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

More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City is a 2009 nonfiction book by William Julius Wilson, a Harvard University professor of sociology. In his book, Wilson examines the structural and, more controversially, the cultural contributors to the poverty, high incarceration rate, and social problems faced by inner-city African American males today. Wilson’s central contention is that African Americans have suffered disproportionately from the impacts of nonracial political and global economic forces, despite the demise of Jim Crow segregation.

In Chapter 1, Wilson argues that globalization and the digital revolution have placed downward pressure on low-skilled worker wages and reduced job stability, and that these trends have disproportionately affected African Americans. Geographical isolation also plays a part in black joblessness, since predominantly black inner-city ghettoes lack access to schools, employment, and basic amenities. Inequalities in funding support for education and discrimination in the labor market have further impeded social mobility among African Americans, especially during the Reagan era. While all racial groups prospered financially under Clinton, incarceration of blacks skyrocketed during his presidency. Despite these structural factors, the idea that blacks are responsible for their plight persists. Wilson proposes that cultural as well as racial and nonracial structural factors contribute to the inner-city African American experience, and he considers these three major issues in the following chapters.

Chapter 2 discusses the rise of inner-city neighborhoods. This social problem began with the Federal Housing Association’s redlining of neighborhoods on the basis of race, followed by the suburbanization of the middle classes in Levittown developments in the 1950s. Highways routed through majority-black neighborhoods cut them off from commercial districts. Zoning laws, housing programs, and the mass migration of African Americans from the South compounded the division between the white suburbs and the black inner-city neighborhoods. Reagan’s spending cuts and Bush’s wars further undermined the economic and social welfare of inner-city communities.

In Chapter 3, Wilson reveals that joblessness in the inner city is more common than it was in the 1970s. The employment gap between blacks and whites widens lower down on the education ladder, making education a key issue. Globalization, the technological revolution, and rising incarceration rates during the Clinton era have contributed to the joblessness and cultural perceptions of black males in America. Child support may be a disincentive to entering the mainstream job market, where service roles now take precedence over manufacturing. Black males are less successful in securing service roles due to cultural perceptions of them as “threatening.” Distrust and shame impede poor black male employment, Wilson argues, but less so than structural factors such as the legacies of racism, loss of manufacturing, and high incarceration rate.

Chapter 4 discusses the controversial Moynihan Report, which suggested that the fragmentation of the black family contributed to poverty rates in that demographic. In 1996, 70% of African American children were born out of wedlock and into severe poverty and social disadvantage. The decline in marriage rates has harmed labor force attachment. Young black males earning under $35,000 are less likely to be married than more affluent populations. Incarceration and joblessness are a self-perpetuating cycle. Wilson claims that there is insufficient evidence for cultural continuity in the makeup of the African American family. His 1980s, Chicago-based study showed little trust between inner-city males and females. The jobs of the working-class male breadwinners of earlier generations are largely outsourced to developing economies today, leaving families bereft of stable income streams and more socially precarious than ever.

In Chapter 5, Wilson summarizes his arguments. Structure and culture interact across time. Two problems face policymakers wishing to ameliorate the situation of inner-city African Americans: institutional entrenchment and the American belief in individual responsibility for poverty. Proposals must account for the cumulative effects of structural and cultural factors, as adaptation to long-term poverty impedes African Americans’ integration into wider society. A re-framing of the issue of black inner-city poverty must occur, enabled by an honest appraisal of the situation. Wilson concludes with an injunctive to reframe these issues with the intention of erasing the legacy of racial subjugation in contemporary America.