Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology: The William Julius Wilson Debates

R ACE, C LASS, AND THE STATE C ONTEMPORARY S OCIOLOGY

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R ACE, C LASS, AND THE S TATE IN C ONTEMPORARY S OCIOLOGY THE WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON DEBATES

JACK N IEMONEN

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America in 2002 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2002 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Niemonen, Jack, 1952– Race, class, and the state in contemporary sociology : the William Julius Wilson debates / Jack Niemonen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-58826-010-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. United States—Race relations. 2. United States—Race relations—Political aspects. 3. African Americans—Social conditions—1975– 4. African Americans— Economic conditions. 5. United States—Social conditions—1980– 6. Social classes— United States. 7. Wilson, William J., 1935– Political and social views. 8. Wilson, William J., 1935– Declining significance of race. 9. Wilson, William J., 1935– Truly disadvantaged. 10. Sociology—United States—History—20th century. I. Title. E185.615.N5 2002 305.8'00973—dc21 2001058462 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America

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The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984. 5

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To the memory of Frances J. Engberg, 1911–2001

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

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1 The Race Relations Problematic in Sociology

13

Situating Wilson’s Work, 13 Wilson and the Race-Class Debate Today, 23 Wilson and the State, 38

2 Studying Race and Class: Problems in Assessing Logical and Empirical Adequacy

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The Reification of Race, 49 What Is Racism? 53 Confusion Compounded: The Multicultural Movement, 56 Race, Class, and the Problem of Epistemological Incoherence, 63 Empirically Validating the Thesis of the Declining Significance of Race, 68 Inferring Causality, 72

3 Debates Surrounding The Declining Significance of Race Some Observations on Racial Formations, 83 Racial Inequality in the Aggregate: Trends over Time, 89 School Practices and Educational Attainment, 91 Earnings Attainment, 94 Occupational Attainment, 104 vii

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Contents

Authority Attainment, 115 Unions and the Black Working Class, 119 Black Life-Chances in the State Sector, 122 Race and Social-Psychological Distress, 128

4 The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears: Critiques

147

Wilson on the Black Underclass, 147 Concentrated Poverty, 151 The Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis and Urban Labor Markets, 153 Disarticulation as a Contributing Factor to Employment Hardship, 157 Marital Disintegration, 159 A Tangle of Pathology? 163 Violence, Delinquency, and Crime, 167

5 Wilson’s Achilles’ Heel: The Continuing Significance of Racially Based Segregation

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Race and Place, 181 The Separation of the Economic Sector from the Sociopolitical Order Revisited, 191 The Complex Motivations Underlying the Racial Structuring of Housing Markets, 199 Conclusion, 206

6 Conclusion: A Bridge over the Theoretical Divide

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The Theoretical Divide, 217 Bringing Back the State, 221 “The State” Defined, 225 Bridging the Theoretical Divide: Twelve Propositions, 230 Theory and Practice: Wilson on Affirmative Action, 242 In Summary, 246

References Index About the Book

259 299 309

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Bridget Julian, associate editor at Lynne Rienner Publishers, who saw the potential for a book in my Race and Ethnic Minorities syllabus. The concept for the book changed over the course of time. However, thanks to Bridget’s patient guidance, the present version is a much better book. I am also grateful to Jon Howard, whose expert copyediting clarified complex sentences and allowed me to correct certain problems that had persisted through early drafts. Throughout this book, to the best of my abilities, I tried to accurately represent the work of William Julius Wilson, his colleagues, and his critics, with the intent to contribute to the advancement of the sociology of race relations. A single observation encountered early in my graduate career had such an effect on my thinking that it became the guiding principle for this book. In his 1939 classic, Knowledge for What? The Place of Social Science in American Culture, Robert Lynd observed that “no culture can be realistically and effectively analyzed by those who elect to leave its central idols untouched; and, if fundamental change is required, it does no good simply to landscape the grounds on which these idols stand.” For better or worse, I took Lynd’s advice. Any errors or misrepresentations in this attempt are unintentional and should not be construed as mean-spirited; however, they remain my responsibility. My work on this book owes an intellectual debt to outstanding teachers whom I encountered along the way. In particular, James B. McKee, Ruth Simms Hamilton, and Richard Child Hill will recognize in the book their influence on me. So will my good friends from Michigan State University’s Social Conflict and Change Program, who in subsequent years enriched my life professionally and personally. Finally, I would like to thank Jon Flanagin, chair of the Department of Social Behavior at the University of ix

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South Dakota, who protected the space I needed to complete this book; Raymond O. Farden, professor emeritus at Concordia College, who made available his journal collection and never wavered in his enthusiasm that I could do something with it; and my wife, Karen Brokenleg, who kept the fires burning under my feet. —Jack Niemonen

Introduction

Criticized for its failure to develop an integrated body of reasonably systematic theory, and marginalized within the discipline, the sociological study of race relations in the United States is enjoying a renaissance. Arguably, William Julius Wilson is the pivotal figure in this renaissance. The publication of The Declining Significance of Race in 1977 and The Truly Disadvantaged in 1986 ignited healthy, if acrimonious, debates, as well as a rapidly growing body of empirically based research. Wilson’s theoretical framework, which emerged over the course of several books, represented a profound challenge to the idea that race relations are primarily a problem of social psychology; it affected current directions in the sociology of race relations. Wilson was born on December 20, 1935, in Derry Township, Pennsylvania. The oldest of six children, he grew up in a working-class community outside of Pittsburgh, where his father worked as a coal miner. Wilson earned degrees from Wilberforce University (B.A., 1958), Bowling Green State University (M.A., 1961), and Washington State University (Ph.D., 1966). His 127-page dissertation, titled “Preference, Evaluation, and Norms: An Empirical Exploration in Measurement,” gave few clues as to the career that would follow. Wilson taught at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, then at the University of Chicago from 1972 through 1996. There he initiated the Urban Poverty and Family Life Survey of Chicago, was appointed to a distinguished professorship, and assumed directorship of the university’s Center for the Study of Urban Inequality. In 1996, Wilson moved to Harvard University because, in his words, Harvard had a “critical mass of public intellectuals” who were trying to move society “in a progressive direction.” Under Wilson’s leadership, the Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program was established. Its intent was to

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

“ensure” that scholarly research plays an important role in the creation and implementation of national policies to redress the plight of the urban poor. Throughout his active and distinguished career, Wilson has received numerous awards, including the 1998 National Medal of Science. Time magazine named him one of America’s twenty-five most influential people. Recently, Wilson stated publicly that he is neither an “Ivory Tower intellectual” nor a neoconservative, as some critics have charged. He placed himself politically on the “left wing” of the Democratic Party in a role that would “wed” scholarship to policy formulation and implementation. Wilson claimed that “average citizens” do not understand very well the origins and consequences of poverty in the black community. The search for simple answers encourages politicians to pander to them. Wilson admonished sociologists to take advantage of opportunities to write editorial pieces for widely read publications and to make use of press releases in order to correct public misperceptions. Much of the groundwork for the controversial The Declining Significance of Race was laid in Wilson’s first (and widely ignored) book, Power, Racism, and Privilege. Here Wilson criticized the theoretical paucity that had characterized the sociology of race relations throughout the 1950s and 1960s as a consequence of “polemics that circumscribed its theoretical development.” He defended the necessity of historical and comparative analyses in understanding race relations. Intending to return to the forefront the concept of power, Wilson argued that racial stratification is a function of dominant group efforts to control scarce resources. Underpinning power conflict analyses generally, these statements anticipated the evaluations of orthodox Marxist and split labor market theories that were to appear in The Declining Significance of Race. Then, Wilson introduced the idea that the shift from one system of race relations to another system occurs because of fundamental societal changes such as industrialization. He qualified, but did not reject, the thesis that “the intrinsic tendencies of industrialization” would undermine “racist thinking” and indirectly contribute to a “realignment of the racial order.” In other words, basic aspects of the social structure exert substantial influence on the prevailing form(s) of race relations. Offered as a justification, the historical overview of the black experience that followed became the foundation for the three periods of race relations demarcated in The Declining Significance of Race. Wilson’s pragmatic view of policy formulation and implementation could be glimpsed here as well. However, whereas Power, Racism, and Privilege emphasized black activism and the role of organizations and social movements in shaping race relations, The Declining Significance of Race emphasized more abstract structural processes that, in effect, shape the role of organizations and social movements. The publication in 1977 of The Declining Significance of Race was

Introduction

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acclaimed by the American Sociological Association and denounced by the Association of Black Sociologists (ABS). In a published statement dated September 6, 1978, the ABS criticized Wilson for omitting “significant data” that would have challenged the thesis of the declining significance of race, as well as for constructing an analysis that could encourage policy recommendations that the ABS did not view as being in the best interests of the black community. The Declining Significance of Race proposed, then attempted to demonstrate, that race relations change as the structural relations between groups change. Important variables include changes in both the system of production and the role of the state. A notable shift in Wilson’s thinking was apparent here; in Power, Racism, and Privilege, Wilson suggested that the “significant entry” of blacks into upper-status positions would invalidate stereotypes, bringing into question the legitimacy of the racial stratification system. Wilson identified three periods of race relations in American history. He argued that group struggles over scarce resources defined the preindustrial and industrial periods; thus, theories that associated “racial antipathy” with labor market strife were appropriate here. However, in the modern industrial period, political economic (or structural) changes shifted racial antipathy from the economic sector to the sociopolitical order, where Wilson declared it to be insignificant in determining black life-chances. These changes invalidated theories such as the split labor market, which had as their foundation competition for scarce resources. Wilson’s basic premise, then, was that no theory of race relations could be valid for the entire period of American history. This premise enabled him to explore the underlying structures of race relations in the United States as they changed over time. For example, Wilson demonstrated that racial formations such as split labor markets cannot be understood apart from the structural characteristics of the social systems in which they are embedded and the transformations they undergo. Wilson’s analysis in The Declining Significance of Race was an empirically grounded assessment of the black experience in the United States. It was not intended to be a critical reconceptualization of the sociology of race relations. Nevertheless, The Declining Significance of Race demarcated a new phase in that it made clear certain limitations in the sociology of race relations. Wilson’s book appeared to defend delimited explanations of historically discrete yet interacting periods—in other words, a high level of historical specificity and a low level of generalizability. However, Wilson did not assess what that means for the viability of the sociology of race relations generally. Today, Wilson appears to have distanced himself from some of the more controversial claims of The Declining Significance of Race. I will argue that his main contribution was to encourage more rigorous research by other sociologists.

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

The Truly Disadvantaged, which won the prestigious C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems, extended, but did not change in significant respects, the analysis of The Declining Significance of Race. The Truly Disadvantaged was, in part, an attempt to encourage sociologists to return to the study of the inner-city poor and its epidemic of social problems, which had been “abandoned” by sociologists following the controversies that ensued upon the publication of the Moynihan Report in 1965. According to Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged was written to explain the exponential growth of poverty and attendant social problems that followed the active intervention of the state in fostering racial equality. More specifically, it explained black poverty as a consequence of structural changes in the U.S. occupational structure that left the unskilled inner-city black poor socially isolated and jobless to a much greater extent than was the case with earlier generations of blacks or the immigrant poor. This problem was exacerbated by government policies of “industrial and urban laissez-faire” that channeled a disproportionate share of federal, state, and municipal resources to the more affluent. On page 133 in The Truly Disadvantaged, Wilson resurrected his general theme. He observed that the dimensions of societal organization impose constraints on intergroup interaction whereby intergroup relations are structured, racial antagonisms are channeled, and racial group access to rewards and privileges is differentiated. And the changes in the institutional dimensions of societal organization or in the technological dimensions often bring about changes in the patterns of intergroup interaction. Moreover, significant changes in intergroup experiences accompany changes in societal organization.

However, Wilson apparently abandoned the attempt to construct a historical and comparative theory of race relations in order to focus on the urban black poor. Wilson’s fourth book, When Work Disappears, expanded the scope of The Truly Disadvantaged by arguing that “social psychological” variables must be integrated with structural variables in an analysis that reveals their relative importance for determining the life-chances of the urban black poor. Debating, implicitly, Douglas Massey and his colleagues, it identified a set of causal mechanisms that both created disadvantaged neighborhoods and linked them to undesirable outcomes. Social isolation deprives residents of the resources that would facilitate socioeconomic mobility; and it encourages the formation of “ghetto-related cultural traits and behaviors.” These behaviors represent specific cultural adaptations to the systematic denial of opportunities and may be reinforced by a lack of self-efficacy encouraged by the difficult circumstances in which the inner-city black poor find themselves. This theoretical work was crucial to the task of

Introduction

5

“informing” the public debate on the formulation and implementation of policies to redress racial inequities. In a departure from The Declining Significance of Race, Wilson acknowledged (most likely in response to critics) that race was an important factor affecting the “social outcomes” of inner-city blacks. However, much ambiguity remains about the meaning and significance of race in this context that Wilson did not dispel. Wilson’s most recent book, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, represented an “expansion” of the Aaron Wildavsky Memorial Lecture that he delivered in 1996 at the School for Public Policy at the University of California–Berkeley. Whether or not it successfully “wed” scholarship to policy formulation and implementation is open to debate. Wilson proposed what he called a “real world model” for the development of a multiracial political coalition that would address national issues and advocate a “social democratic policy agenda that highlights macroeconomic policies.” This broad-based coalition was necessary to strengthen “equalizing” institutions. Interestingly, in this context, Wilson primarily cited social psychological research on intergroup cooperation. In a departure from The Declining Significance of Race, Wilson constructed a set of observations about the cumulative and mostly negative effects of race that raises questions about his original attempt to separate the economic sector from the sociopolitical order as the critical determinant of black life-chances in the modern industrial period. Here he implied that the sociopolitical order (reflected in deteriorating schools, among other forms of disorganization) indeed has an impact on black life-chances. However, Wilson did not reflect, in print at least, on the inconsistencies between these statements and ones made earlier in The Declining Significance of Race. The Bridge Over the Racial Divide reiterated arguments made in The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears. Wilson’s main point was that academic scholars, public policy makers, and black leaders tend to view the problems of the urban black poor almost exclusively in racial terms to the detriment of the urban black poor. Contrary to the claims of some of his critics, Wilson did not advocate eliminating race-specific programs altogether. However, he argued that race-specific programs are not designed to address the structural determinants of the truly disadvantaged and have difficulty gaining public support. Although affirmation action programs are useful, they have fragmented liberal coalitions because the majority perceives them as promoting minorities at the expense of others. Affirmative action programs, necessary as long as the problems associated with a legacy of racism have not been addressed, should be combined with broader programs that would emphasize the right to education, employment, and good health. However, critics pointed out that the “affirmative opportunity” programs that Wilson envisioned might be racialized just as other programs have been racialized, particularly in the

