Sarah Smarsh's grandmother had dentures in her twenties, after her teeth were pulled out due to poverty. Robyn Curnow asks why good or bad teeth explain whether America is a meritocracy?
Smarsh's new book is called Bone of Bone; Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class.
Robyn wanted to talk to Sarah because she's rare commodity in America - a whisperer or translator of two Americas; rural, white, poor middle America and the educated, urbane newsrooms of the coasts. As one of the few people in a newsroom who have worked in a wheat field, Smarsh says she takes the stereotypes of middle America personally because they can get her people so wrong.
Not all white, poor Americans in rural areas are Trump supporters, in the same way not all New Yorkers are walking around with Black Lives Matter t-shirts. Sarah blames a fractured media and the Democrat Party ignoring large chunks of America where people have felt ignored, and to whom Donald Trump speak to.
How to bring divided Americans together? Dolly Parton, the Patron Saint of the American Working Class.
http://www.x.com/scribnerbooks
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Bone-of-the-Bone/Sarah-Smarsh/9781668055601
http://www.searchingforamericapod.com
http://www.instagram.com/sarah_smarsh
More about Robyn's public speaking
Robyn Curnow is a sought-after public speaker on what it takes to create positive leadership in complicated times. As a South African now living in the American South, Robyn is determined to bring a hopeful and light-hearted tone to all conversations.
She reflects on her interviews with U.S. Presidents Bush, Clinton and Carter and First Lady Michelle Obama. She has impactful stories of working alongside Nobel Peace Prize Lauretes Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu
She has delivered talks and hosted events around the Blue Economy in the Principality of Monaco where she introduced Prince Albert of Monaco and Prince William, Prince of Wales and French President Emmanuel Macron, the Lincoln Centre in New York, the Science Museum in London, the Swedish Royal Palace in Stockholm, the YPO annual conference in Cape Town, the United Nations, a Haaretz newspaper panel in Jerusalem, the Nantucket Yacht club and many more.
She has recently worked with Prince Albert II Foundation in Monaco and Philadelphia, the Swedish royal family in Stockholm, Made by Dyslexia in London, the Red Cross of Georgia in Atlanta alongside Delta Airlines.
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