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

“Even before the restructuring of the nation’s economy, low-skilled African-Americans were at the end of the employment line, often the last to be hired and the first to be let go.”

Central to Wilson’s argument is the idea that changes wrought to the job market by the technological revolution have disproportionately affected low-skilled black workers. In Chapter 2, Wilson shows that structural factors, such as the redlining of black neighborhoods in the 1960s, have impeded access to both quality education and employment. He argues that the history of racial subjugation is perpetuated in ghetto communities, which are influenced by cumulative experiences of failure and a persistent absence of social mobility that stretches across generations. In this way, Wilson dismantles the dictum that a lack of explicit racism means that American society is egalitarian. 

“At its core, racism is an ideology of racial domination with two key features: (1) beliefs that one race is either biologically or culturally inferior to another and (2) the use of such beliefs to rationalize or prescribe the way that the ‘inferior’ race should be treated in this society, as well as to explain its social position as a group and its collective accomplishments.” 

In his definition of racism, Wilson not only identifies the basic inequality in such thinking, but also begins to address the problem of the perpetuation of racist ideas and systems. The continued suffering of generations of African Americans is, Wilson argues, counterbalanced in the American psyche by the country’s ethos of entrepreneurialism. Wilson suggests that the price for this cultural ideal can be the absence of social support for the disenfranchised.  

“Culture provides a frame for individuals to understand their world.”

Culture is an especially controversial aspect of Wilson’s book. Both the Black Power movement and neoliberals have been damning in their responses to the Moynihan Report, as discussed in Chapter 4. However, in this book, Wilson addresses the sensitive subject of cultural contributions to racial inequality. Crucial to his argument is the interaction of structure with culture. Wilson shows in his chapter on inner-city impoverished neighborhoods that subcultures have been created by the systematic segregation of African Americans long after the civil rights movement ended formal discrimination against black people.

“[…] political actions and impersonal economic forces indirectly affect life in the inner city.” 

Critical to Wilson’s arguments in More Than Just Race is the notion that nonracial forces have significantly contributed to the perpetuation of black subordination in recent decades. This is critical to Wilson’s ability to trace both the legacy and the continuation of racism in America today. Wilson argues that as late as the Clinton and Bush administrations, policy decisions de-prioritized the well-being of poor black populations. Wilson traces this unofficial yet institutionalized racism through to the present day. 

“Ideology is embedded within organizational arrangements.” 

Like many other sociologists, Wilson views apparently anodyne decision making as imbued with ideology. Other examples of this view include a 2015 study by Kingma and Lichtenbelt that argued that the temperature of offices is sexist because it is typically several degrees colder than is comfortable for most women but at a temperature that suits most men (Kingma, Boris, and van Marken Lichtenbelt, Wouter. “Energy consumption in buildings and female thermal demand.” Nature Climate Change, vol. 5, no. 12, 2015). Slovenian philosopher and sociologist Slavoj Žižek argues that even the decisions a society makes about the way it disposes of its trash are redolent with ideology. 

“Culture is closely intertwined with social relations in the sense of providing tools (skills, habits, and styles) and creating constraints (restrictions or limits on behavior or outlooks) in patterns of social interaction.”

Wilson’s definition of culture is critical in unpacking the complexities of in-group meaning making in inner-city ghettoes. When viewed in terms of what is habitual, the necessity for conducting longitudinal studies to understand the relation between culture and structure becomes obvious. So, too, do the pivotal impacts of the legacy of racism and chronic unemployment in such communities. Thus, Wilson’s definition of culture in terms of habitual patterns of behavior is a key proposition in his overall argument.

“The popular view is that people are poor or on welfare because of their own personal shortcomings.”

The above citation is an essential one in More Than Just Race, because it serves as the focal issue against which Wilson builds the book’s argument. Over the subsequent chapters, Wilson makes a case for the impact of structural and to a lesser extent cultural factors on African American poverty. The view held by the majority of Americans is, Wilson argues, at odds with some key findings of social science.

“I feel that a social scientist has an obligation to try to make sure that the explanatory power of his or her structural argument is not lost to the reader and to provide a context for understanding the cultural responses to chronic economic and racial subordination.” 

