Customer Reviews

The Good Black

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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".

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.

I knew Larry and the inner workings of the firm to which he refers. His treatment was not a figment of his imagination, and the firm did not treat everyone with equal rudeness. There was and is a subtle distinction in how those of color are treated, particularly at the professional level. Mungin's accountings regarding his discrimination by a powerhouse firm were poignant, as is his self rediscovery. Albeit idealistic, he was most mistaken in his belief that stripping away all point of reference to common stereotypes would assist him in ascent to the top legal echelons.

While I appreciate the objectivity with which Barrett pursued the case and Mungin's cultural dynamic, his perspective can never truly encapsulate the very real experience one encounters at KMZ. The mere fact that a partner "anonymously" characterizes black employees of Ivy standing as "affirmative action failures" indicates the pervasive level of assumptions made regarding one's true capability, or why those students are actually admitted. One has to climb and claw not once or twice, but continually through a maze of prejudgment, dehumanization and subtle disparity in treatment.

Thanks for telling a story which needs to be told, again and again.

When you are as skeptical and cynical as I am, it is rare that you recommend anything to anyone. However, in this instance I felt compelled to pass along some thoughts on this book.

The book is about an African-American man, named Lawrence Mungin, who rose from his inner-city beginnings to earn double degrees from Harvard University, and practice law at some of America's most esteemed corporate law firms. Ultimately, he ends up suing a large Chicago firm for race discrimination, notwithstanding having spent his life resolutely subscribing to the belief that he was a "human being first, an American second, and a black third." The book is not only a great court room drama, but, more importantly, a poignant insight into both the obtuse management of large law firms and the opposing views of racism in middle-class America.

Among the many interesting twists in the book is that Paul Barrett was Larry Mungin's roommate at Harvard Law School. That Mr. Barrett is able to tell as objective a story as he did is as unlikely as it is instructive.

This book, I think, will come to be regarded as an important piece of work in American race-relation scholarship, for it serves as a warning that the most insidious kind of racism can sometimes be that which is the least perceptible.

Many professional liberals believe that they (we) do not have pernicious racial prejudices. After all, if they did, would they not fail to be genuine liberals? The story of Larry Mungin is, I think, a counterexample to this belief. It shows that professionals who think of themselves as liberals, and who are in fact liberals, are not immune to wronfgul racial prejudices. So perhaps the belief should be revised. Perhaps we should concede that we, that is professionals and self-professed liberals, sometimes have bad racial prejudices. May it not be argued, instead, that what make us liberals is the fact that we do not *act on* such prejudices, that we do not let wrongful prejudices affect our conduct?

If I'm right, however, the story of Larry Mungin is a counterexample to *this* belief too. We, professional liberals etc., may not only have pernicious racial prejudices; we may also let them affect our conduct toward people of races different from ours.

"The Good Black" is not a story of explicit race discrimination. The facts are subtle and are propertly presented as such by the author. But at no point does the subtelty of the facts obscure the impression that this is a case in which a person's race detrimentally affected his prospects in society.

Like the subject of this excellent work, I am an alumni of Harvard University as well as Harvard Law and Harvard Business School programs and I found Mr Barrett's depiction of his study's personal and career sojourn to be painfully accurate for all to many Ivy League alumni. This is a well told and insightful book, I highly recommend it.

I think Paul Barrett does a brilliant job telling the story, particularly in the way he presents every single issue and weakness, not just Mungin's issues or the firm's weaknesses. He does not clearly take Mungin's side throughout the whole book, even in the conclusion. Some might disagree, but the conclusion appears to me as Barrett giving his analysis of Mungin's situation with the firm from the perspective of one with a law degree. To be honest with you, I think Barrett should have represented Mungin--Barrett has a right-on understanding of the case and the situation and makes several points that Mungin's lawyer should have made. As a law student, I had been reading the chapters detailing the courtroom experience, wondering why Mungin's lawyer Hairston was not bottom-lining the situation by saying that Mungin was enthusiastically hired to be a token, not to do work of substance for Katten Muchin. In the end, Barrett hit that point on the head--Mungin was simply a token to Katten Muchin. They brought him in, paid him to do next to nothing and then didn't want to let him go even though there was next to no work for him to do, while they let other whites go...because they knew they would be losing a token and losing in the minority retention game. Mungin's lawyer acted like she couldn't figure any of this out, among other questions she should have been able to answer during the trials, or answered but could have answered better. She had to know that she was going to be questioned about why Katten Muchin would hire Mungin because of race and then discriminate against him. She is part of the reason why he lost one of the two trials surrounding this case, the other parts being there was no in-your-face racism and the judges being conservatives hell-bent against finding racism in the situation. In the other trial, which Mungin did win, it was not at all because his lawyer was so good...it had more to do with the defense lawyer being awful and the jury being black, except for one person. I'll leave those who haven't read the book yet to read it and find out which trial he won and which one he lost.

