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

Loic Wacquant argues that structure and culture interact. Meaning making and decision making evolve over time (133). Residents of the ghetto develop strategies for managing chronic poverty and inequality, and they develop informal codes that regulate behavior. Deirdre Bloome argues that the interplay between cultural and structural forces shapes future cultural and structural forces (134). Going beyond cross-sectional analysis enables a more accurate picture of reality. However, despite the dynamic interrelationships of structure and culture, more weight should be given to structural contributors to black poverty.

Policymakers face two challenges. For one, institutional entrenchment reduces the chances of reform, in public school funding for example, as norms are defended by those who are privileged by them. The second challenge is the problem of garnering political support from Americans who consider cultural factors more significant than structural ones in explaining economic inequality. Proposals to address the problem should take account of the relationship between structural inequities and culture. Liberals often emphasize structural impacts, while conservatives emphasize cultural ones. Integration of the two could construct a more nuanced picture of social and economic outcomes for African Americans as well as provide more compelling arguments to policymakers.

In The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray suggested that there are group differences in cognitive ability. They did not take into consideration the cumulative effects of living within racially segregated neighborhoods. Two later longitudinal studies described in Chapter 2 showed that these cumulative effects had not been adequately captured at the time The Bell Curve was published. By ignoring the impact of culture in their rebuttals to The Bell Curve, liberal commentators missed vital data. This is because adaptations to inner-city black neighborhoods impede social mobility in the wider context of society. During the New Deal era, the emphasis was on structure over culture, but in the public arena today, poverty tends to be discussed in individualistic terms. Therefore, we ought to consider the contingency of political frames at particular moments in time.

To shift political frames and provide a more balanced discussion requires engagement at all levels of society. Although eight out of ten white Americans objected to preferential hiring of blacks, as the Harvard sociologist Lawrence Bobo points out, “the view that white opposition to affirmative action is monolithic is distorted” (139). For example, 70% of whites in a 1990 survey approved of granting scholarships to African Americans who maintained good grades. Ronald Haskins suggests that a shift in framing will aid the working poor (140). He emphasizes individual responsibility with government support. This reframing of the plight of inner-city African Americans led to increased support from Capitol Hill in the late 1990s.

In Wilson’s earlier writings, he called for the reframing of policies in terms that would benefit all groups, not just people of color. He no longer holds this view. The question is not whether policy is neutrally framed, but whether it is framed to facilitate a frank discussion that will generate broad political support. In framing public policy, therefore, we should highlight issues of race and poverty to increase public awareness and facilitate reform. In changing public opinion on race, Wilson cites a speech then-senator Barack Obama made on March 18, 2008. Obama spoke to the interaction of structure and culture, the employment woes of black males, and the shame and frustration at not being able to provide for a family as contributing to the erosion of the family unit. Obama also argued that the problems faced by black people do not simply exist within their own minds. Rather, the legacy of discrimination is real and must be addressed with both words and deeds. Obama also focused on personal responsibility while giving an honest appraisal of structural racial inequality. The perspective offered in Obama’s speech is exactly the type of framing that can result in broad support of reform, Wilson claims.

The background case for a reframing of racial discrimination includes factors such as changes in the inner-city ghetto, employment opportunities for black males, and the fracturing of the African American family. The primary objective of this book has been to draw attention to the superficially nonracial policy decisions that contribute to the unofficial segregation of blacks. Globalization, the technological revolution, and spatial mismatch between jobs and cities are also contributors to inequality. Since research found no relationship between the generosity of welfare and the likelihood that African American women would have children out of wedlock, structural factors must be considered in the fragmentation of African American families. Overt prejudice is not readily visible in the structural processes described in this book, yet black people suffer disproportionately.

Two types of cultural forces contribute to racial inequality: belief systems of the broader society, and cultural traits that emerge from patterns of intra-group interaction in settings created by racial segregation. There has been a strong tendency among liberals in the wake of the Moynihan Report to focus on structural factors for fear of being perceived as racist. Yet the MTO studies show that researchers need to consider the cumulative effects of living in poor, segregated neighborhoods. More research is needed on cultural continuity and the formation and maintenance of African American families.

Culture matters, but it is less causal than structure and plays a mediating role in life outcomes. Due to the pervasiveness of segregation and its legacy within American society, it would be difficult and irresponsible to emphasize cultural over structural causes for black marginalization. Culture and structure often work in concert, and culture is not simply a product of structure. As Bruce Western shows, the changes to the criminal justice system responsible for the mass incarceration of black males in recent decades were byproducts of the cultural reframing of punishment and were driven by conservative ideology. Equally, the failure of networking in the inner city resulted from a culture of distrust. Obama’s speech offered a framing that could garner widespread support for reform. Wilson concludes with a call for other such re-framings of race and poverty in America, so that we may begin erasing the legacies of historic racial subjugation.