlfriend opened me up to some solid perspective. There was an intriguing oblivity to be exposed to she brought to the relationship. Ideas like how Robert Moses was good for America, and for blatantly selfish reasons. The discrepancies were bloated - Moses essentially wanted to wall black people into the cities and make it really easy for whites to drive to the cities without actually living among them. Detroit was nothing more than niggers shooting niggers. American society can burn as long as the rich can stay rich. But at the same token, being poor was immoral and if you had a shit position in life you probably deserved it. I'm sure there's a nexus of selfishness, indifference, and ignorance that leads people to believe in the existing power structures while also not understanding why people don't just better their socioeconomic class. It's why I think more conservatives should be forced to take behavioral economics courses.
She used to jokingly refer to Red Lobster as Black Lobster, because only black people would be poor enough to want to eat there. This was regularly thrown in my face with the knowledge my parents wouldn't have been able to afford eating there when I was little. I turned into a bad person during that time; I think I'm getting better.
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