Wilson asserts that his responsibility as a social scientist includes the engagement of society with his research. In addition to his serving as Social Policy Advisor to President Clinton, Wilson’s book When Work Disappears has been cited as one of the inspirations for the HBO series The Wire by the show’s co-creator David Simon. Thus, Wilson has himself affected the culture, and his academic style is redolent of the accessibility he espouses.

“[…] cultural arguments that focus on individual traits and behavior invariably draw more attention than do structural explanations in the United States.” 

Perhaps ironically, America’s culture of individualism and entrepreneurship has perpetuated blindness regarding the chronic and systematic subjugation of black people. Wilson contrasts American attitudes with those in Europe, where, he argues, structural arguments are given greater weight. Differing attitudes may in part correlate with differences in geography. Wilson is careful to delineate the geographical location of his argument as the inner-city slum. The structural forces that shape urban planning, Wilson argues, express attitudes that are fundamentally racist according to his definition. Therefore, Wilson shows that the contributors to inequality in America indeed involve more than just race.

“The study shows ‘that residing in a severely disadvantaged neighborhood cumulatively impedes the development of academically relevant verbal ability in children’—so much so that the effects linger even if the children leave these neighborhoods.” 

Wilson stresses the chronic nature of the harms endured by poor African Americans and their cumulative effects, quoting research by Sampson, Sharkey, and Raudenbush. Importantly for his argument, Wilson also distinguishes between longitudinal and short-term studies, contending that the latter fail to give a true picture of poor inner-city neighborhoods for the simple reason that many of the impacts on and effects of these environments are chronic.

“[…] the neighborhood environment ‘is an important developmental context for trajectories of verbal and cognitive ability’ […].” 

Inner-city slums reduce students’ IQ by six points, according to a study by Sampson, Sharkey, and Raudenbush that is quoted here. A range of factors, from the lack of quality schools in such areas to the impacts of chronic stress on cognition, may be responsible for this disparity. Nonetheless, children growing up in such areas are at a severe disadvantage in comparison with their wealthier peers. This is one example of the way in which Wilson connects language with location in More Than Just Race.

“The employment gap between white young men and black young men aged 16 to 24 who were not in school in 2005 was 20 percentage points for high school dropouts, 16 among high school graduates, 8 for those completing one to three years of college, and […] only 2 for four-year college graduates.” 

At the heart of Wilson’s arguments in More Than Just Race is the revelation that education is critical to the perpetuation of racial subordination. Statistics such as these reveal a discrepancy in employment opportunities between African Americans and the white population of America. These numbers show the disproportionate impact of an education on the fate of the poor black male. Given that education for black males is critical for employment, the cumulative impacts of growing up in inner-city neighborhoods on verbal and cognitive ability and access to quality schooling become more obviously causal. 

“The fate of African-Americans and other racial groups is inextricably connected with changes across the modern economy.”

Wilson argues that the impact of the digital revolution’s far-reaching social consequences includes a disproportionately negative effect on poor black workers in America. It is in the context of this major sociological change that Wilson situates his argument for the structural disparities between the lives of the affluent and the majority-African American inner-city poor. Wilson uses the universal of radical technological change in recent years to highlight inequality.

“The high incarceration rates of low-skilled black males are very much connected to their high jobless rates. It is a vicious cycle.”

Wilson argues that pathology in the African American community has become self-perpetuating. The correlation between unemployment and incarceration among poor black males is, Wilson argues, crucial to resolving the social problems American society faces as a result. While unskilled black males are imprisoned, they could be gainfully employed and contributing members of American society. Wilson argues that the inner-city ghetto is a new form of segregation that is perhaps all the more insidious in its indirect form.

“Jennifer Hochschild’s analysis of national survey data reveals that blacks tend to acknowledge the importance of discrimination when they respond to national surveys, but they are not likely to feel that it affects them personally.” 

In citing this research, Wilson shows the necessity of social signs for disabusing the public of certain cultural myths. While African Americans consider racial inequality a problem, they also believe in their own potential for social mobility. There is no doubt that the denial of structural inhibitors to African American social mobility is adaptive for blacks and whites. In more ways than one, then, impoverished African American communities are islanded within the continent of America. Perhaps due to the contemporary cultural emphasis on extreme independence, even those most affected by inequality are blinkered to its structural origins. Hochschild’s own book, Facing Up to the American Dream, examines in more detail the discrepancy between this cultural ideal and reality.