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

comparatively more mean-spirited climate of conservative administrations. Based on the growing body of substantive research encouraged by the publication of Wilson’s work, this book attempts to assess Wilson’s work, both on its own merits and in terms of what it has meant for the study of race relations within the discipline of sociology. In Chapter 1, I situate Wilson’s work in the broader context of the historical development of the American sociology of race relations. I examine why Wilson’s work may be considered seminal (e.g., it appears that Wilson’s work has emerged as the predominant theoretical framework for framing research questions in the sociology of race relations today). And I provide an overview of the arguments and conclusions to follow. In Chapter 1, I claim that Wilson attempted, unsuccessfully, to transcend the limitations of power conflict analyses in order to build a historical and comparative model for understanding race relations. However, he did not reject the Myrdalian-influenced faith in reasonableness and progress. Although the race-class debate initiated by the publication of The Declining Significance of Race has led to a better understanding of complex social phenomena, serious definitional and methodological problems persist. In Chapter 2, I identify the ontological and operational problems in concepts as varied as race, ethnicity, and social class, as well as the general methodological problems in assessing the thesis of the declining significance of race. Establishing the validity of this thesis and drawing valid conclusions require finding solutions to perplexing methodological problems. Contemporary research is disproportionately concerned with isolating the effects of race, aspirational and other constructs, human capital variables, labor market structures, and residence on socioeconomic status attainment outcomes. These outcomes are the consequence of processes that are complex and contradictory, making generalizations about race risky at best. This body of work has yielded important insights; however, the operational foundation on which it is constructed is questionable. Solving these problems is important because conclusions derived from studies on socioeconomic status attainment disparities between blacks and whites may be little more than an artifact of the methods used. Throughout the body of his work, Wilson implicitly argued for the reconstruction of key concepts in ways that are more ideologically defused and empirically grounded. Nevertheless, his use of concepts was problematic. For example, in Wilson’s work, race was elevated to an ontological status equivalent to social class. This move allowed differences between the races—measured as educational, occupational, and income attainments—to be identified. However, it did not explain how human relations became racialized in the first place. Designations such as “race” are deceptively simple and disguise the complex historical processes that both creat-

Introduction

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ed and reproduce them. If human beings are categorized by race, then extant political institutions and processes will regulate, at least in part, the interrelations between those categories. Robert Miles argued that race is an ideological concept that requires explanation; therefore, it should not be used for either analytical or explanatory purposes. In addition, Wilson’s definition of social class was flawed. Social class was operationalized primarily as a set of occupational categories. As I will show, this loose specification of social-class boundaries overestimated the socioeconomic status attainment gains of the black middle class when contrasted with the white middle class. However, Wilson stayed on firmer ground than some who have claimed that attempts to divide blacks into social classes, regardless of definition, are invalid on the grounds that racial oppression experienced collectively has made the concept of social class irrelevant to blacks. Insofar as the concepts of race and social class contain mutually exclusive components, combining them increases the risk of epistemological incoherence when constructing theoretical accounts. As concepts, race and social class occupy different ontological grounds. The reason lies in an objectification process that is crucial for race relations but that is more or less absent in class relations. A substantial segment of the sociological research literature on race relations published since the late 1970s has centered on Wilson’s claim that since the middle to late 1960s race has declined in significance and social class has increased in significance in determining the life-chances of blacks. A driving assumption in this segment of the literature is that race is important for understanding and interpreting changes in allocative social processes. In Chapters 3 and 4, the findings from approximately 400 articles published in the leading journals of sociology, and addressing one or more aspects of Wilson’s work, are applied to a critique of Wilson’s work. These articles include the complex and contradictory studies on educational, occupational, income, and authority attainments by race; characteristics of black employment and mobility processes in the monopoly, competitive, and state sectors of the economy; the significance of labor markets in structuring life-chances; the formation and reproduction of the black underclass; and processes that maintain residential segregation. In Chapter 3, I show that Wilson was broadly correct in arguing that social class has become more important, and race has become less important, in determining black life-chances in the modern industrial period. However, statements such as these are problematic because the reality of black life-chances is much more complicated than the simple relationship suggested by the title of Wilson’s book. For example, the demarcation of periods was problematic; evidence for the thesis of the declining significance of race is modest; generalizations are risky; deracialization in the labor market may, or may not, have occurred; and at least in part, politics

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

mediated the emergence of the “new” black middle class. Studies examining racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainment outcomes do not agree on the nature of the differences observed or the reasons why; and inconsistencies persist even when major differences in the samples, models, and methods are held constant. In Chapter 4, I summarize and evaluate the empirical debates with The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears. In many respects, Wilson’s argument was substantially correct, although the “mechanisms” are in doubt (e.g., the role of residential segregation). Recent research advanced sociological understanding of how structural transformations in the American economy created the underclass; and it refuted the neoconservative views on poverty that have dominated public discourse in recent years. Contrary to the claims of neoconservatives, this research does not support the view that the moral fabric of individuals is at the root of the “social dislocations” observed in the inner city. Contributing factors may be as diverse as the suburbanization patterns of the black middle class; spatial mismatches; concentration effects; the emergence of a subculture that questions traditional expectations for educational attainment, employment, and marriage; and racial discrimination in housing. Wilson did not provide the epistemological foundation on which the claim can be made that historical discrimination is more important than contemporary discrimination in accounting for the worsening plight of the inner-city black poor; neither did he explain how the effects of one can be distinguished from the effects of the other. This distinction appears to ride on the belief that, effectively, discriminatory barriers were removed by the state—a claim many sociologists dispute. But Wilson argued that it is possible to recognize the importance of macrostructural forces, avoid the “extreme” conclusions derived from an uncritical acceptance of the socalled culture of poverty, and still see the merits of “cultural” analysis for explaining ghetto-specific behaviors. Nevertheless, Wilson’s failure to examine patterns of private investment decisions and state actions in the process of hyperghettoization limited an understanding of the underclass. Prominent scholars criticized Wilson for underestimating the significance of racially based patterns of residential segregation in creating and perpetuating the black underclass. Wilson implied that segregation is an artifact of historical discrimination and, in so doing, downplayed the significance of residential segregation and the structural processes that maintain it, including gatekeeping in the real estate, banking, and finance industries. I argue that this problem derives in large part from the problematic separation of the economic sector from the sociopolitical order—the fundamental epistemological underpinning of the argument constructed in The Declining Significance of Race. The effective exclusion of blacks from politics

Introduction

9

allowed whites to institutionalize racial segregation through restrictive covenants, redlining, zoning ordinances, and other mechanisms. Wilson did not explain adequately why blacks are overrepresented in the underclass or why geographical mobility should concentrate poverty among blacks but not among other groups. Industrial restructuring, in and of itself, and the class-selective patterns of out-migration from poor neighborhoods are insufficient to explain the concentrated poverty left in their wake. According to Massey and his colleagues, racial segregation and the processes that maintain it are much more crucial than black middle class out-migration for explaining the creation and perpetuation of neighborhoods characterized by spatially concentrated poverty during the 1970s. Class-selective patterns of out-migration seem to have little to do with the accumulation of poverty in black neighborhoods per se. To isolate the black underclass and, in effect, make it distinctive obscures the role of the political economy (as well as the state) in structuring not only their condition but also the conditions of other impoverished populations in rural America. In Chapter 5, I draw upon the research of Massey and his colleagues to argue that Wilson failed to adequately account for the problematic of residential segregation, which has crucial effects on black life-chances. Industrial restructuring and out-migration are not sufficient factors to explain the emergence of concentrated poverty among blacks. Racial discrimination (maintained by a complex set of motivations) in the housing and finance markets, combined with the role of the state, play a crucial role as well. Despite Wilson’s initial claims to the contrary, the acquisition of human capital is insufficient to equalize black and white residential mobility patterns—particularly in areas that have large black populations, large suburban populations, and older housing stocks. Rather, mechanisms such as segregation mediate the socioeconomic status attainment process among blacks. Stated differently, Wilson underestimated the importance of judicial and other governmental administrative decisions in the interpretation and enforcement of open housing—decisions that structure life-chances in the economic order. When Wilson claimed that state intervention in the modern industrial period promoted racial equality, his analysis was limited to federal legislation and excluded many decisions made locally on urban development plans, transportation systems, low-income housing projects, social welfare programs, and prison construction. Wilson’s case would have been much harder to make if state and local governments were included. In fact, recent research contradicts Wilson’s claims that the state stood apart from racial conflict in the industrial and modern industrial periods and that racial conflict in the industrial period was confined to the economic sector and instigated mainly by the white working class. Through the recent past, the

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

state played an active role in creating and legitimizing residential segregation in the United States. Wilson’s rejoinder to Massey and his colleagues did not constitute a convincing critique; and Wilson’s work as a whole on the black underclass remains a partial, albeit important, explanation fettered by epistemological problems that originated with The Declining Significance of Race. Determining whether racial factors, nonracial factors, or a complex combination of other factors that supersede social psychological accounts best describe the complex motivations underlying the racial structuring of housing markets is important because the findings have different implications for policy formulation and implementation. Although racial prejudice and bigotry contribute to the origin of racial segregation in housing, they may be neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the persistence of segregation. Based on recent research, in Chapter 5 I identify the bases of continuing white resistance to living in integrated neighborhoods. The decisionmaking processes that result in discriminatory outcomes are “socially charged”—that is, they reflect complex and contradictory motives that are themselves tainted by racialized discourses. Wilson argued that ideology in the modern industrial period was a problem of the sociopolitical order; thus, by definition, it was relegated to secondary consideration. Others countered that deemphasizing ideology detracted from attempts to understand opposition to redistributive policies. Whites in the United States increasingly reject racial injustice and endorse racial equality as a matter of principle. However, whites are reluctant to accept the measures necessary to eliminate racial injustice in practice, which is evident in opposition to affirmative action programs and busing to reduce racial disparities. The behavioral consequences of this trend are understood poorly. For example, whites’ opposition to affirmative action is shaped by many factors, which influence perceptions about the extent and causes of, as well as the appropriate solutions for, racial inequality. Prejudices support discriminatory housing practices, as well as opposition to affirmative action and other race-targeted programs; however, so do non–racially specific beliefs, such as the ideology of local autonomy and control rooted in the antistatist inclinations of American populism. The race-class debate contains within itself a fundamental limitation: neither race nor class nor race-class interactions are sufficient to explain race relations in the United States. All are mediated through public discourses and the specific political realities that exist in the American polity. In other words, the arbitrary separation of the economic sector from the sociopolitical order in The Declining Significance of Race detracted from, rather than facilitated, sociological understanding of the changing racial dynamics in the United States. The promise of The Declining Significance of Race was its potential for theoretically analyzing the state and its role in

Introduction

11

structuring race relations through the course of American history. Indeed, Wilson made a claim for the changing role of the state in historical context. However, he did not make explicit the assumptions that define the nature of the state. These assumptions define how the state does, or does not, structure race relations; and they imply appropriate political contexts within which to redress grievances and effect action. Wilson provided no evidence for the controversial claim that in the industrial and modern industrial periods the state became increasingly autonomous from active control by a capitalist class and, by virtue of its actions, shifted racial antagonisms from the economic sector to the sociopolitical order. Indeed, other than to refer to political changes in the government, he offered no theory of the state that could account for this change. Wilson’s underlying, but largely undeveloped, view of the state begged important questions about the formal properties of the state and how the state itself intervenes in the structuring of race relations. In The Declining Significance of Race, Wilson overestimated the ability of the state to effect racial transformation and consolidate black socioeconomic status gains in the modern industrial period. In The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears, he underestimated the extent to which the spatial isolation of economically poor blacks is exacerbated by the indifference of political parties, public agencies, and local and regional governing bodies to their plight. The extent to which these bodies are capable of spanning numerous boundaries in order to create unified interests across racial lines is an empirical question that cannot be adequately answered in the absence of appropriate theoretical specification. In The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, Wilson recognized the state as the focal point for collective change. However, he did not offer a thorough study of the intricacies of, and constraints on, collective action through the state. In Chapter 6, I argue that a well-formulated theory of the state might serve as a nexus for reconstructing the sociology of race relations in a more coherent and less judgmental fashion. In other words, a well-formulated theory of the state might serve as a bridge over the theoretical divide embodied in the arbitrary and unjustifiable separation of the economic sector from the sociopolitical order; the failure of an “aggregate of conceptual communities” to find common ground; and the apparent inability of the sociology of race relations to discard the ideological baggage that marginalized the field in the first place. Bridging the race-class divide may require, as Yehudi Webster claimed, a philosophical reconstruction of the discipline of sociology itself. My work in Chapter 6, then, takes up the implicit challenge in The Declining Significance of Race to better understand the state’s role in creating and maintaining race relations. With a few exceptions, the American sociology of race relations has not constructed a sustained theoretical

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

analysis of the state or an epistemologically coherent framework that explicitly addresses the role of the state in structuring black life-chances. Contemporary developments in the theories of the state have had little to say about race specifically or processes of racialization generally. Any account of the state requires explication of domain assumptions, theoretical postulates, and political implications. In Chapter 6, I offer a foundation for reconceptualizing the sociology of race relations that addresses the objections raised earlier. In Wilson’s work, the assumptions that define the relationship of the state to racial inequality are quintessentially liberal in character in the modern industrial period; I argue that these assumptions fail to capture the complexity of this relationship. An alternative set of assumptions (based on structural theories of the state) may be more fruitful. In short, I try to defend the claim that it is the state itself that must be understood in order to advance the theoretical standing of the sociology of race relations and to put forth feasible policies to redress racial inequities. This claim is based on the assumption that state interventions in the structuring of race relations reflect the historical tendency for the reproduction of the social formation as a whole to take place through the mediation of state activity. Reviving the debate on the state may help us to understand the limits imposed, or the opportunities presented, by the specific nature of the state itself. In The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, Wilson placed himself at the forefront of a process of constrained social change. To my knowledge, Wilson has not identified the extrasociological considerations that are animating this quest. Yet Wilson’s policy recommendations differ little from what has been proposed before. Not surprisingly, then, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide had little to say on how the capitalist state sets parameters on the political capabilities of various groups to effect social change. In fact, I go so far as to suggest that Wilson’s “real world model” for the development of a multiracial political coalition that would address national issues is little more than a reiteration of liberal assumptions about how the political process should work. At least partially, the controversies generated by the publication of Wilson’s work have led to the development of a more systematic body of knowledge and increased scholarly understanding. However, the reconstruction of the language and theory of the sociology of race relations in a coherent way has yet to take place. Wilson left it to others to validate or invalidate the basic premises set forth in The Declining Significance of Race. In the end, perhaps the most fundamental question raised by the debate initiated by The Declining Significance of Race is the extent to which Americans are willing to confront a structuralist interpretation of the social world and its radical policy implications.

