More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (Issues of Our Time) [Hardcover]

William Julius Wilson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 039306705X | ISBN-13: 978-0393067057 | Publication Date: March 9, 2009 | Edition: 1

A preeminent sociologist of race explains a groundbreaking new framework for understanding racial inequality, challenging both conservative and liberal dogma.

In this provocative contribution to the American discourse on race, the newest book of the Issues of Our Time series edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr., 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--conservatives emphasize cultural factors like worldviews and behaviors while liberals emphasize institutional forces--Wilson dares to consider both institutional and cultural factors as causes of the persistence of racial inequality. He reaches the controversial conclusion that, while structural and cultural forces are inextricably linked, public policy can change the racial status quo only by reforming the institutions that reinforce it. This book will dramatically affect policy debates and challenge many of the leaders.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Harvard sociologist Wilson (The Declining Significance of Race) makes a bold effort to reframe current debates on the relationship between race and poverty in the U.S. The author observes that discussions of race have hardened into two mutually exclusive and inflexible perspectives. One view regards black poverty as a consequence of social forces—e.g., segregation and the flight of middle-class black residents from urban centers. Alternately, black poverty has been portrayed as a product of individual and cultural inadequacy. Wilson argues for perspectives that acknowledge the inherent symbiosis of social and cultural forces. For example, cultural concerns about black violence in the 1970s gave rise to a more punitive response to street crime leading to greatly increased incarceration rates for black men. Employers' unwillingness to hire black ex-felons, coupled with the rise of service jobs that favor women, led to the decline of the traditional male provider role that had sustained long-term family commitments. Wilson combines a critical look at recent research on poverty and race with his own field research to construct a synthesis that sidesteps many of the pitfalls that often entrap race and poverty theorists. (Mar.)
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Review

“A refreshing, multilayered study of racial inequality in America. . . . Reshapes the frame through which race and poverty are viewed.” --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (March 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039306705X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393067057
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,072 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moving between Structure and Culture, September 1, 2009

By 

K. Nishikawa (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (Issues of Our Time) (Hardcover)

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.

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Proper Middle Ground, March 8, 2009

By 

Werner Cohn (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (Issues of Our Time) (Hardcover)

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.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than just race, and what I learned about myself and my past., March 24, 2010

By 

J. C. Jeanty "Jeanty-Mang" (Haiti) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (Issues of Our Time) (Paperback)

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. First the language needs to merge the rhetoric of both the right, whom tend to lean towards more of a cultural tone, and that of the left, whom tend to lean towards a restrictive structural tone, to properly appeal to a larger more section of Americans. Second, to face the structural issues facing low income blacks and other minorities and for such action to be truly effective, a problem must be executed with discretionary vocabulary, language, and tone that extols the virtues of America's individualistic pathology to its advantage, such as labeling and designing such programs as `opportunity enhancing' and `hand-up providing.'