Yes, I do think it's ineffective. It's needlessly ponderous, excessively emotive, and cares far more about its activist mission than questions like "How is the business structured?". It's not an accident that the central character is someone carefully chosen to be maximally sympathetic to a well-meaning, well-off, educated liberal white person.
Moreover, a similarly sympathetic (and horrified progressive middle-class-assuming) portrait of a check cashing business and its customers would almost certainly read as incredibly condescending to someone who finds them a fact of life. The article quite clearly assumes its readers have never been temps, never been crammed into a van to work in a warehouse, and will be upset to learn the conditions in question. It just doesn't say so briefly, opting instead to bury the assumption.
Do you want to read an article that portrays your younger self as a victim so that readers can feel bad and maybe learn about the financial structure of check cashing? At the risk of making a large assumption, that does not seem like it would help you feel included.
Moreover, a similarly sympathetic (and horrified progressive middle-class-assuming) portrait of a check cashing business and its customers would almost certainly read as incredibly condescending to someone who finds them a fact of life. The article quite clearly assumes its readers have never been temps, never been crammed into a van to work in a warehouse, and will be upset to learn the conditions in question. It just doesn't say so briefly, opting instead to bury the assumption.
Do you want to read an article that portrays your younger self as a victim so that readers can feel bad and maybe learn about the financial structure of check cashing? At the risk of making a large assumption, that does not seem like it would help you feel included.