1 The Race Relations Problematic in Sociology

Situating Wilson’s Work The oldest field in U.S. sociology is the study of race relations; ironically, it may be the least developed theoretically.1 In his polemic on assimilation, Harry Bash2 claimed that the field had not created an integrated body of reasonably systematic theory—an observation that he believed to be “beyond dispute.” Other critics charged that the field was little more than an “aggregate of conceptual communities” that communicated poorly with each other and that asserted the correctness of their point of view while disparaging that of others.3 A failure to develop rigorous definitions, inconsistent use of terminology, competition for theoretical supremacy, and a lack of comparative perspective in research might help to explain why.4 This problematic appears to be rooted in the history of the field itself: the sociological study of race relations in the United States has moved through distinct phases characterized by certain theoretical orientations, ideological inclinations, political ramifications, and policy implications.5 In the first phase, Gunnar Myrdal6 claimed with respect to race relations that most Americans subscribe to an American creed consisting of general values such as tolerance, inclusion, and universalism. These values are regarded as morally higher than the particularistic values that encourage prejudice and discrimination against blacks, including intolerance, exclusion, and racism. Increasing literacy, industrialization, and democratic political processes would encourage a movement toward value consistency between theory and practice, overriding the forces of prejudice and discrimination.7 A belief in the ethical “goodness” and basic legitimacy of U.S. institutions, particularly the state, lent itself to a view that “errors” could be recti-

13

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

fied through moral exhortations, education, and legislation without changing the basic structures of these institutions.8 The discontinuity between higher values expressed in the American creed and undesirable behaviors expressed in discriminatory actions would be resolved.9 The basic assumption of a Myrdalian-influenced sociology was that “the further modernizing of industrial society would eventually have no place for race relations organized by prejudice and discrimination and would gradually become a nonracial society in which old racial identities would dissolve.” 10 This assumption suggested that interracial conflict was a temporal phenomenon and that assimilation was inevitable given ameliorative strategies encouraging conformity to higher values.11 Myrdal’s12 framework was consistent with a view in the early social-problems literature, which assumed the essential goodness of the established order and identified deviations from this order as pathological. The cultural adaptations of the black poor were viewed as undesirable and “order-compromising” from a white middleclass perspective.13 The language of pathology produced a tendency among sociologists in the 1960s to view the major barriers to racial integration as residing in the sociocultural characteristics of blacks themselves. 14 In turn, this view encouraged a movement to psychologize processes of assimilation, understood as a modification of values, attitudes, behaviors, emotional states, or personality structures.15 The importance of modification became apparent in the stages of assimilation (specifically, “attitudinal receptional”), as Milton Gordon formalized them in his classic work Assimilation in American Life.16 Only later, in the work of Douglas Massey and his colleagues, would assimilation theory discard its psychological trappings and embrace urban ecology. Research throughout the 1960s and 1970s focused disproportionately on prejudicial attitudes, processes of stereotyping, cognitive and affective states, and the contact hypothesis.17 However, nobody demonstrated conclusively that attitudinal receptional assimilation logically must precede assimilation as a form of social structural integration.18 Some early studies in sociology documented the existence of non–psychologically based discriminatory actions; however, they failed to develop a theoretical framework to account for why these actions exist. For example, S. Roxanne Hiltz19 argued that the consumer financial system operated in such a way as to increase inequalities between blacks and whites; however, she did not explain why. Therefore, the study of race relations until the early 1970s was dominated by assmilationist and other U.S. liberal concerns—for example, how personality variables at a social-psychological level impede or facilitate the movement through the stages of assimilation. Sociologists studied factors affecting values, attitudes, and beliefs; self-esteem and personal efficacy; anomie and alienation; aspirations and goals; and other affective states.20

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This general sociological frame implied an acceptance of certain assumptions, including (1) a consensus on values at the highest level; (2) that minority groups form in reaction to the unethical exclusion from the competitive struggle; (3) that processes of assimilation will erode the boundaries of race and ethnicity given equality of opportunity, continued economic growth, pluralistic political processes, and a neutral state; and (4) eventual acceptance of racial and ethnic minorities into the primary groups of society in a process of change that is gradual, evolutionary, and continuous.21 The social-psychologizing of race relations appeared in a variety of contexts: for example, whether or not minorities “absorb” the negative stereotypes held by the majority, while controlling for selected background variables such as age and level of education; whether or not minorities are “crippled” by low self-evaluations; the extent to which equal-status interracial contacts are related to racially tolerant attitudes; and the effects of localistic world views on intolerance toward minorities.22 Jerry Robinson and James Preston23 illustrated well how this basic research was reworked into propositional form. For example, interracial contact is most likely to yield favorable results (i.e., reduce prejudice) when majority and minoritygroup members are equal in status, interacting in voluntary contact situations characterized by intimacy and cooperation, and pursuing common goals with institutional supports. Interracial contact is most likely to yield unfavorable results (i.e., intensify prejudice) when majority and minoritygroup members are unequal in status, interacting in involuntary contact situations characterized by casualness and competition, and pursuing incompatible goals without institutional supports. Therefore, intimate contact is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to reduce prejudice. If the respective majority and minority-group members are feuding over block-busting in residential neighborhoods, or they are competing for scarce resources such as occupational promotions, contact may intensify prejudice. Despite a recognition in sociology that racial conflicts occur and that they have bases other than social-psychological, power-conflict theory as expressed in the work of Oliver Cox,24 among others, mostly was dismissed and almost disappeared in the 1950s.25 Racial conflict was “disengaged” from its structural roots—for example, as expressed later in split labor market theory—and psychologized: “Within the parameters set by the attitudinal element of prejudice and the behavioral component of discrimination, the problem [of understanding racial conflict was] detached from its historical dimensions and dissociated from its structural moorings, inviting a neat, mechanistic cause-and-effect formulation.”26 This sociology was driven by “voluntaristic nominalism.” In other words, sociology assumed that the structuring of social groups “is the consequence of the aggregate of its separate, component individuals.”27 This assumption underpins the worldview of white conservative Protestants gen-

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

erally, and it has profound consequences for how racial inequality is interpreted.28 Social phenomena, including the observable manifestations of race relations, derive ultimately from the motivations of these feeling, knowing, and willing individuals. This view is unsympathetic to the social determinism implied in materialist interpretations of history, for example.29 In this context, Bash30 argued that the sociology of race relations compensated for the absence of legitimate sociological theory via “a unifying normative persuasion,” which became ideologically compromising. The reemergence of power-conflict approaches to race relations in the middle to late 1960s marked the second phase and reflected the failure of the sociology of race relations (as a consequence of its “voluntaristic nominalism”) to anticipate the racial turmoil of the 1960s.31 This reemergence challenged Myrdal’s view of race relations as a moral dilemma between theory and practice, as well as his optimism that higher values will eventually triumph over lower values reflected in racism. Myrdal’s conceptual framework came to be characterized as “murkily vacuous yet rigid and highly judgmental.”32 Power-conflict theory shifted the focus on race relations from a “disturbance of the normative order” to structural variables and their operation in particular historical contexts.33 For example, Hubert Blalock34 revived the claim “that racial discrimination is ultimately based on power relationships between a dominant and subordinate group.” Edna Bonacich’s split labor market theory35 proposed that industrialization does not weaken necessarily existing structures of discrimination. Exclusionary practices were not viewed as a pathological deviation or a problem of intergroup contact; rather, they were rooted in, and arose from, group competition. According to power-conflict theory in the broadest sense, U.S. society is characterized by a struggle between dominant (privileged) and subordinate (exploited) groups for scarce economic resources and political power. The dominant groups strive to maintain and legitimize their position; the subordinate groups strive to change it. Conflict exists between groups because their values, interests, and goals are fundamentally incompatible (if one group gets what it wants, the others cannot). Indeed, the dominant group may seek to neutralize, injure, or eliminate the subordinate group. At least in part, then, racial problems are the consequence of differential access to economic resources and political power. These have historical roots in the conquest and subordination of one racial group by another racial group. William Julius Wilson’s first book, Power, Racism, and Privilege,36 criticized the theoretical paucity that had characterized the study of race relations throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Wilson’s intent was to return to the forefront the concept of power in understanding the emergence of racial stratification and the necessity of historical and comparative analyses in

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understanding race relations. He argued that racial stratification was largely a function of dominant-group efforts to control scarce resources, either by neutralizing or eliminating subordinate-group members as competitors or by exploiting their labor power.37 Wilson’s call for historical and comparative analyses anticipated the evaluations of orthodox Marxist and split labor market theories that were to appear in his next book, The Declining Significance of Race.38 Power-conflict theories are controversial because they shift sociological emphasis from the cultural to the political and economic dimensions of majority and minority relations; they also reject the assumption that improving interpersonal relations will ipso facto improve the relations between groups. In this context, interpersonal approaches are cosmetic because they do not come to grips with the fundamental bases for group conflict. Power-conflict theories legitimize a sociological vocabulary that includes concepts such as social formations and the forces and relations of production constituting particular modes of production. However, these theories do not account for the changing role of the state in historical context—a role that mediates between structural contradictions and racial discourses. Although Power, Racism, and Privilege established Wilson’s credentials as a power-conflict theorist, Wilson did not cite or assess in any of his major works power conflict’s exemplar for the black experience—the internal colony model. In Robert Blauner’s39 classic formulation, the internal colony suggested a society within a society based upon racial, linguistic, or marked cultural differences (as well as differences of social class) and subject to economic, political, and administrative control by the dominant group and its institutions. However, before the colonial analogy can be used to account for U.S. race relations, the following must be demonstrated: (1) the existence between two distinct and clearly separate groups of a superior-inferior status relationship encompassing both economic control and exploitation and political dependence and subjugation; and (2) institutions such as education and welfare create a cycle of dependency. As an application of macrostructural dependency theory,40 the internal colony represented a process whereby a periphery (the black ghetto) was linked structurally to a center through an exploitive, asymmetric, and subordinate relationship. Wilson did not explain why he ignored the internal colony as a mode of explanation despite its popularity. The reasons may be obvious, however. For example, the parallels to classic colonialism suggested by the internal colony model fail to capture the realities of the black social-class structure today. The internal colony model reifies racial categories and neglects the problem of social-class cleavages within these categories.41 The relevance of the internal colony is sustained more by metaphor than by systematic

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

observation. To say that low per capita income, high birthrates, little savings, and the superexploitation of labor characterize the black ghetto is little more than basic description; in and of themselves, these characteristics do not explain anything. The existence of the internal colony is difficult to prove unless: the rate of labor exploitation is higher for black workers than for white workers (controlling for human capital characteristics, tasks, and productivity); and blacks serve as a reserve army of labor, facilitating the greater exploitation of whites. Given problems of conceptualization, operationalization, and the corrigibility of empirical data, demonstrating the existence of superexploitation is extraordinarily difficult.42 The critical relationships involved—economic control and exploitation, and political dependence and subjugation—are not unique to black ghettos; they are replicated in social-class relationships within all capitalist societies.43 The internal colony model posits exploitation on a spatial basis rather than in terms of the relations of production. Specifying the problem in this way encourages a view that the black ghetto is stagnant, subordination is immutable, and decolonization requires independence from the mother country. In other words, decolonization necessitates policies consistent with spatial autonomy, such as an independent black capitalism. 44 Throughout the body of his work, Wilson described a contemporary political economy characterized by complex social structural processes and raceclass interactions. In this context, national autonomy proclamations seem unrealistic at best and trite at worst.45 The third phase was marked by the publication of Wilson’s controversial book The Declining Significance of Race, which represented an attempt to synthesize race and social class as explanatory variables and to supersede paradigms built upon the concepts of majority group and minority group. 46 Ironically, the most controversial claim of The Declining Significance of Race preceded the book in the sociological literature and at that time was ignored. For example, James O’Kane47 argued that processes of deindustrialization and disinvestment since World War II had removed “the important rung” for upward mobility for lower-class blacks. In contrast, middle-class blacks were relatively unaffected by these changes and were able to “participate in the economic and social prosperity so characteristic of contemporary American society.” O’Kane48 advanced the thesis that the increasing impoverishment of the black lower class could not be explained primarily by race: “to magnify the differential styles and values of these respective groups is to place undue emphasis for poverty and deprivation on the wrong factors.” The gap exists between the social classes, not the races. “Skin color and the history of servitude do little to explain the present polarization of classes.” Recognition of the growing bifurcation in the black community, which would become the linchpin of the modern industrial period in The

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Declining Significance of Race, preceded the book as well. According to William Tabb,49 while the black middle class was experiencing greater prosperity, poverty was worsening at the bottom of the black social-class structure. Black life-chances could not be understood properly without a thorough study of the structural transformations that the U.S. economy was (and is) undergoing; these structural transformations affect black socioeconomic progress and white acceptance of black gains. Tabb alluded to many of the structural factors later identified by Wilson in The Declining Significance of Race, and he was at the forefront of calls for a race-class interaction model: “In the past an understanding of race was central to comprehension of black Americans. In the future as racist barriers are overcome by a significant number of blacks, it may be that a race and class analysis will become more important.”50 Throughout the body of his work, Wilson never abandoned his central thesis: a preoccupation with race shifts attention from structural changes in the U.S. economy and makes it difficult to see how the fate of poor blacks is connected to these structural changes. Wilson51 argued that the shift from one system of race relations to another system “occurs because of fundamental societal changes” such as industrialization. Although industrialization may not contribute directly to a realignment of the racial order, it can do so indirectly. Wilson52 specified three periods of race relations in U.S. history: the preindustrial (pre–Civil War through the 1870s), industrial (1870s through the New Deal), and modern industrial (New Deal through the present). Each period embodies a different form of racial stratification structured by the particular arrangement of the economy and the polity. Different systems of production coupled with different arrangements of the polity impose different constraints on the way in which racial groups have interacted in the United States. These constraints structure the relations between racial groups and produce dissimilar contexts not only for the manifestation of racial antagonisms but also for racial-group access to rewards and privileges.53 Since racial problems during the preindustrial and industrial periods were related primarily to group struggles over scarce resources, they lent themselves to theories that associate “racial antipathy” with social-class conflict.54 Wilson’s review of economic class theories was limited to orthodox Marxist and split labor market accounts that, he claimed, were applicable only to certain historical periods.55 Nevertheless, these accounts represent a profound challenge to the idea that race relations are primarily a problem of social psychology. They put to rest the idea of an orderly progression of minorities through the stages of assimilation. Advanced in part by Cox56 and Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy,57 orthodox Marxist theory was argued to be applicable to the preindustrial period, Bonacich’s58 split labor market theory to the industrial period, and neither to the modern industrial period.

