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"Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America"

Aired on Thursday, September 16th.

We've heard often about "essential workers" since the pandemic got underway -- those indispensable individuals who are, alas, in many cases under-appreciated, under-paid, or both. But such vital workers are not, of course, just those working in the medical, science, health, or rescue fields, and these workers were certainly an important part of American society **before** the pandemic ever hit. Our guest is the New York-based author and journalist Eyal Press. His new book is "Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America." Per The New York Times: "[A] disturbing and necessary new book.... In Press's moral worldview, there are not only guilt and innocence, but rather fine-grained degrees of culpability and exculpation that fit uneasily with the sensibilities of a sound-bite-driven social media culture.... It's a testament to his insight and vision that in spite of the ugliness to which he exposes us on almost every page, he still makes us want to set aside cynicism and pessimism and join him in finding ways to strengthen the moral bonds between us, however flawed we might be."

Rich Fisher passed through KWGS about thirty years ago, and just never left. Today, he is the general manager of Public Radio Tulsa, and the host of KWGS’s public affairs program, StudioTulsa, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in August 2012 . As host of StudioTulsa, Rich has conducted roughly four thousand long-form interviews with local, national, and international figures in the arts, humanities, sciences, and government. Very few interviews have gone smoothly. Despite this, he has been honored for his work by several organizations including the Governor's Arts Award for Media by the State Arts Council, a Harwelden Award from the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, and was named one of the “99 Great Things About Oklahoma” in 2000 by Oklahoma Today magazine.
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