David Brooks wrote 865 words about how gourmet sandwiches are ruining america. The gourmet sandwiches in the essay were supposed to serve as an analogy of the growing class divide. In this essay, Tressie examines how Brooks, both white and male, was “tasked with making a mundane exchange meaningful to the rest of us” as his social status grants him the credit of being an intellectual authority with legitimate critique. She contrasts this with how seldom this grace and authority is extended to Black women who regardless of displays of intellectual rigor, are expected to do more, with less and forgo the expectation of being seen as “trustworthy subjects, of [their] own experiences and ways of knowing.”