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

In the preindustrial and industrial periods, the basis of structured racial inequality was primarily economic, “and in most situations the state was merely an instrument to reinforce patterns of race relations that grew directly out of the social relations of production.”59 Wilson claimed that in the modern industrial period structural changes invalidated most racial discrimination theories that have at their foundation economic competition. Neither the low-wage (competitive) sector nor the corporate (monopoly) and government (state) sectors provide the basis for the interracial competition and conflict that “plagued the economic order” in previous periods. Responding to the pressures of the civil rights movement and increased black political resources, the state through municipal, state, and federal civil rights legislation intervened to remove many artificial discrimination barriers.60 Regardless of the theoretical variant, the objective interests of competing social classes, social-class factions, and (often arbitrarily defined) groupings are at stake. Therefore, racial conflict should not be disengaged from its political economic moorings. Wilson’s position in The Declining Significance of Race was that orthodox Marxist and split labor market theories, by themselves, do not constitute a comprehensive theory of racial stratification. In When Work Disappears and The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, Wilson abandoned the attempt to construct a general sociological theory of race relations, emphasizing instead the consequences of hyperghettoization and issues of public policy. He left it to others to validate or invalidate the basic premises set forth in The Declining Significance of Race. The fact that the United States has experienced a succession of racial periods (or formations) is not in dispute. Indeed, Wilson’s use of historical analysis allowed him to explore the underlying structures of race relations as they changed over time. However, Wilson’s61 overview of the succession of periods slighted the complexities of understanding the articulation of different modes of production, the transition from one mode of production to another, the possibility of contradictions within each mode of production, and the manner in which the functioning of a mode of production simultaneously reproduces and undermines its own conditions of existence. The transition from one period to another can be dated in the changing constitutional status of race and the legal regulation of race relations—a problematic that Wilson62 recognized but did not take advantage of. In effect, a thorough review of constitutional and legal changes rooted in an epistemologically coherent theory of the state would have provided a stronger justification for his conceptualization of the three periods of race relations. In its defense of theoretical eclecticism, Wilson’s overview of the succession of periods was epistemologically incoherent; for example, the instrumentalist state of the preindustrial period became, inexplicably, the

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liberal state of the modern industrial period. These views of the state make assumptions that are contradictory. Wilson’s overview was more mechanical than dynamic; for example, the black experience is largely passive throughout the body of Wilson’s work. Wilson 63 neglected the impact of organized black working-class protest on the racial policies of industries and unions. He did not analyze the implications of black activism in its various guises for racial progress. Neither did he evaluate the relationship between racial insurgency and the expansion of the welfare state. In the absence of movements from below (e.g., the civil rights movement) and their effects on state actions expressed in legislative initiatives, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, federal enforcement efforts, and employment opportunities, racial disparities likely would have persisted to a greater extent than exist today. In short, a vision of racial and ethnic groups engaged actively in the creation of their own histories was absent until the publication of The Bridge Over the Racial Divide. However, this work did not break new ground. According to Wilson,64 after World War II political changes in the government (which Wilson did not identify) and structural changes in the economy “contributed to a gradual and continuous process of deracialization in the economic sector—in other words, a process in which racial distinctions gradually lose their importance in determining individual mobility in the United States.” Racial antagonisms in the modern industrial period tend to originate outside the economic sector; furthermore, they have little connection with labor market strife, unlike the previous periods. Basic changes in the system of production produced a segmented labor structure in which blacks are isolated in the relatively nonunionized, low-paying, and undesirable jobs of the competitive sector; or they occupy higher-paying corporate and government positions in the monopoly and state sectors. Here job competition is either controlled by powerful unions or is restricted to the highly educated and trained—regardless of race.65 A consequence of the rapid growth of the monopoly and state sectors of the U.S. economy is the gradual creation of a segmented labor market that provides different opportunities for mobility for different segments of the black community. On the one hand, poorly trained and educated blacks in the inner city (especially teenagers and young adults) see their job prospects restricted to the competitive sector, their unemployment rates soaring to record levels, their movement out of poverty slowing down, and their welfare rolls increasing. On the other hand, highly educated and trained blacks are experiencing “unprecedented” job opportunities because of the expansion of white-collar salaried positions and the pressures of affirmative action programs. In view of these developments, Wilson argued that the plight of the black underclass could not be understood solely as a consequence of racial oppression. The black experience has moved histori-

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

cally from racial oppression experienced by virtually all blacks to economic subordination for the black underclass.66 The fundamental causes of the perpetuation of this underclass are to be found in the structures of advanced capitalism. Social class is more important than race today in predetermining occupational placement and mobility. In The Declining Significance of Race, Wilson acknowledged that an income gap persists between blacks and whites generally. However, he argued that this gap is due primarily to the historical effects of racial discrimination in denying older black workers entry into higher-paying bluecollar and white-collar positions. In contrast, for younger black workers, racial barriers to advancement largely have been eliminated. Therefore, as better-educated blacks enter the labor market in competition with their white counterparts, the income disparities between the two groups should decrease over time. Aggregated black and white earnings comparisons are invalid because older blacks currently earn less than older whites on account of past discriminatory practices.67 According to Wilson,68 blacks have made gains in the state sector, including local, state, and federal government; social service organizations; and health care facilities. In the private sector, blacks have moved into the middle-level positions that provide the training, experience, and opportunities necessary to advance to toplevel positions. Wilson concluded that: (1) Very little evidence was available to support a claim that the educational, occupational, and income gains of “privileged blacks” will be reversed; (2) racial antagonism in the sociopolitical order “has far less effect on individual or group access to those opportunities and resources that are centrally important for life survival than antagonism in the economic sector”; and (3) the “ultimate basis” for racial conflict today is the deleterious effect of basic changes in the economy on blacks and whites in the lower reaches of the social-class structure. Racial conflict has shifted gradually from the economic sector to the sociopolitical order where “the traditional patterns of racial competition for power and privilege” can be seen. Here, the have-nots—both black and white—struggle over access to and control of neighborhoods, housing, schools, and political institutions.69 Economic competition theories such as the split labor market are not applicable to the modern industrial period because of the relative lack of racial friction in the job market. The growth of powerful unions following passage of protective legislation in the New Deal era and the nationwide equal opportunity employment legislation of the 1950s and 1960s prevented employers from undercutting the white labor force by hiring cheaper black labor.70 Wilson implied that in this period the federal government, acting autonomously from the economy, was able to remove racial restrictions in the labor market, including discriminatory barriers imposed by state and municipal authorities. Therefore, the state plays a critical role in

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reducing racial antagonisms in the economic sector.71 Although Wilson was “historically sensitive” to changes in both the economy and the polity,72 he did not explain why the state changed its priorities. Wilson’s basic premise was that no theory of discrimination could be valid for the entire period of U.S. history, perhaps because so many variables have changed over time. Therefore, his work appeared to defend delimited explanations of historically discrete yet interacting periods.73 This necessity is consistent with an assumption underlying power-conflict approaches, namely, a high level of historical specificity and a low level of generalizability. Wilson took this epistemological position a priori, did not evaluate it, and did not call for a rigorous methodology by which to test it; instead, he relied on historical accounts. Bash74 argued that Wilson’s analysis in The Declining Significance of Race was primarily an empirically grounded assessment of the black experience in the United States. It was not intended to be a critical reconceptualization of the sociology of race relations. Nevertheless, Wilson’s work constituted a new phase by underscoring the historical specificity and consequent limitations of the concept of race in the sociological analysis of intergroup relations. 75 According to several authors, 76 Wilson’s The Declining Significance of Race departed from earlier phases of the sociology of race relations by bringing back political economy in an attempt to situate historically changing racial antagonisms. In contrast, the sociology of race relations prior to the mid-1960s was individualistic and ahistorical. Wilson77 introduced a historicism that stressed the complexity, uniqueness, and contingency of events, evidenced in his claim for the limited applicability of the orthodox Marxist and split labor market theories. The relationships between changing racial antagonisms and forms of exploitation must be established, not assumed before the fact; and they must be seen in the context of specific historical circumstances.78 However, since no description can be complete, assumptions often remain hidden in historicist research.79 Moreover, because “historicists are not explicit about their reasons for focusing on some aspects of events and not on others, the biases in their incomplete descriptions are not obvious.”80 For example, Wilson’s analysis qualified, but did not reject, the Myrdalianinfluenced faith in reasonableness and progress. The shift toward more structural views does not by definition reject U.S. liberalism generally or assimilation specifically as a framework for understanding race relations.

Wilson and the Race-Class Debate Today The race-class debate initiated by the publication of The Declining Significance of Race has not been resolved, although sociologists agree generally that understanding the nature of the interrelationship of race and

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

social class in determining life-chances is very important.81 Despite concerns about the validity of racial comparisons, an underlying premise is that race is important for understanding and interpreting changes in allocative social processes, an important source of social differentiation and inequality. In this context, Wilson’s thesis of the declining significance of race has emerged as the predominant framework to explain the complex interplay between race and social class in the life-chances of black Americans. Most of the controversy over Wilson’s work has centered on his claim that since the middle to late 1960s race has declined in significance and social class has increased in significance in determining the life-chances of blacks. Many of the initial reviews were polemical, 82 or they brought together statistics to “prove” that race was not declining in significance. Wilson’s responses were restrained. However, he argued that the efforts of his early critics obscured an important distinction between historical and contemporary discrimination. Once this distinction is recognized, Wilson claimed, the educational, occupational, and income gaps between blacks and whites could not be attributed primarily to contemporary discrimination. Even if discriminatory practices were eliminated, the differences in black-white socioeconomic status attainment outcomes would persist until the effects of historical discrimination disappeared.83 Since the late 1970s, the literature has attempted to test this claim. Yet Wilson never argued that racial discrimination is an artifact of the past.84 Wilson encouraged misinterpretation of his work by using terms such as “antagonism,” “discrimination,” and “racism” interchangeably and by relegating their significance in the modern industrial period to an arbitrarily designated sociopolitical order. The latter made it possible for him to argue that racial differences in perceptions of quality of life do not necessarily reflect actual life-chances.85 Although I will show that Wilson’s86 work has influenced the sociology of race relations since the late 1970s, the published articles in U.S. sociological journals have yet to elevate the subdiscipline to an autonomous theoretical status characterized by an integrated body of reasonably systematic, epistemologically coherent theory. If a broader paradigmatic context exists for this subdiscipline today, it comprises an eclectic borrowing from assimilation, social psychology, demography and human ecology, social stratification, and political economy. Although there are common themes, a distinctive sociology of race relations is missing, as are attempts to construct such a sociology. A distinctive paradigmatic frame would give direction to, and specify, the role that concepts and other constructs are to play in the inquiry.87 However, assimilation—until recently the subdiscipline’s main claim to theoretical distinctiveness—carries heavy political, ideological, and normative baggage,88 as well as the teleological implications inherent in Gordon’s89 formal theory of assimilation. For example, some of the assimilation studies published in the American Sociological Review implied

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the desirability—indeed, the inevitability—of assimilation. Occasionally, this outcome was tempered by a fear that cultural pluralism will be lost. Very little published research since roughly 1970 has addressed these issues, and only then, with the exception of Metzger,90 in a delimited context. The critiques that have been published concluded that sociological work on race relations employs concepts of dubious value (including minority group); is ethnocentric, one-dimensional, and ahistorical; places a disproportionate emphasis on the sociocultural characteristics of minorities and does not abandon the language of pathologies; is rooted in unexamined assumptions that fetter theory construction; and should devote more attention to structural processes. A review of the more than 950 articles published on racial and ethnic relations from January 1969 through March 2001 in the leading U.S. journals of sociology91 suggests that three of these criticisms have considerable merit, whereas two are no longer applicable. With only a few exceptions, the language of pathologies has been abandoned in this body of work, and many articles emphasize structural processes. In fact, the recent articles published by the American Journal of Sociology on the structural formation of the underclass and the recent but controversial articles published by the American Sociological Review on the ethnic enclave rank among the most innovative work in recent years on racial and ethnic relations. Still, concepts of dubious value, one-dimensional and ahistorical approaches, and unexamined assumptions can be found. Conceptual critiques and alternative formulations are comparatively rare.92 Since the publication of The Declining Significance of Race, the literature has increasingly (and disproportionately) emphasized the political-economic, or structural, dimensions of race relations. This was not the case in the 1960s, when the literature was dominated by social-psychological concerns. Evidence exists that this shift preceded the publication of The Declining Significance of Race; however, the controversy that followed likely accelerated it. This shift in emphasis has profound implications, as it challenges the liberal assumption that improving interpersonal relations will improve relations between groups. This assumption underlies recent books, including Mark Cohen’s Culture of Intolerance and Richard Payne’s Getting Beyond Race.93 This shift has brought into question the adequacy of contemporary theorizing on race relations. For example, Wilson94 argued (correctly) that certain theories, such as orthodox Marxism and the split labor market, have limited applicability. He demonstrated that racial formations such as split labor markets cannot be understood apart from the structural characteristics of the social systems in which they are embedded and the transformations they undergo. His work legitimized a sociological vocabulary that revives and incorporates traditional Marxist concepts. However, Wilson did not assess what that means for the viability of the sociology of race relations.

