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.