In about the middle of this chapter, Ehrenreich describes her experiences going out into the world after her shift. She has on her maid outfit which makes her stand out, and combined with her strong odor, she gets a lot of mean looks and generally poor treatment. My problem (and confusion) comes when she writes, “Maybe, it occurs to me, I’m getting a tiny glimpse of what it would be like to be black” (100).

I genuinely do not understand why she would think that. I get that she said maybe it’s a tiny glimpse, but to me, that statement is such an incredible stretch, and given her past microagressions, I don’t think she is in a position to feel that way. She is a white woman from the middle class. Maybe if she had shown more insight into race relations in the 90’s or even elaborated on her statement, I might understand. But instead, she just drops that sentence at the end of a paragraph and then goes on describing her day. I want to talk more about this in class, but right now, I strongly disagree with Ehrenreich on this one.