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

Controversies generated by the publication of Wilson’s work have thus led to the development of a more systematic body of knowledge and increased scholarly understanding.95 However, the reconstruction of the language of the sociology of race relations in an epistemologically coherent way has yet to take place. The Declining Significance of Race could have bridged, but did not, the divide between theories of race relations and theories of the state. Wilson96 made a claim for (but did not examine systematically) the changing role of the state in historical context—a role that mediates between structural imperatives and contradictions, on the one hand, and racial formations and discourses on the other. He directed attention toward the sociohistorical and structural foundations of race relations. However, he did not make explicit the assumptions that define the nature of the state and its relationship to these foundations. These assumptions may be liberal, pluralist, instrumentalist, or structuralist (in turn, neo-Marxist or Weberian). They define how the state does or does not structure race relations; and they imply appropriate political contexts within which to redress grievances and effect action. Implicit in The Declining Significance of Race was a partial rejection of liberal views as well as a significant qualification of instrumentalist views. For example, the claims that racism is unequivocally functional for the capitalist class, and that the state is merely a tool in the hands of the capitalist class, were shown to be true only within a specific historical context. Wilson’s underlying view of the state begged important questions about the formal properties of the state, as well as how the state itself intervenes in the structuring of race relations. Contemporary research is concerned disproportionately with isolating the effects of race, aspirational and other constructs, human capital variables, labor market structures, and residence on socioeconomic status attainment outcomes. These outcomes are the consequence of complex and contradictory processes, making generalizations about race risky at best. This body of work has yielded important insights, but its operational foundation is questionable. Serious methodological problems must be solved, including sampling, operationalization of variables, the appropriate use of controls, and the sorting-out of reciprocal effects in issues of causation. For example, Wilson said little about the concept of race per se. In fact, he reified the concept (i.e., he defaulted to popular discourse) and ignored how the meaning and significance of race have been contested politically through the state in all three periods of race relations. Wilson97 argued that race was used to increase profits in the preindustrial period and delimit competition in the industrial period. However, he did not explain why, or how, racial categories emerge from, and are negotiated in the context of, specific social-class and state structures. By failing to explicitly explain the

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concept of race as a social construction, Wilson implicitly endorsed common-sense understandings of the social world. Herein lies a conundrum: If race is represented by the process of racial classification, then how can race be of declining importance in light of ongoing attempts by a diverse set of groups to protect racial classification systems? In the body of Wilson’s work, race was a static entity appearing in the form of a dichotomous independent variable (or an explanans) that presumptively accounted for what was observed, rather than a dependent variable (or an explanandum) that itself must be accounted for. Establishing the validity of racial categories in order to test the thesis of the declining significance of race is an impossible task. Furthermore, race signification is a complex process. Lacking in the large majority of the sociological studies identifying educational, occupational, and income outcomes by race is a thorough analysis of the criteria used to classify persons by race, as well as the epistemological, ontological, or logical grounds on which these classifications are justifiable. A related difficulty is the ontological question of ascertaining the reality of the concept of social class. Wilson’s98 definition sensitized the reader to the distributive rather than the relational aspects of social-class inequality, that is, differences in the allocation of scarce resources to categories defined arbitrarily. Wilson’s definition encouraged a tendency to view social classes as a series of gradations between distinct but overlapping categories whose empirical relation is not specified or is assumed to be incidental. These categories represent the merging of ill-defined occupational classifications and imply arbitrariness. Wilson did not specify the structural determination of social classes economically, politically, or ideologically; and, with the exception of the black underclass, he minimized the significance of class-based cultural heterogeneity. This heterogeneity is visible in phenomena as varied as social orientations, family interactions, and patterns of consumption. Wilson offered an economistic view of the socialclass structure detached from the sociopolitical order. However, he stayed on firmer ground than some who have claimed that attempts to divide blacks into social classes, regardless of definition, are invalid on the grounds that racial oppression experienced collectively has made the concept of social class irrelevant to blacks. Erik Wright99 pointed out that the income disparities between white workers and black workers are much smaller than the income disparities between workers generally and the capitalist class. Therefore, white workers and black workers share a commonality in their social-class positioning. Without sufficient justification, Wilson100 accorded the concepts of race and social class equivalent ontological status, in effect reifying race. This practice allowed differences between the races—measured as educa-

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tional, occupational, and income attainments—to be identified; however, it did not explain how these relations became racialized in the first place. As I will argue in Chapter 2, race is an arbitrarily defined and socially constructed category that lacks an objective basis; therefore, it is essentially ideological. Despite its conceptual ambiguities, social class has an objective basis—one’s relationship to the means of production; therefore, it is essentially materialist. In addition, neither race nor class nor race-class interactions are sufficient to explain race relations in the United States. All are mediated through public discourses and the specific political realities that exist in the American polity (i.e., the state). In other words, the arbitrary separation of the economic sector from the sociopolitical order101 detracted from, rather than facilitated, sociological understanding of the changing racial dynamics in the United States. Early in his work, Wilson102 suggested that racial antagonism was a social process of inclusion and exclusion in the competition for scarce resources, with motives in the material forces and relations of production constituting modes of production. As a function of alliances and coalitions, the boundaries that are constructed are socially negotiated and politically contested. However, Wilson’s103 use of the concept, which apparently he equated with racial discrimination and racism, did little to clarify its meaning. Throughout the body of his work, he used these concepts interchangeably without specifying an appropriate set of ground rules. Published research favors the concept of racial discrimination over racism because discrimination can be reduced to a problem of conventional economics and quantified. The concept also makes it easier to illustrate the ameliorative changes that are consistent with U.S. liberal ideologies of progress toward equality for all. The concept of racial antagonism has fewer moralistic and pejorative implications than the concept of racism, although it is more elusive than racial discrimination. Therefore, Wilson contributed to, rather than clarified, the confusion that dogs the sociology of race relations. It is premature to argue, as Wilson104 did, that racism’s explanatory value is “marginal” in accounting for the black underclass; it is not clear what racism is. Wilson never claimed that racial discrimination disappeared in the modern industrial period, given discriminatory practices in the sociopolitical order that includes institutions such as private social clubs. However, in the economic sector, social class had become more important than race in determining blacks’ access to resources and power.105 Establishing the logical and empirical adequacy of this claim is more difficult than Wilson implied in The Declining Significance of Race. In addition to the epistemological and ontological difficulties identified above, attempts to validate empirically the thesis face a number of problems. For example, to what extent do historical (or past) forms of discrimination explain educational,

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occupational, and earnings disparities between blacks and whites today? Yehudi Webster106 claimed that a plausible answer couldn’t be constructed because methodological procedures are not adequate for the task. The debate on the declining significance of race centers on the extent to which these disparities are a legacy of past discrimination, the product of contemporary discrimination, the consequence of differences in human capital accumulation, or the cumulative effects of discrimination against blacks over the life course. Claims will depend on which variables are controlled in, and omitted from, the regression equations. Therefore, the link between discrimination and racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainment outcomes is not certain. Educational, occupational, and earnings disparities do not prove the existence of racial discrimination because other factors may account for them. Conversely, reductions in educational, occupational, and earnings disparities do not prove the disappearance of racial discrimination because the latter could have been excluded from the model before the fact. Studies of this issue do not agree on the nature of the differences observed, and inconsistencies persist even when major differences in samples, models, and methods are held constant. In fact, directly comparing results may be inappropriate because of major differences in populations and samples, sampling techniques, time frames, operationalization and measurement procedures, and mathematical modeling and inference procedures. Multiple regression analysis is used widely for racial comparisons; however, the operationalization of independent and dependent variables has not been consistent across studies. The problem of multicollinearity is common, especially between race and other independent variables. This problem makes regression coefficients unstable from sample to sample, decreasing confidence in the findings. How to justifiably infer causality, which means that all possible spurious causes of Y are ruled out, is an important problem as well. This process is very difficult to accomplish with historical data. Comparative-historical research is interesting because it focuses on large-scale events; however, this form of research is relatively rare in the U.S. sociology of race relations. Even here, selecting interesting events for analysis is a type of sampling and a none-too-systematic type at that. If an argument is generalized from the sample (as in The Declining Significance of Race), the biases inherent in the unsystematic nature of the sample will diminish the argument’s explanatory value. The evidence in The Declining Significance of Race supporting the thesis was methodologically flawed.107 For example, if differential returns to education for blacks and whites largely disappear when social class is controlled in multiple regression equations, this fact does not mean that race is insignificant in determining life-chances. These equations cannot determine the extent to which race distributes people into social-class positions in the

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first place. In addition, whether or not the black middle class is growing depends on how “social class” is defined and the criteria used to delineate social classes. Research published subsequent to The Declining Significance of Race brought this claim (of the advancement of the black middle class in the private sector) into question. In other words, while gains have been made, they must be qualified in a variety of contexts. In this context, and based on a review of more than 400 refereed studies that addressed one or more aspects of Wilson’s work, I concluded that Wilson108 was broadly correct in arguing that social class had become more important, and race had become less important, in determining black lifechances in the modern industrial period. Research findings are consistent generally with Wilson’s 109 claim that the acquisition of human capital assets will facilitate the assimilation of blacks. However, the acquisition of human capital assets is a necessary but insufficient condition to move blacks closer to equality with whites. The reality of black life-chances is complicated. For example, Wilson110 underestimated the extent to which corporations today continue to discriminate (albeit in subtle ways) across the black social-class structure, not just against the black lower class and underclass. Joseph Scott111 argued that Wilson in The Declining Significance of Race relied on human capital arguments to explain the relative underachievement of blacks and that in fact institutional practices by corporations are a better explanator. Therefore, it is inappropriate to make blanket statements about the progressiveness of the corporate sector in offering the black middle class “unprecedented opportunities,” as Wilson112 claimed. In The Declining Significance of Race, Wilson lumped white-collar employment in the monopoly and state sectors together, as opposed to comparing and contrasting them for differences in earnings levels, job stability, and career advancement. The literature has conclusively established that the state sector is of profound importance for black socioeconomic advancement—through legislation and its own employment practices. As Wilson113 acknowledged, the expansion of the state sector and the concomitant growth of black employment in the state sector have been major factors in the rise of the “new” black middle class. However, it is important to note that state and local governments combined employ a much larger proportion of blacks than does the federal government. Their methods of compensation can be distinct and susceptible to the vagaries of local markets and political allegiances. The fact that blacks in the modern industrial period have fared better in the state sector than in the private sector lends indirect support to structuralist claims: although the state is constrained by the logic and contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, it is a relatively autonomous structure with a logic and interests of its own not necessarily equivalent to,

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or fused with, the interests of other labor markets. In addition, the separation of functions among different levels of the state affects the internal structure of each level, ensures its relative autonomy in relation to other levels, and shapes its responses to racial inequality. Wilson114 did not provide the epistemological foundation on which the claim can be made that historical discrimination is more important than contemporary discrimination in accounting for the worsening plight of the black ghetto poor; neither did he explain how the effects of one can be distinguished from the effects of the other. This distinction appears to ride on the belief that, effectively, discriminatory barriers were removed by the state—a claim many sociologists dispute. Still, Wilson115 argued that it is possible to recognize the importance of macrostructural forces, avoid the extreme conclusions derived from an uncritical acceptance of the so-called culture of poverty, and still see the merits of cultural analysis for explaining ghetto-specific behaviors. He posited a link between structural positioning (e.g., the degree of access to labor markets) and various cultural attributes; in other words, structural disadvantages precede rather than follow from a particular set of values, attitudes, and behaviors. Wilson’s point was that scholars, policymakers, and black leaders tend to view developments in the black community primarily in racial or culture of poverty terms and that this does little to clarify the problem. Wilson116 returned to the academic forefront the deteriorating plight of the black ghetto poor; liberals, in an attempt to avoid blaming the victim, evidenced a failure of nerve. In The Truly Disadvantaged, Wilson attributed this abdication to the controversies that followed Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s117 government report on the black family. Wilson claimed that Moynihan had been criticized unfairly—a debatable point because Wilson glossed over problematic aspects of the report. Nevertheless, following publication of the report, liberals were intimidated, and serious academic research and discussion were suppressed as white sociologists abandoned the study of poverty in response to the controversies that ensued.118 The term “underclass” acquired pejorative implications, especially in the context of alleged cultural deficiencies.119 Today, academic and popular discourses evidence disagreements over the appropriate definition, defining characteristics, and explanation of the underclass in the United States. These are reflected in the debates over what criteria are necessary to claim a separate class, who belongs to the underclass, how homogenous it is, where it is located, what it encompasses, why it exists, and whether or not it is growing. The most fundamental question is whether or not the observed (i.e., deviant) behaviors in the underclass should be viewed as cause or consequence.120 Although the underclass concept is used widely in academic and popular discourses, it rests on questionable assumptions and operationalizations. The ambiguous criteria that denote underclass mem-