“As employment prospects recede, the foundation for stable relationships becomes weaker over time.” 

This quotation is essential to Wilson’s riposte to the widespread notion that black Americans are themselves responsible for their economic woes. In addition to the structural factors Wilson describes in Chapters 2 and 3, the cultural impact of chronic subordination is a viscous cycle of negative social outcomes. Wilson makes a case for the connection between the rise of single-mother, inner-city families and low rates of labor force attachment.    

“Culture mediates the impact of structural forces such as racial segregation and poverty.” 

Wilson defines culture in terms of habitual patterns that are formed and guided by the structural impacts on social life. Given this definition, the present cultural avoidance of discussions about structural racism can be interpreted as a kind of mediation of pronounced social inequalities. The narrative “African Americans are responsible for their poverty” is an easy (though, Wilson argues, essentially inaccurate) explanation for a complex societal dynamic.

“The challenge facing those of us who seek to change outcomes for the poor and the marginalized is to frame the issues so that the American public comes to recognize that structural inequities are the most powerful forces shaping individual and family responses […].”

Fundamentally, Wilson wishes to “re-frame” the American public’s understanding of social issues, and the poor and marginalized in particular, in the context of much more impersonal structural forces. Another such cultural re-framing might be workplace sexual harassment following the #MeToo movement in 2017, in which the severity of abuses resulted in a widespread examination of cultural complicity with harassment. The Black Lives Matter movement, which launched in 2013 after Wilson’s 2009 publication, may begin to offer another such re-framing.

“The issues of race and poverty should be framed in such a way that not only is a sense of fairness and justice to combat inequality generated, but also people are made aware that our country would be better off if these problems were seriously addressed and eradicated.”

Wilson perceives an opportunity to draw public awareness to the broader sociological trends that influence individual experiences and outcomes. Viewed from the level of society, and longitudinally rather than from the perspective of the individual, inequality arguably produces many of the problems society must later face. Wilson shows the difference between these perspectives when he cites a study in which African Americans are alert to the impacts of societal racism, yet less so when it applies to their own lives. Wilson’s emphasis on cultural “frames” suggests that for him the issue is one of perspective.

“I believe that such framing is necessary to generate and sustain broad political support for comprehensive programs to address both the structural and cultural forces of inequality.”

In the conclusion to More Than Just Race, Wilson incites his readers to action, claiming that significant policy changes are required to redress the inequalities, present and historical, that low-skilled African Americans face. 

“The most important point of this book is to draw attention to issues that have not traditionally been the focus of studies on race and urban poverty.” 

In this citation, Wilson summarizes the central thesis of his book. Across its chapters, he builds a case for the complex structural and cultural factors that prevent African Americans from enjoying the same level of social mobility as more affluent sectors of the population. Wilson counters the common contemporary dictum that the absence of explicitly racist policies has delivered equality across the races in America. Wilson goes so far as to argue that unrelated issues such as the technological revolution still have a “disproportionate” impact on African Americans.

“In all of the indirect, structural circumstances described here […] the hand of racial prejudice is not readily visible. Yet, African Americans suffer disproportionately from the effects of these circumstances. Being disadvantaged and pushed to the lower margins of society, poor blacks have few resources for combating these structural factors.” 

Wilson shows how a multitude of confluent factors leave low-skilled African Americans in a far more economically and socially precarious position than their more affluent and educated peers. In this way, Wilson helps to dispel stereotypes that have developed around black males in tandem with their high incarceration rate. Wilson flips the paradigm, taking this fact as evidence of the social inequalities that he argues persist even in the absence of overt segregation and oppression. In doing so, Wilson contributes to the discussion around a central concept in American culture: the American dream. Wilson adds nuance by arguing that the notion that anyone can succeed through hard work can mask deeply rooted social inequalities. 

“[…] ‘laissez faire racism’ […] may very well be embodied in the lack of government action to address the problems of race and poverty in America.” 

Wilson points to macroeconomic trends and policy decision making over the past hundred years that reveal that bias remains deeply lodged in American society, however much we might like to deny this. Significantly, he argues that it is not just what governments do, but also what they fail to do, such as protecting the minimum wage for low-income workers, that is socially meaningful and revelatory of the persistence of racial bias.