The problem with proving racism in this situation is not so much that the racism is so subtle as it is that the situation was so complex. It was a huge mess. And Katten Muchin was not the only one making mistakes that added to the complexity, their biggest being letting Dombroff have his way all the time, particularly with starting a bankruptcy department when there is little bankruptcy work in DC...Mungin made TONS of mistakes and, in my opinion, added to his own pain and suffering. He didn't even have to take a job with Katten Muchin, for starters, and there were tons of warning signals that he SHOULDN'T take a job with Katten Muchin. He dismissed every signal, as noted by Barrett. Mungin is someone, as shown throughout the entire book in several different instances, who is too headstrong for his own good and who has awful judgment, from picking law firms to work for right down to picking law firms to take his case. Mungin is described several times by several people, including the author, as arrogant, and that arrogance was a huge part of his downfall. Even Mungin himself knew he was an arrogant son-of-a-gun heading for a fall--he wrote his own autobiography for his eyes only long before the lawsuit saying so. Katten Muchin in DC was a firm with no blacks--he knew this. Katten Muchin in general had issues with retention of minorities, a racial discrimination lawsuit going on in Chicago, a history of sexual harassment complaints. Had he done some research, he would have learned some of these things. It was a firm that was not on his--or many other people's--radar when it was suggested to him. He had other firms wanting to hire him at the time and bring him in as partner, whereas Katten Muchin merely made a vague promise to consider him for partner after one year. Others more in the know about Katten Muchin knew they were having issues, including possible finance or management problems and problems with a jerk DC partner, Dombroff. But Mungin just does not listen.

I believe that no one intentionally discriminated against Mungin, and that's one of the reasons the four lawyers in Katten Muchin he originally singled out in his lawsuit were dismissed. I want to mention here that I am black. I read the situation as unconscious or subsconscious discrimination, which is quite possibly the reason why the lawyers at Katten Muchin originally singled out firmly believed they had done nothing wrong and why the white conservative judges in one of Mungin's lawsuits could not see any wrongdoing that was racially related. The kind of discrimination Mungin experienced is the kind of discrimination blacks experience all the time in various situations and in law firms across the country, not just Katten Muchin. More or less, Mungin was overlooked at the law firm, or, as it was put several times, he "fell through the cracks." Well, white people routinely overlook black people, without even thinking about it or meaning to (I go through this on a daily basis, particularly when I am in school). The majority of whites (and even other non-blacks) in the US just LOOK...RIGHT...THROUGH...BLACKS. And they can't see that they do this or that another white person has done it because it is such a way of life to white people, so ingrained, that they don't realize they do this. That's what Mungin experienced, and his experience was a similar kind of unconscious or subconscious racism as how every day blacks attend schools with whites and yet relatively few whites will speak to them, become friends with them, date them, choose to work with them on assignments or projects, join them at the lunch table, etc...and think nothing of it or see nothing wrong with their actions, or lack of actions. Similarly, Mungin was never invited to meetings. Seemingly, not many people within Katten Muchin knew why he worked there or what he did there. The ones who did, did not seem very interested in helping him out and ultimately decided not to--or "forgot" to--consider him for partner or evaluate his work. Their explanation for not living up to promises to help Mungin was that Mungin was supposed to help himself by bringing in work himself. Hairston never argued this, which she should have, but that was not the point--the point was they PROMISED to and just did not do it. Sure, he should have been out there hustling for work, but these people said they would steer work his way. Instead, they gave DC work to whites in Chicago to do when black Mungin in DC could have done it--AFTER being promised he would get work such as that given to whites all the way in Chicago. Like I said before, they simply did not want Mungin to work, probably did not trust Mungin to work, on complex assignments...though they never said as much because Mungin had never actually screwed up any assignments he'd done, so they wouldn't have a legitimate reason to say it. They couldn't say, "Oh, he's merely our token, so we can claim he's a partner in our DC bankruptcy office when he really isn't and never will be...we just want to look like we have blacks and black partners."