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

bership vary according to political perspective and often devolve into a process of blaming the victim. The concept is popular in some circles because it affirms philosophies of individualism and certain racial and social-class prejudices. It also facilitates “flattery by comparison.”121 The underclass concept places a disproportionate emphasis on the socalled culture of poverty and its associated dysfunctional behaviors (reflected in a “tangle of pathology”); it “naturalizes” culture as an independent variable that undermines initiative and fetters upward mobility.122 Typically, race, class, and culture are conflated, obscuring the explanatory weight each should be accorded and the complex interrelationships between them. This allows theorists to single out whichever factors suit them to claim causality and also results in the minimization of structuration issues.123 The use of the concept, especially in popular discourse, reflects ethnocentrism. For example, dependency on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) is interpreted as sloth, whereas dependency on defense contracts is interpreted as patriotic service.124 The behaviors attributed to the underclass exist throughout the U.S. social-class structure (as Wilson acknowledged to some extent in When Work Disappears), including a weak commitment to education, presenttime orientation, lack of a work ethic, underachievement, an inability to defer gratification, irresponsibility, alcohol and drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, illegitimacy, family breakup, and a propensity to commit crime. An underclass argument that is based, in part, on long-term unemployment, declining marriage rates, and criminality is problematic, for none of these conditions are unique to the underclass. As Adolph Reed125 observed, some percentage of all Americans engage in behaviors associated typically with the underclass. If these behaviors exist across racial and social-class lines, then it is not reasonable to claim that they are the most important variables that reproduce poverty. In other words, on these grounds alone, the assumption that poor people are attitudinally or behaviorally different from the rest of the population must be rejected. Some proponents of the underclass concept, particularly neoconservatives, have loaded it with “stereotypical baggage.”126 They identify what they view as the most pathological members of a targeted group, such as the black inner-city poor (including unwed mothers, prostitutes, drug addicts, and gang members), aggregate their behaviors into an underclass culture, and ignore those members who attempt to lead normal lives. This culture, in turn, is blamed on an expanding welfare state that allegedly rewards such behaviors; therefore, it is linked to welfare dependency.127 Despite a lack of high-quality comparative research to verify claims, the behavioral characteristics that constitute this culture are considered more severe among the black poor than among the white poor.128 In neoconserva-

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tive views, members of the underclass cease to be responsible adults as a consequence of cultural deficiencies that undermine participation in the labor force. Broader social and structural forces, from the sexual and drug revolutions to the rapid transformation and commodification of the U.S. economy, are ignored as important variables in the formation of the underclass.129 Equating the underclass concept with the black ghetto implies that the underclass represents a racial formation and that race (but not racism in neoconservative views) is a necessary condition for the emergence of the underclass.130 The logical and empirical inadequacies in this view are obvious. Ironically, these claims have discouraged comparative research and encouraged the rehabilitation of racial views long discredited—for example, evident in the endnotes to Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve.131 Research in sociology and other academic fields appears to be primarily descriptive, focusing on developing or refining lists of underclass characteristics and on estimating its size and pervasiveness.132 This leaves unanswered questions. For example, is the emergence of the socalled underclass a uniquely U.S. (indeed, regional) phenomenon? Barbara Heisler133 suggested that processes of deindustrialization and disinvestment may have a greater impact in the United States than in other advanced capitalist countries because of the limited development of the U.S. welfare state and the relative powerlessness of the working and lower classes to control the consequences. In contrast to European countries, U.S. social citizenship rights are more restricted, less developed, and structured to stigmatize the lower classes. On the problematic of comparative analyses of the underclass, Cyprien Avenel134 argued that the concept of the underclass is too narrow to capture the reality of the French ghettos; and Heisler135 argued the same for the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands. Fred Robinson and Nicky Gregson136 cautioned against indiscriminate applications of the concept, recognizing its troubled roots and lack of analytical power. If the underclass represents a new social formation in which culture is a dependent variable, what type of social formation is it, and what are the characteristics of the boundary that separates it from the lower class? Is the underclass at the bottom of, or outside of, the U.S. social-class structure? The underclass concept lacks analytical rigor, the boundaries that separate the underclass from other classes lack appropriate specification, and the category itself appears internally and externally inconsistent; it is used as a “catch-all,” 137 sometimes for political purposes that aren’t made clear. Operationalizing the concept of the underclass and defining degrees of poverty regionally pose severe methodological difficulties. In short, the size and composition of the underclass depend on the definition used.138

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Most sociologists agree that the restructuring of basic industries has contributed to the growth of the underclass; however, its level of impact in different contexts has not been established.139 Wilson asserted that the underclass exists mainly because of structural changes in the U.S. economy, spatial concentration, and social isolation. Wilson did not advocate abandoning the underclass concept. The debate surrounding the term has resulted in increasingly precise theoretical and empirical specifications. For Wilson, the problem was not the term “underclass” per se; rather, the problem was that neoconservatives focused almost exclusively on individual characteristics. Wilson noted that a ghetto underclass has emerged and that it exhibits the characteristics, including welfare dependency, anathema to some liberals and most conservatives. However, the interrelated set of phenomena captured by the term “underclass” is primarily social-structural and created through a process of hyperghettoization.140 Heisler141 defined “the underclass” in terms of the processes of social and political dislocation and separation produced by the intersection of the inequalities of social class and substantial deficits in citizenship rights (a problem that Wilson did not address). Therefore, the underclass is associated with structural barriers, spatial segregation, and economic marginality or superfluousness. Boundaries are reinforced by the specific institutional structures in which citizenship rights are embedded, including the local state whose importance Wilson minimized in the separation of the economic sector from the sociopolitical order. Race adds salience to, but is not necessary to, this process.142 The term “underclass” implies a social-class position; however, Heisler143 argued that it might be more appropriate to locate the underclass outside the social-class structure and call it a “category.” Regardless, Wilson’s144 use of the term “social pathology” should not be understood in the usual conservative sense. Wilson highlighted problems that derive from joblessness and poverty in the ghetto, including sexual exploitation,145 teenage pregnancy, family breakup, crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, and other self-destructive behaviors; however, the source of these behaviors is structural inequality. Ghetto-specific culture (not to be equated with a culture of poverty) is a response to structural constraints and limited opportunities. Sara McLanahan and Irwin Garfinkel146 added that persistence across generations of weak labor force attachment is a necessary condition for establishing the existence of an underclass. For example, nonemployment and welfare dependency alone do not constitute sufficient grounds for classifying single mothers as part of the underclass, because these women are socially productive; that is, they are taking care of children. In addition, only a small proportion of female-headed families live in extremely poor—or underclass—neighborhoods. I do not agree with the critics who argued that Wilson, by focusing on

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the social pathologies of the truly disadvantaged, played into the hands of neoconservatives.147 Wilson148 devoted considerable space to empirically refuting the basic propositions of neoconservative views on the underclass. Indeed, he had a vested interest in doing so because those views provide an ideological justification for a minimalist state, which stands in contradistinction to Wilson’s149 social interventionist (i.e., liberal) state. However, Wilson also argued that liberals are committing a disservice by avoiding the obvious: social pathologies exist and must be addressed.150 Nevertheless, Wilson’s work may be encouraging a disproportionate emphasis on the problems of the black ghetto poor at the expense of other needed work in the sociology of race relations, including conceptual work in the sociology of knowledge that examines the construction of the language of race relations itself. Although Wilson in The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears refuted on substantial empirical grounds neoconservative accounts of the formation of the underclass, Robert Newby151 argued that The Truly Disadvantaged represented a “retreat” from Wilson’s “more progressive” position in The Declining Significance of Race. Newby was mystified by Wilson’s use of language that evoked an older sociology of social disorganization and associated pathologies. To isolate the black underclass and, in effect, make it distinctive obscures the role of the political economy (as well as the state) in structuring not only their condition but the conditions of other impoverished populations as well, including Native Americans who evidence similar characteristics in states such as South Dakota. Wilson’s discussion of the truly disadvantaged as an urban phenomenon disconnected it “intellectually and politically” from poverty in rural America.152 Black employment problems are common in rural areas, where as many as 40 percent of blacks are unemployed, cannot find fulltime jobs, or earn substandard wages. On average, employment problems among rural blacks continue to exceed that of blacks elsewhere. According to Daniel Lichter,153 racial inequality in rural “employment adequacy” was substantial in the 1980s and cannot be explained away by black deficits in human capital assets or by the disproportionate concentration of blacks in declining industries. Recently, David Goldberg154 suggested that the concept of the “racially marginalized” should be substituted for the concept of the underclass on the following grounds: it (1) locates one’s position in the social-class structure; (2) recognizes the fact that poor whites are less likely than poor blacks to live in spatially isolated ghettos; (3) distinguishes between those who are “racialized” but nonmarginal from those who are racialized and marginal; and (4) shifts analysis from character traits to processes of structural dislocation and spatial isolation. According to Goldberg,155 the concept of the racially marginalized captures the intersection of race and social class that

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“multiplies the depth of structural dislocation.” A justification exists for this claim. In contrast to poor blacks, poor whites are more likely to live in diverse neighborhoods that have a “mainstream presence.” Because of this difference, poor whites have access to resources that may obviate some of the consequences of the extreme poverty found in some black neighborhoods. However, the structural factors that hinder black socioeconomic mobility may also hinder white socioeconomic mobility.156 Wilson157 responded to critics by saying that members of the underclass display distinct behavioral characteristics; however, these characteristics are not the defining characteristics of the underclass or of the boundaries that separate it from the rest of society. They are the consequence of structural changes that have created a concentration effect; that is, the most disadvantaged segments of the urban black population are spatially and socially isolated. Wilson’s position was closer to an argument that the underclass is the result of a process of substructuration, wherein a social category comes to be located below or perhaps outside the existing structures that create social inequality. The underclass, then, is a phenomenon of advanced capitalist society.158 It represents a new and distinct social category created by historical discrimination and by recent structural and policy changes in the United States. Joblessness is the pivotal factor in the nexus of pathologies that emerges in the black ghetto, brought about by structural changes in the economy and the out-migration of nonpoor black families. Nevertheless, Wilson’s failure to examine patterns of private investment decisions and state actions in the process of hyperghettoization confined an understanding of the underclass “within rigid limitations.”159 Wilson’s thesis on the underclass subsumed a set of causal mechanisms that linked disadvantaged neighborhoods to undesirable behavioral outcomes. These mechanisms included the role of peer influence; the effects of the presence, or absence, of successful adult role models in the immediate neighborhood; and the effects of adults from outside the community, such as teachers and police officers, on the behavior of children and young adults. Basically, the presence of disadvantaged neighbors increases the likelihood that children and young adults will engage in nonnormative or otherwise undesirable behaviors, such as dropping out of school, committing crimes, eschewing marriage, and bearing children out of wedlock. The presence of working- and middle-class families provides a social buffer that moderates the impact of high unemployment and poverty among the inner-city poor. Their absence isolates poor families, thereby exacerbating the problematic behaviors associated with social dislocations.160 Because these residents do not interact on a sustained basis with steadily employed persons from stable families, they rarely inculcate norms conducive to employment and family stability. Family instability, out-of-wedlock childbearing, long-term joblessness, and a reliance on public assistance become

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a permanent way of life. In neighborhoods where few, if any, residents have achieved success, the social environment will encourage fatalism and hopelessness.161 However, Wilson162 did not explain adequately why blacks are overrepresented in the underclass, or why geographical mobility should concentrate poverty among blacks but not among other groups. Industrial restructuring and the exodus of working- and middle-class blacks from poor neighborhoods are insufficient to explain the concentrated (and extreme) poverty left in their wake. Class-selective patterns of out-migration from the ghetto seem to have little to do with the accumulation of poverty in black neighborhoods per se. What made the urban underclass during the 1970s a disproportionately black underclass are the processes that promote residential segregation.163 Massey and his colleagues164 disagreed with the hypothesis that the black underclass was brought about in large part by the exodus of middle-class blacks from the ghetto. The extent of out-migration has been exaggerated. Even if out-migration is combined with industrial restructuring, these variables together are insufficient to account for the rising concentration of urban black poverty. Because many of the variables that predict life-chances are spatially determined, barriers to spatial mobility—reflected in access to education, employment, health care, and public safety services—are barriers to socioeconomic mobility. Stated more formally, ecological factors such as segregation mediate the socioeconomic status attainment process among blacks. In downplaying the significance of residential segregation and the structural processes that maintain it, Wilson (unintentionally, I think) directed attention away from discriminatory practices to the cultural deficiencies of a segment of the black population itself. It is a short step to assuming that this segment possesses integration-preventing characteristics that cause its problems; in other words, it is a short step to blaming the victim. I believe that Wilson165 minimized the significance of gatekeeping in the banking, finance, and real estate industries as a consequence of the epistemologically problematic separation between the economic sector and the sociopolitical order. Wilson did not justify the separation of the economic sector from the sociopolitical order in the determination of black life-chances. The validity of the thesis of the declining significance of race hinges on the acceptability of doing so. However, dividing the world into an economic sector and a sociopolitical order on the matter of the declining significance of race is an arbitrary and difficult to justify exercise. Race relations and their manifestations are too ubiquitous to be confined within spheres. The effective exclusion of blacks from politics allowed whites to institutionalize racial segregation through zoning ordinances, restrictive covenants, redlining (denying mortgages or home improvement loans in certain neighborhoods), and other mechanisms. In alternative theoretical

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formulations, racial segregation plays a crucial role in limiting black lifechances. Wilson’s166 recent observations about the cumulative negative effects of race raise questions about his original attempt to separate the economic sector from the sociopolitical order as the critical determinant of black life-chances. In The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, he implied that the sociopolitical order indeed has an impact on educational, occupational, and income opportunities—for example, reflected in the complex dynamics that have led to deteriorating schools in poor, predominantly black, neighborhoods. However, Wilson did not evaluate these observations in the context of the body of his work.

