Mark S. Fleisher

One small neighborhood in the north end of Champaign, Illinois is the setting for Applied Science Research Professor Mark Fleisher’s look at three individuals’ lives as they struggle to get out of poverty. He describes the obstacles that he as a white man had connecting with and maintaining impartiality with minority family subjects. The notes are valuable to show researcher bias and his gradual loss of objectivity. The book illustrates perfectly a pattern that occurs repeatedly throughout the United States as outsiders look at an impoverish neighborhood decide what is best without recognizing that the people living there have families, relationships, potential, and self-awareness.… (mehr)