Ain't No Makin' It

I like this book because it’s raw and real.

We hear everyday voices telling us their true feelings, telling us whether they even dare to dream and whether they believe they can accomplish their dreams. We see first-hand how social inequality can, for some, destroy hopes and dreams for the future and replace those hopes and dreams with desperation and resentment.

This book illustrates how difficult it is to break out of one’s social structure and status because of the stubbornness and injustice reflected in our larger, societal structure that is reproduced from generation to generation. This book is successful in that MacLeod demonstrates how social inequity and immobility based on race and poverty play out in real people’s lives over a lifetime and how difficult it is to break out of the “status quo” that keeps people disadvantaged and out of reach for opportunities for social mobility.