Wilson and the State Although some authors167 challenged Wilson’s168 benign view of the state in the modern industrial period, he laid the groundwork for an argument that structural theories of the state can serve as a focal point for conceptually enriching the U.S. sociology of race relations. Particularly, Wilson countered (at least initially) the liberal assumption that the state is a neutral arbiter in racial conflict. The Declining Significance of Race was rare in that it overtly acknowledged the state and its role in structuring race relations, that is, variations in race relations not explained by economic competition. However, his explication of the basis of political power was brief and did not contain a formal theory of the state; neither did it recognize the extent to which the state’s autonomy is constrained by structural imperatives. Wilson’s approach was not—and is not—state-centered. To date, Wilson has not put forth a clearly articulated and epistemologically coherent conception of the state and its relationship to racial inequality. In Wilson’s169 sociology of race relations, the domain assumptions that define the relationship of the state to racial inequality are quintessentially liberal in character in the modern industrial period. These assumptions fail to adequately capture the complexity of this relationship. Wilson’s170 discussion in chapter 2 of The Declining Significance of Race implied an instrumentalist conception of the state in the preindustrial period—for example, the slaveholders’ domination of Southern politics provided the foundation for their strong influence on national politics. However, the use (however implicit) of the Weberian concept of relative autonomy to characterize the state in the industrial and modern industrial periods implied that the state profoundly changed. Other than the use of selective historical examples, Wilson171 provided no evidence for the controversial claim that in the industrial and modern industrial periods the state became increasingly autonomous from active control by a capitalist class and, by virtue of its actions, shifted racial antagonisms from the economic

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sector to the sociopolitical order. Indeed, other than to refer to political changes in the government that he did not identify, he offered no theory of the state that could account for this change. An unabashedly instrumentalist, or orthodox Marxist, view of the state in the preindustrial period gave way to more ambiguous views in the industrial and modern industrial periods. None of these views appeared to be grounded in a fundamental understanding of the foundations of the capitalist state, specifically how the state evolves in relation to the articulation of different modes of production or to the transition from one mode of production to another. This epistemological failure resulted in the absence of a coherent conception of the nature, structures, and functions of the capitalist state. In effect, this oversight denied what Theda Skocpol172 called the “inherent historicity of sociopolitical structures.” Any account of the state requires explication of domain assumptions, theoretical postulates, and political implications. To date, Wilson has not done this. In The Declining Significance of Race, he did not identify the broad limits of state actions in each of the three periods of race relations or explain why these limits exist. Wilson reflected an absence (with some exceptions) of theorizing about the state in the sociology of race relations generally. Instrumentalist and pluralist views of the state are constructed on different and contradictory assumptions. To draw from one tradition, and then another, is to invite epistemological incoherence. These issues are important: if the state is the cohesive factor in the social formation, then it follows that the state is the nodal point for racial change.173 I will argue that the state itself must be understood in order to put forth feasible policies to redress racial inequities. In other words, proposing policies is academic unless the processes of, and structural constraints on, the state are understood thoroughly.174 Neither Wilson nor theories of the state generally have adequately explained intrastate and interstate variation in policy formulation and implementation because they have focused on the most general (i.e., federal) level of the state. With some exceptions, they have ignored the characteristics of local apparatuses such as city councils and school boards. Local apparatuses—constrained by local social-class structures—have a partial autonomy from state and federal governments. This fragmentation is an important determinant of racial inequities at the local level. Statements in When Work Disappears and The Bridge Over the Racial Divide contradicted Wilson’s claim in The Declining Significance of Race that the main determinants of black life-chances in the modern industrial period are confined to the economic sector. This problem resulted in part because Wilson discussed the federal government as if state and local governments were not integrally related to it. When Wilson175 claimed that state intervention in the modern industrial period promoted racial equality,

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his analysis was limited to federal legislation and excluded state and local decisions on social welfare, criminal justice, urban planning and zoning, and housing. Wilson’s case would have been much harder to make if state and local governments were included. In fact, state activities at all levels continue to structure, albeit indirectly, the life-chances of a substantial segment of the black community. In major respects, Wilson176 subscribed to class mobilization arguments. These arguments differ from structuralist accounts in that they emphasize social classes as the main agents of change; the balance of class power determines distributional outcomes. The Bridge Over the Racial Divide substituted political coalitions for the social classes of The Declining Significance of Race. To emphasize class mobilization is not a flaw per se. However, Wilson did not address two issues. First, how do the often contradictory interests of social classes or political coalitions evolve into concrete policies? It is one matter to propose policies; it is another matter to formulate and implement them. In addition, the relative autonomy of the state at various levels makes it possible in principle to serve interests that are antagonistic to the active parties. Second, are social-class interests analytically distinct from situationally bound or local interests? If so, how does one separate them? Social-class interests require a degree of rationality “cleansed of situational and particular coincidences and divergences.”177 In the arbitrary separation of the economic sector from the sociopolitical order, Wilson slighted throughout his work the issue of how economic power is translated into political power. No reform movement can take place without a theory of the nature of the state. In order to assess the contradictory ways by which state apparatuses and structures reproduce or undermine domination, it is necessary to analyze who within various state apparatuses controls the policy formulation and implementation process. The efficacy of specific policies, as well as other forms of intervention, will vary not only with changes in the economic structure but also with changes in the balance of political forces. What is required, then, is a thorough study of the policy formulation and implementation process in the context of an empirically justifiable theory of the state. *

*

*

Wilson has placed himself at the forefront of a process of constrained social change controlled by professionals on a value basis that—more often than not—is taken for granted rather than examined critically.178 To my knowledge, Wilson has not identified the extrasociological considerations that are animating this quest. Early in his career, Wilson179 revealed his pragmatic view of policy formulation and implementation, reflected later in his call for universal programs taking priority over race-specific or targeted pro-

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grams in addressing the problems of the inner-city poor. Essentially, demands are more likely to be satisfied if they are consistent with the values the state is pledged to uphold. However, Wilson’s180 policy recommendations differ little from what has been proposed before; they are consistent with assimilation as a paradigmatic perspective. He has avoided radical recommendations, including popular control of the investment priorities of major corporations. Wilson’s policy recommendations do not transcend what Karl Mannheim called “the sphere of activity of the official [that] exists only within the limits of laws already formulated.”181 Not surprisingly, then, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide had little to say on how the capitalist state sets parameters on the political capabilities of various groups to effect social change. Implicit in Wilson’s policy recommendations is a view that small reforms intended to reduce disparities between the races may prompt larger structural changes. Belatedly, Wilson182 argued for an unspecified program to address racially based residential segregation, beginning with the curtailment of exclusionary zoning practices and including aggressive enforcement of existing fair housing provisions. (Again, Wilson did not explain why an autonomous state drags its feet, since the Federal Housing Administration [FHA] must be considered an administrative arm of the state.) Policies to solve the socioeconomic problems of blacks will fail unless they are accompanied by mechanisms that effectively redress the disadvantages caused by racial discrimination in the housing market. It is apparent that Wilson183 retreated from the more controversial claims made in The Declining Significance of Race, acknowledging perhaps in response to critics a continuing significance of race. However, much ambiguity remains about the meaning and significance of race in this context. In The Declining Significance of Race, Wilson grounded racial antagonisms almost exclusively in material factors, ignoring superstructural factors such as the role of ideology. Consequently, social psychologists criticized Wilson on the grounds that his account in The Declining Significance of Race was “deterministic”; that is, it failed to link the mediating ideas through which people understand the world to the reproduction of, and challenge to, prevailing political economic and racial relations. In The Declining Significance of Race, ideology was viewed as a problem of the sociopolitical order; by definition, then, it was relegated to secondary consideration. An understanding of the role of ideology is essential for explaining the opposition to redistributive policies in the United States. Studies show that whites, on the whole, explain socioeconomic status attainment outcomes as a function of personal characteristics. The inability to see the world in structural terms shapes perceptions about the extent and causes of, as well as the appropriate solutions for, racial inequality. Prejudices and other “aversive attitudes” 184 support discriminatory housing practices;

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Race, Class, and the State in Contemporary Sociology

however, so do non–racially specific beliefs, such as the ideology of local autonomy and control rooted in the antistatist inclinations of U.S. populism. This ideology embodies democratic principles, on the one hand, and opposition to redistributive policies—for example, expressed in school enrollment options and public housing programs—on the other. Therefore, opposition to affirmative action and other race-targeted programs is not entirely a matter of racial affect. Wilson bears some responsibility for the controversies generated by his work185 by failing to address many of the issues identified above. However, in contradistinction to some of his critics, Wilson has a deeper understanding of which policies to redress racial inequities will appeal to a majority of Americans and thus be politically sustainable. Nevertheless, this understanding does not solve a conundrum that has plagued U.S. liberalism for years: The structural dynamics of advanced capitalism have played a crucial role in the emergence of the black underclass; however, the programmatic recommendations of many leaders—both black and white—treat capitalism as a “sacred cow.”186 In a review of The Declining Significance of Race, Richard Thomas187 argued that Wilson was not totally correct; however, he was “far more correct and on target than many liberal scholars, leaders, and policy makers, who cannot bring themselves to conceptualize social problems in any other way but in racial terms.” If The Bridge Over the Racial Divide is an indication, today Wilson appears unwilling to leave the confines of U.S. liberalism to pursue the more radical implications of The Declining Significance of Race. For example, Wilson challenged, but apparently has not abandoned, the liberal assumption that the state is a neutral arbiter in racial conflict. He qualified, but has not rejected, a Myrdalian-influenced faith in the system. Without a doubt, race relations in the modern industrial period are more subtle, complex, and ostensibly nonracial than earlier forms. However, it appears that Wilson has left it to others to come to terms with these new relations. Chapter 2 identifies the challenges they face.

Notes 1. Leggon, “Theoretical Perspectives on Race and Ethnic Relations,” 2. 2. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 48. Italics in original. 3. Spencer, “The Imperfect Empiricism of the Social Sciences.” 4. Leggon, “Theoretical Perspectives on Race and Ethnic Relations,” 2. 5. Kinloch, “White Perspectives on Black Americans,” 320; Mendez, “Black Power and American Social Sciences”; Turner and Singleton, “A Theory of Ethnic Oppression,” 1001–1002; Stasiulis, “Pluralist and Marxist Perspectives on Racial Discrimination in South Africa,” 464. 6. Myrdal, An American Dilemma.

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7. Bulmer, “The Apotheosis of Liberalism?” 351; Hirschman, “America’s Melting Pot Reconsidered,” 400; Leggon, “Theoretical Perspectives on Race and Ethnic Relations,” 8–9; Medalia, “Myrdal’s Assumptions on Race Relations,” 224–226; Metzger, “American Sociology and Black Assimilation,” 633; Schaefer, “Racial Prejudice in the Capitalist State,” 192. 8. J. Horton, “Order and Conflict Models of Social Problems as Competing Ideologies,” 710–711; Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal and America’s Conscience, 186–230; cf. McKee, Sociology and the Race Problem, 222–254. 9. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 162. 10. McKee, Sociology and the Race Problem, 329, 340–341. 11. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 146; Stanfield, “Race Relations Research and Black Americans Between the Two World Wars,” 81. 12. Myrdal, An American Dilemma. 13. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 145–146. 14. Metzger, “American Sociology and Black Assimilation,” 641–642; McCarthy and Yancey, “Uncle Tom and Mr. Charlie”; cf. Moynihan, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. 15. Cf. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 70–71; Marable, “Beyond the Race-Class Dilemma,” 429. 16. M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life. 17. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 80, 91–92; Niemonen, “The Race Relations Problematic in American Sociology.” 18. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 93. 19. Hiltz, “Black and White in the Consumer Financial System.” 20. Niemonen, “The Race Relations Problematic in American Sociology.” 21. Metzger, “American Sociology and Black Assimilation”; Borhek, “Ethnic Group Cohesion.” 22. Maykovich, “Reciprocity in Racial Stereotypes”; Heiss and Owens, “SelfEvaluations of Blacks and Whites”; W. Ford, “Interracial Public Housing in a Border City”; Roof, “Religious Orthodoxy and Minority Prejudice.” 23. J. Robinson and Preston, “Equal-Status Contact and Modification of Racial Prejudice,” 912–913. 24. Cox, Caste, Class, and Race. 25. Leggon, “Theoretical Perspectives on Race and Ethnic Relations,” 10–11; Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 49. 26. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 152, 162. 27. Wolff, “The Sociology of Knowledge and Sociological Theory,” 580. 28. See Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World.” 29. Wolff, “The Sociology of Knowledge and Sociological Theory,” 580; Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World.” 30. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 136–137, 205–206. 31. H. Baron, “Racism Transformed”; Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 155, 172–173, 207; J. Horton, “Order and Conflict Models of Social Problems”; McKee, Sociology and the Race Problem, 338–339; Metzger, “American Sociology and Black Assimilation”; Prager, “American Political Culture and the Shifting Meaning of Race”; Schuman and Gruenberg, “The Impact of City on Racial Attitudes.” 32. Myrdal, An American Dilemma; Gleason, “Confusion Compounded,” 18; Wacker, “An American Dilemma,” 119; Washington, “The Civil Rights Movement After Three Decades,” 281–282. 33. Kinloch, “White Perspectives on Black Americans,” 320; Tabb,

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“Capitalism, Colonialism, and Racism,” 91; Turner and Singleton, “A Theory of Ethnic Oppression,” 1001–1002. 34. Blalock, “A Power Analysis of Racial Discrimination,” 53. 35. Bonacich, “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism”; Bonacich, “Abolition, the Extension of Slavery, and the Position of Free Blacks”; Bonacich, “Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Race Relations in the United States”; Bonacich, “The Past, Present, and Future of Split Labor Market Theory”; Bonacich, “Class Approaches to Ethnicity and Race”; Bonacich, “Capitalism and Race Relations in South Africa.” 36. W. Wilson, Power, Racism, and Privilege. 37. Ibid., 189–190, 192. On pages 11, 29–32, and 41, Wilson noted in passim the danger in conceptualizing racial groups as “homogeneous units in analyzing all areas of racial interaction.” 38. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 39. Blauner, “Internal Colonialism and Ghetto Revolt”; Blauner, Racial Oppression in America. 40. Laguerre, “Internal Dependency,” 37. 41. Cf. Bonacich, “The Past, Present, and Future of Split Labor Market Theory,” 41; González, “A Critique of the Internal Colony Model.” 42. D. J. Harris, “The Black Ghetto as Colony,” 6–7, 11; cf. D. J. Harris, “Capitalist Exploitation and Black Labor”; Bailey, “Economic Aspects of the Black Internal Colony.” 43. Tabb, “Marxian Exploitation and Domestic Colonialism,” 81; Tabb, “Capitalism, Colonialism, and Racism.” 44. Tabb, “Marxian Exploitation and Domestic Colonialism,” 81; Toll, “The Genie of ‘Race,’” 6; cf. Laguerre, “Internal Dependency,” 41. 45. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd ed., 46–47. 46. M. Smith, “Some Problems with Minority Concepts and a Solution,” 341; cf. Meyers, “Minority Group: An Ideological Formulation.” 47. O’Kane, “Ethnic Mobility and the Lower-Income Negro,” 308–309. 48. Ibid., 310–311. 49. Tabb, “Race Relations Models and Social Change,” 440–441. 50. Ibid., 442. Italics in original. 51. Wilson, Power, Racism, and Privilege, 60–61, 64, 192, 194–195. 52. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 53. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race,” 56; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 3, 12. 54. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race,” 57. 55. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 4–9. 56. Cox, Caste, Class, and Race. 57. Baran and Sweezy, Monopoly Capital. 58. Bonacich, “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism”; Bonacich, “Abolition, the Extension of Slavery, and the Position of Free Blacks”; Bonacich, “Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Race Relations in the United States”; Bonacich, “The Past, Present, and Future of Split Labor Market Theory”; Bonacich, “Class Approaches to Ethnicity and Race.” 59. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race,” 60; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 60, 83. Italics added. 60. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race,” 61; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 150–151; Wilson, “The Black Community in the 1980s,” 36.

