Though slavery was outlawed nearly a century and a half ago, all of us are still in figurative chains of one kind or another. Thus argues Walter Mosley in
Workin’ on the Chain Gang , a passionate examination of the social and economic injustices that continue to shackle the American people. Each one of us, Mosley claims, is restrained by a system that values money over humanity, power over truth, and conformity over independent thinking. Yet even as Mosley paints a sobering vision of contemporary economic and political reality, he offers a plan to break the fetters of our oppression. First we must recognize that our history is deeply informed by the black experience. Then we must cast off the all-consuming accoutrements of an economic system that keeps us blind to our own and others’ humanity. Only then can we hope to achieve our true potential.