"In this candid look at the realities of social and academic privilege, Rothenberg shares incidents from her life and the lives of family and friends to show how privilege is constructed and to reveal the forces that make us unaware of it. Through recollections of her childhood in an upper-middle-class Jewish family and her college years in the sixties, she tells us how she discovered that the world she took for granted as "everyday life" was in fact riddled with privilege.".

"Reviewing the social upheaval of the seventies that challenged fundamental assumptions about gender roles, race relations, and even the nature of the family, Rothenberg tells how she gained a new understanding of what it meant to be an educator and activist.

She shares personal events surrounding the publication of Race, Class and Gender to offer an insider's perspective on the culture wars, and brings her story into the 1990s with a cogent discussion of hate speech and the controversy over "political correctness."" "She also offers a hard-hitting critique of current teaching practices and a response to critics of multiculturalism and feminism, as well as a look at how de facto segregation continues in American education in the form of tracking.".

"Both deeply personal and broadly social, this memoir will capture the interest of anyone who cares about the future of education, race relations, feminism, and social justice."--BOOK JACKET.