The way law firms work is if a partner likes you enough, they will help you in any way they can--they will give you more work than other associates at the firm. Nobody liked Mungin enough to keep promises made to him. They gave assignments to white males in Chicago because they liked the white males in Chicago. Now, he could very well have been overlooked, not because of race, but because he was in a practice that was absolutely nothing to Katten Muchin. Or, as the firm argued, it might have been because they simply mistreated everyone (though not anyone quite the same way as Mungin), particularly in the DC office where Dombroff harmed many a career, including Mungin's at least to a certain degree if not entirely. Law firms across the board mistreat associates in one way or the other. There's no telling--read and decide for yourself.

I would say it's hard to come away from this book feeling sorry for Mungin because of the brilliant way Barrett lays everything out on the line. Aside from being arrogant and hardheaded, Mungin very much bordered on being the kind of black who just didn't want to be black. He didn't want to be associated with other blacks, not even blacks coming into the law firm. He always seemed ashamed of his background, with the exception of his stint in the Navy and degrees from Harvard. I don't think he dated black females, and it seems as if most of his friends throughout his life were white. He seemed to be of the mindset that if he set himself away from blacks and did things that, in his mind, were respected by whites, whites would accept him and he would have a great career making a lot of money. He was very self-centered and money-hungry and had a lot of characteristics typical of a white male, particularly a white male professional. The book is called "The Good Black" for that reason--he was always desperate to prove to whites that he was a "good black," but I think he did not only look down on dangerous or more negatively stereotypical blacks...as hinted at by the fact that he wanted little or nothing to do with blacks coming in behind him, even as a mentor. He ignored race at all costs, which built up rage inside of him, and this continued at Katten Muchin. He screwed up by letting the white people run over him there, simply because he did not want to be thought of as a "problem black" or confirm that he fits white stereotypes of blacks...for all the good that did. Eventually, his letting the whites run over him hurt him in several ways, from the trial (i.e. why didn't you tell anyone about XY treatment) to his sense of identity. I think the situation with Katten Muchin was exactly what Mungin needed as a wake-up call and to discover who he really is--these kinds of things always happen to the most naive black people, because they are the ones who need these things to happen.

In that sense, I would say the book, while not providing any sort of answer for how we can make race relations better in this country (or, for that matter, make law firms better), does have a happy ending. In the end, he told Barrett something to the effect of, "Don't be surprised if you visit me and I have a wife and kids." He came to know what was really important--not partnership in a law firm, acceptance by whites, looking out for #1 and money...but family and support, self-assurance and true happiness.

Mr. Mungin did not succeed. Why? He did not have clients. Why? He did not have a mentor. Success in the legal field is about networking. Not credentials, not work ethic, not scholarship, and definitely not legal ability. In Mr. Mungin's world, the only way to find clients is in country clubs, exclusive associations, and campaign fund-raising events. To do any of these, you need an invitation, and you cannot get an invitation when you are different. The inclusion of a small number of Blacks and other minorities in these networking events is a function of arrogance, swagger, and the competitiveness to kick a person when they are down. Basically, the teachings of White Western 20th Century patriarchy. This portrayal is an indictment of the practice of law. My view of law is to achieve justice. These powerful attorneys have the financial resources and intellectual capital to achieve justice, but why would they in a world of self-preservation where empathy can lead to destruction. That is why I enjoyed this book. It shows the world of these attorneys. It gives future lawyers a choice. Follow Mr. Mungin into a world where you lose your humanity in the fight for partnership or instead listen to your inner voice and blaze a path toward justice.

I was looking forward to reading this book, since I saw both Mungin and Barrett on The Today Show. Barrett wrote a good book. I am sorry that he didn't have more to work with. Mr. Mungin bears some responsibility for his lack of progress. I don't see that his race was the impediment. Big firms seem to only want billable hours and an income stream from its associates on the partnership track. No one was a winner in this situation.