More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City

by William Julius Wilson

Book Overview

In this timely and provocative contribution to the American discourse on race, William Julius Wilson applies an exciting new analytic framework to three politically fraught social problems: the persistence of the inner-city ghetto, the plight of low-skilled black males, and the fragmentation of the African American family. Though the discussion of racial inequality is typically ideologically polarized. Wilson dares to consider both institutional and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393337634
• ISBN13: 9780393337631
• Release Date: March 2010
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

More than just race, and what I learned about myself and my past.

In this short 155 page informative non-fiction academic novel, I feel I have been taken to a world completely alien, despite growing up in a low income community myself. In truth, this world was alien to me because I made it alien. As a young man, I witnessed firsthand and recognized at an early age the self-destructive behavior amongst blacks within the black community. Not caring for academic progression, the tendency for imprudent behavior leading to criminal behavior, and women too often priding in their promiscuousness that always eventually lead to early pregnancy. I saw all of these things and decided I would not fall into the trap that cycled throughout my neighborhood. To do so, not only required physically removing myself from that environment (I switched to a magnet high school my junior year), but it also required that I removed myself mentally and emotionally, by claiming that these people were different from myself, in so much that they intentionally not allow themselves to progress. Along with it went my empathy for the black person, and replaced with ignorant opinion and naïve reasons to why blacks were such seemingly failures. This book has been a significantly eye-opening experience. It has allowed me to put the cultural behavioral I have witnessed throughout my life into a categorical mental classification of awareness within the larger intellectual genome of understanding. I know now that the current situation of blacks have been very much influenced by racial policies that were both explicit, i.e. Jim Crow, and implicit, i.e. reduction of federal financial support of areas of high black populations such as the inner city. Additionally, I've been able to draw parallels in the African American plight and that of other black nations, such as that of Haiti, my country of birth, and recognize the traces of similar structural deficiencies put in place by centuries of racism. This book neither shies away from analysis of the critique that blacks and the behavioral response that have arisen are now the culprits for their stagnated position within society and those alone. The author is unable to agree with these sorts of arguments as they seem to be unsubstantiated through even the most biased of academic research. According to the author, the clearest contrarian piece of evidence against cultural argument was the economic boom of the early 1990s. The rise in productivity, and domestic capital accruement, saw unprecedented decrease in unemployment throughout the U.S.. If cultural arguments were true, then unemployment in low income black communities would have stayed constant, or at least would have experienced a change that was lower than the rest of nation, but this was not seen. Given the OPPORTUNITY, poor blacks changed behavior that was previously attributed to condemnation engrained and sourced from their "culture." The author argues that America needs to change the language used during discussions of race and class

Moving between Structure and Culture

Wilson's pithy volume, part of Henry Louis Gates's Issues of Our Time series with Norton, presents a critical synopsis of the great debates in urban sociology over the past fifty years. *More than Just Race* considers how sociologists from Elliot Liebow to Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh have tarried with the question of urban poverty. In reflecting on these different perspectives, Wilson presents an illuminating narrative about one of the most charged areas of American public policy. One of the book's notable strengths is the extraordinary breadth of sociological knowledge Wilson displays in his writing. Wilson's survey of urban sociology bespeaks years of research and work in the field, though his prose remains accessible and engaging. Further, by organizing the book into three interrelated chapters -- on how poverty affects 1) urban space; 2) young black men; and 3) black families/single black mothers -- Wilson presents the sociological literature in a clear, theme-oriented manner. His chapter on black families and the Moynihan Report is especially well-composed. The book's other great virtue is that it condenses the longstanding debate scholars and policy-makers have had in determining the role structural inequalities and cultural variables play in the persistence of urban poverty. Seeing the merits of both sides of the debate, Wilson believes the problem is best understood as an amalgam of institutional and cultural factors. Although Wilson makes this particular point in a somewhat repetitive fashion, the overall effect of his argument is edifying: it moves beyond putatively "liberal" and "conservative" positions in the urban poverty debate to outline a synthetic view of the everyday realities of inner-city life.

Balanced Discussion of Important Topic

The author presents a well written, carefully reasoned and well-documented discussion of the research about the causes of the gap in educational performance between the races.

A Proper Middle Ground

This brief but powerful monograph lays out the proper middle ground: the social position of African Americans is neither the result of the "structural" factors alone (institutional arrangements that largely perpetuate disadvantages), nor of "cultural" factors alone (Black American family, work, language, religion, etc.). Professor Wilson argues persuasively the need to attend to both sets of influences. On the other hand, he sees the structural factors as the more influential. The structural/cultural debate has been influenced by ideological commitments by the various theorists, and it is one of the great virtues of this book that Wilson explains this ideological baggage and transcends it. In that sense, this book clears much of the underbrush and should thus enable future work to avoid the pitfalls of the past. The book does give a wealth of information about previous work by others. But with all that, it is what it is: largely programmatic. I did put it down with some disappointment that it didn't do more. I had hoped for a thicker description, for example, of some of the cultural factors. What do we know, in the 21st century, about Black language, Black churches, Black family patterns, etc. ? Wilson does bring us up to date on structural matters, largely with reference to census and poll data. But the current state of work on Black culture still awaits a summary exposition.