The Good Black [Hardcover]

Paul Barrett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

Larry Mungin spent his life preparing to succeed in the white world. He looked away from racial inequality and hostility, believing that he'd succeed if he worked hard and played by the rules. He rose from a Queens housing project to Harvard College and Law School, and went on to the world of corporate law. But just when he should have been considered for partnership at his mostly white law firm, he sued for racial discrimination. Paul M. Barrett, Mungin's roommate at Harvard, takes readers through this fascinating case while challenging them to re-think their ideas about race.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Here is the quintessential American success story: a young African American boy from an inner-city neighborhood makes good and goes to Harvard Law School, then on to a promising career in a prestigious law firm. In Paul M. Barrett's unsettling The Good Black, however, the rags-to-riches formula goes terribly awry. Barrett's subject is his former college roommate, Lawrence Mungin. As a child in the all-black Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, Mungin had learned at his mother's knee that he was "a human being first, an American second, and a black third." Hard work and good grades got him into Harvard. After several years as an associate at law firms in Atlanta and Houston, Mungin signed on with the Washington, D.C., firm of Katten Muchin & Zavis, hoping at last to achieve his dream of full partnership. What he got instead was the end of his career.

The facts of what happened to Lawrence Mungin are indisputable: demeaning work, insulting treatment, zero advancement; what is in question is why he was treated in such a way. When Mungin took his complaint to court, he claimed racial discrimination; Katten Muchin & Zavis didn't deny their mistreatment but insisted that, far from being racially motivated, it was simply the way the firm treated all its employees. Barrett, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, chronicles Mungin's life, his lawsuit, and the bitter aftermath of the trial in a book that raises more questions than it answers--questions about the American way of doing business that should trouble every American, white or black.

From Publishers Weekly

In a crackling courtroom drama that illustrates just how ambiguous issues of race can be, Wall Street Journal deputy legal editor Barrett examines the case of Larry Mungin, his roommate at Harvard Law School. Mungin sued his Chicago-based law firm, Katten Muchin & Zavis, charging racial discrimination. The sole African-American lawyer in KMZ's Washington, D.C., office, Mungin was awarded $2.5 million in 1996 by a jury of seven blacks and one white; but on appeal, two white judges prevailed over the black chief judge and reversed the jury ruling. Was Mungin the victim of racial bias? There is no easy answer, as Barrett readily acknowledges. Mungin claimed that KMZ failed to consider him for partnership, paid him less than white associates and assigned him low-level tasks far below his abilities. But the firm retorted that the bankruptcy work for which Mungin was hired dried up, that his starting salary was set by the marketplace and that he was the only associate offered a transfer to another office. While Barrett admits "there wasn't any direct evidence" that Mungin was treated differently because of his race, he nevertheless believes that race probably was an important factor in the firm's "callous" marginalization of Mungin. Therefore, concludes Barrett, the appeals court should have let the jury's verdict stand. Readers' opinions will be sharply divided. Because the case involved not egregious racist acts but rather more subtle forms of alleged discrimination, law firms (and many other employers) will want to scrutinize Barrett's painstaking analysis. Agent, Julian Bach.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; First Edition edition (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525943447
• ISBN-13: 978-0525943440
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,589,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A staight forward account of a thought provoking story, October 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Good Black (Hardcover)

Everyone should read this book, but especially for professionals or those who work in a business environment.

Barret's account of Larry Mungin's experience is fairly well written, and holds your attention well during the discrimination suit and subsequent appeal. The author is a former roommate of Mungin's, and the writing colored by his respect for him but is presented objectively enough so that this is transparent.

Barrett presents very well, though (credit to Mungin's documentation) the subtleties of treatment driven by race in the story. Finally, Barret allows the reader to make his own judgments, based on the events and the clear explanations of the legal profession and the legal system.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it!, July 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Good Black (Hardcover)

Excellent book! I have been recounting it to everyone I have talked to since finishing it. It illustrates further the divide in perception between whites/blacks. The former group is increasingly unsympathetic because of course they do not suffer, nor can they imagine, the **almost daily** indignities (subtle and not-so-subtle) that even the most educated of blacks experience.

It's "death of a thousand cuts" - all the while the "cutter" scoffing at the "cuttee" for protesting the cuts...

Mungin experiences these "cuts" and feels them especially keenly because he considers himself a "good black". The difficulty is that if he is the receipient of both generalized bad treatment (as experienced by others at his firm) AND subtle racism, more than likely the racism will also be lumped into the "general bad treatment" category.

Well worth reading for insights into the way business gets done in professional services/law firms. Another GREAT read is Joseph Jett's "Black and White on Wall Street: The Untold Story of the Man Wrongly Accused of Bringing Down Kidder Peabody".

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A disturbing study of a lawyer's struggle with racism, February 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Good Black (Hardcover)

Paul Barrett has done a superb job of describing one man's struggle to work within a system which later betrays him. Barrett knows his subject well, as they were roommates in law school but he reports Larry Mungin's professional experiences so impartially that the reader is forced to draw his own conclusions. Was Larry Mungin the victim of racism in the law firm for which he worked? We see the evidence and while our hearts bleed for him and the way he is treated, we are invited into the workings of a modern day law firm where the number of hours billed is what counts. We suffer with our accomplished black lawyer as he is humiliated and we watch his career and his hopes for a partnership crumble. Barrett tells the story so skillfully that the reader becomes involved in the intrigue and the book is difficult to put down. Modern law firms are not very pretty places and we begin to wonder if Mungin's treatment differs from that of his white colleagues. Are they all treated badly? This is what the firm claims in the discrimination lawsuit which follows. Racism is sometimes as insidious as cancer and while the judges may not be certain that Mungin was its victim, we know that it exists and that it contributed to the despair of this "good black." This book is a must for lawyers and lay people - for everyone. Barrett has written a masterful work and has left his readers anxious for his friend and even more anxious for the good blacks and good minorities everywhere.