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Wilson, William Julius. (2009). More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. W. W. Norton & Company Inc.: New York, NY
"The experiences of poor, inner-city Blacks represent the influence of more than just race"
-William Julius Wilson
In More than just race: Being Black and poor in the inner city, William Julius Wilson, makes use of decades of research to design a framework for a more thorough understanding of race and urban inequality in the United States. From his previous work, When work disappears, we are accustomed to Wilson's argument regarding the impact of structural forces. In his present work,
Wilson's argument incorporates two forms of structural forces (implicit and explicit institutional racial biases) in addition to cultural forces that create and reinforce racial inequality.
To conceptualize these forces, Wilson develops his argument around three issues that have persistently affected Blacks in America: (1) the forces contributing to the concentrated poverty in Black communities; (2) the limited economic opportunities available to inner-city Black males; and (3) the fragmentation of the poor and low-income Black family. The work offers an opportunity for both academics and the lay public to engage in discussions of the multilayered factors that establish and reinforce racial inequality in urban America. Most importantly, Wilson challenges us to not only change the way we think about race and urban poverty but also how we can reframe the discussion so we are not solely blaming the victims for their economic situation, but also recognize the significant effects that both structural and cultural factors have played in the lives and experiences of poor, inner-city Black people.
Wilson is the preeminent sociologist on the marginalization of poor inner-city Blacks from mainstream American experiences. More than just race may be viewed as controversial because Wilson uses culture as one of two explanatory variables in this book's discussion of race and urban inequality. Culture in this context is defined as views, beliefs about race, outlook, and shared behaviors of people in similar circumstances; for in this instance, people living in poor segregated neighborhoods. Specifically, he reasons that culture has a profound effect on why some people are poor, the coping strategies they develop, and why some people may have a trying time overcoming...