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61. Wilson, Power, Racism, and Privilege; Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 62. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 63. Ibid. 64. Wilson, “The Black Community in the 1980s,” 36; Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race,” 56; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 1. 65. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 15–16, 106. 66. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race,” 61; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 99, 151–152. 67. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, “Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race,” 541, 543. 68. Wilson, “Race, Class, and Public Policy,” 130. 69. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race,” 61–62; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 111, 116, 121, 150, 153. 70. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 23, 98–99. 71. Oliver, “Review Essay: The Enduring Significance of Race.” 72. Ibid. 73. Leiman, “The Political Economy of Racism,” 83. 74. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 210–211. 75. Ibid. 76. E.g., W. Williams, “Race and Economics,” 148; Newby, “Problems of Pragmatism in Public Policy,” 124. 77. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 78. Prager, “American Political Culture and the Shifting Meaning of Race,” 75; Solomos and Back, Racism and Society, 64; cf. Cox, Caste, Class, and Race. 79. Kiser and Hechter, “The Role of General Theory in Comparative-historical Sociology,” 10–11. 80. Ibid. 81. M. Thomas, “Race, Class, and Personal Income,” 328. 82. Edwards, “Camouflaging the Color Line”; Marable, “Review [of The Declining Significance of Race].” 83. Wilson, “Race, Class, and Public Policy,” 130. 84. M. Thomas and Hughes, “The Continuing Significance of Race,” 839. 85. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, “Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race,” 542. 86. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears; Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 87. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 47–48, 94–95, 100; Niemonen, “The Race Relations Problematic in American Sociology.” 88. See Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity; McKee, Sociology and the Race Problem; Metzger, “American Sociology and Black Assimilation.” 89. M. Gordon, “Assimilation in America”; M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life. 90. Metzger, “American Sociology and Black Assimilation.” 91. Specifically, the American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Problems, and The Sociological Quarterly. 92. However, a resurgence is evident in other journals such as The American Scholar; The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology; Sociology; a vari-

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ety of Canadian multidisciplinary journals (e.g., Canadian Ethnic Studies); Ethnic and Racial Studies; Ethnicity; Humanity and Society; International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society; Journal of Black Studies; and Social Justice. 93. R. Cohen, Culture of Intolerance; R. Payne, Getting Beyond Race. 94. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 95. Banton, “1960: A Turning Point in the Study of Race Relations,” 37–38. 96. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 97. Ibid. 98. Ibid. 99. Wright, “Race, Class, and Income Inequality,” 1394–1395. 100. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 101. C. Payne, “On the Declining—and Increasing—Significance of Race,” 117, 119. 102. Wilson, Power, Racism, and Privilege; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 103. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 104. Ibid. 105. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race,” 56; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 88, 121. 106. Webster, The Racialization of America, 170. 107. Boston, “Racial Inequality and Class Stratification”; Boston, Race, Class, and Conservatism. 108. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 109. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 110. Ibid.; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 111. Scott, “1984: The Public and Private Governance of Race Relations,” 184. 112. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 113. Ibid. 114. Ibid.; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 115. Ibid.; Wilson, “The Plight of the Inner-City Black Male,” 320–325; Wilson, “Toward a Broader Vision of Inner-City Poverty.” 116. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, “A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged,” 136; Wilson, “The Plight of the Inner-City Black Male”; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 117. Moynihan, The Negro Family. 118. McLaughlin, “Beyond ‘Race vs. Class’”; Patterson, The Ordeal of Integration, 79–80. 119. Wilson, “Studying Inner-City Dislocations,” 4–5. 120. Herpin, “The Urban Underclass According to American Sociologists”; Morris, Dangerous Classes; Muzzio, “The Urban Basement Revisited.” 121. Reed, “The Underclass as Myth and Symbol.” 122. Ibid., 27. 123. Steinberg, “The Underclass: A Case of Color Blindness.” 124. Reed, “The Underclass as Myth and Symbol,” 32–33. 125. Ibid., 37. 126. Beverly and Stanback, “The Black Underclass,” 24. For historical background to, and critiques of, conservative accounts of the underclass, see Battle and Bennett, “African-American Families and the Legacy of the Moynihan Report”; Gilbert, “The Size and Influence of the Underclass,” 43–45; Wacquant, “Decivilization and Demonization.”

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127. Beverly and Stanback, “The Black Underclass,” 24; Covington, “Racial Classifications in Criminology,” 565; Heisler, “A Comparative Perspective on the Underclass,” 463; Singh, “The Underclass in the United States,” 509–510. 128. Heisler, “A Comparative Perspective on the Underclass,” 455, 464. 129. Covington, “Racial Classifications in Criminology,” 566; cf. Jones and Luo, “The Culture of Poverty and African-American Culture.” 130. Heisler, “A Comparative Perspective on the Underclass,” 456. 131. Herrnstein and Murray, The Bell Curve. 132. Heisler, “A Comparative Perspective on the Underclass,” 455, 473. For a “Mertonian functional analysis” explaining why behavioral definitions of the underclass persist, see Gans, “Positive Functions of the Undeserving Poor.” 133. Heisler, “A Comparative Perspective on the Underclass,” 468–469. 134. Avenel, “The Underclass Question on Both Sides of the Atlantic.” 135. Heisler, “Housing Policy and the Underclass.” 136. F. Robinson and Gregson, “The ‘Underclass’: A Class Apart.” 137. Heisler, “A Comparative Perspective on the Underclass,” 455, 457, 461. 138. Billingsley, “The Sociology of Knowledge of William J. Wilson”; Rolison, “An Exploration of the Term Underclass as It Relates to AfricanAmericans”; Singh, “The Underclass in the United States,” 507. 139. Singh, “The Underclass in the United States,” 512, 514. 140. Wilson, “Cycles of Deprivation and the Underclass Debate,” 545, 548–549; Wilson, “Studying Inner-City Dislocations,” 6; Wacquant and Wilson, “The Cost of Racial and Class Exclusion in the Inner City,” 9, 25. 141. Heisler, “A Comparative Perspective on the Underclass,” 475–476. 142. For a counter-argument, see Rolison, “An Exploration of the Term Underclass as It Relates to African-Americans.” Rolison claimed that race plays a critical role in underclass structuration on the grounds that very poor whites still have a higher probability of upward mobility than very poor blacks. 143. Heisler, “A Comparative Perspective on the Underclass.” 144. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 137; Wilson, “A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged,” 143–144. 145. Cf. Anderson, “Sex Codes and Family Life Among Poor Inner-City Youths.” 146. McLanahan and Garfinkel, “Single Mothers, the Underclass, and Social Policy,” 95, 98, 101. 147. Cf. G. Wilson and Royster, “Critiquing Wilson’s Critics.” 148. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 149. Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 150. Cf. McLaughlin, “Beyond ‘Race vs. Class.’” 151. Newby, “Problems of Pragmatism in Public Policy,” 127–128; cf. R. Wilson, “Anomie in the Ghetto,” 66. 152. Gomes and Fishman, “A Critique of The Truly Disadvantaged,” 79. 153. Lichter, “Race, Employment Hardship, and Inequality in the American Nonmetropolitan South.” 154. Goldberg, “Racial Knowledge,” 170. 155. Ibid. 156. Chaisson, “The Forgotten Many.” 157. Wilson, “The Underclass”; Wilson, “A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged.” 158. Heisler, “A Comparative Perspective on the Underclass,” 456, 466; cf. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, “Cycles of Deprivation and the Underclass Debate”; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, “The

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Underclass”; Wilson, “Studying Inner-City Dislocations”; Wilson, “The Plight of the Inner-City Black Male”; Wilson, When Work Disappears; Wilson, “When Work Disappears”; Wilson, “The Political Economy and Urban Racial Tensions”; Wacquant and Wilson, “The Cost of Racial and Class Exclusion in the Inner City.” The process of substructuration (or hyperghettoization) is discussed at length here. 159. Ginsburg, Race and Media, 12, 48. 160. South and Crowder, “Neighborhood Effects on Family Formation,” 114. 161. Ibid., 115–116. 162. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 163. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid. 164. Massey, “American Apartheid”; Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality”; Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 85. 165. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears; Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 166. Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 167. E.g., Marable, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America. 168. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 169. Wilson, Power, Racism, and Privilege; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears; Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 170. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 25–27, 40; cf. 60–61. 171. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race,” 57; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 172. Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In,” 28. 173. A. Bridges, “Nicos Poulantzas and the Marxist Theory of the State.” 174. In When Work Disappears, Wilson focused his attention on the social psychological attributes of attitude formation among whites as a constraint on policy formation. 175. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 176. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 177. Offe, “Structural Problems of the Capitalist State,” 33. 178. McKee, Sociology and the Race Problem, 348; cf. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 119. 179. Wilson, Power, Racism, and Privilege, 129, 198. 180. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears; Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 181. Quoted in J. Horton, “Order and Conflict Models of Social Problems as Competing Ideologies,” 711. 182. Wilson, “Toward a Broader Vision of Inner-City Poverty,” 199–200. 183. Ibid. 184. See “Ideology and Racial Stratification.” 185. McLaughlin, “Beyond ‘Race vs. Class.’” 186. R. Thomas, “Review [of The Declining Significance of Race],” 7. 187. Ibid., 8.

2 Studying Race and Class: Problems in Assessing Logical and Empirical Adequacy

The Reification of Race In sociology, the debate with Wilson has focused disproportionately on empirically testing the thesis of the declining significance of race,1 as well as hypotheses derived from The Truly Disadvantaged. This research has yielded important insights; however, the operational foundation on which it is constructed is questionable.2 Criticized extensively in British sociology,3 for the most part this foundation is taken for granted in U.S. sociology. In fact, much of its problematic is reproduced in the body of Wilson’s work. For example, by failing to explicitly explain the concept of race as a social construction, Wilson implicitly endorsed common-sense understandings of the social world. Designations such as race are deceptively simple and disguise the complex processes that create and sustain racial classification systems.4 Racial classifications overlap ethnic classifications, and both hide considerable diversity in national origins and group characteristics. As Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton5 observed, “It is clear that ‘Hispanics’ and ‘Asians’ [e.g.] do not really exist as a coherent minority group except in a weak sense; the census categories are convenient labels that have been externally imposed.” In The Declining Significance of Race, race was elevated to an ontological status equivalent to social class. As a consequence, differences between the races in the form of educational, occupational, and income attainments could be identified and trends assessed. However, the disregard for logical reasoning that is common in racial classification processes was not assessed.6 Apparently, U.S. sociology assumes that the problematic nature of racial classifications need not prevent relations from being racially identified and objectively studied. Indeed, the idea that race is a social construct,

49

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not a biological reality, is widely accepted in the biological and social sciences.7 In other words, if people define their relations as racial, then it follows that there is a racial reality to be studied. Race may be scientifically unacceptable; however, it is subjectively meaningful. Therefore, sociology has an obligation to understand the meaning of race from the perspective of social actors. This view is consistent with a Weberian perspective in which subjective states are investigated and related causally to social action. 8 However, what must be considered is the possibility that such studies themselves popularize racial classifications and racialize human experience.9 Robert Miles10 argued that race is an ideological category that requires explanation; therefore, it should not be used for either analytical or explanatory purposes. For example, in successive censuses before and after the annexation of Hawaii, different criteria were used to identify racial groups there. This practice raises questions about what factors, apart from the objective characteristics of the subpopulations themselves, shape official decisions as to who belongs where in racial classification systems. Particularly, frequent and complex genetic crosses have made it increasingly difficult to classify the Hawaiian population by objective criteria.11 In the body of his work, Wilson did not make clear whether he accepted, or rejected, the assumptions that (1) it is obvious whether one is black or white, or (2) identification racially of self and others is relatively constant across time.12 In other words, Wilson did not discuss the process of racial categorization, or racialization, that takes place within the context of specific economic, political, and ideological relations. The use of race as an analytical construct represented by a dummy variable disguises the social construction of difference;13 the underlying assumption is that race is somehow inherent in the empirical reality of observed or imagined biological differences. This practice encourages the common-sense, but tautological, notion that race is an objective determinant of the behavior of categories defined racially. In this context, race assumes (incorrectly) a transhistorical essence as opposed to a concrete social practice that can be grasped only in specific historical conjunctures.14 Miles15 argued that the concept of race should be deconstructed, not reified, in order to document the consequences of racialization as the capitalist system evolves over time. Race may be conceived as a political resource that is used by both dominant and subordinate groups for the purposes of legitimizing their social identities and furthering their interests.16 Therefore, the idea of race is neither fixed nor rigid. Its boundaries and meanings are flexible; they have become more complex and ambiguous over time, complicated by the growing numbers of multiracial individuals and families today.17 This claim has profound implications for race-based affirmative action programs reflected, for example, in who is entitled to a

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pool of finite resources (a problem that Wilson attempted to obviate in calling for universally based programs in When Work Disappears and The Bridge Over the Racial Divide). “The disjuncture between discrete, mutually exclusive racial categories and the potential ambiguity and blurriness of ‘racial’ boundaries in people’s experiences in the United States [came] to the fore in recent political struggles over the inclusion of a ‘mixed race’ category in the [2000] census.”18 Establishing the validity of racial categories in order to test the thesis of the declining significance of race is an impossible task. The large majority of the sociological studies published to date identifying educational, occupational, and income attainments by race did not provide a thorough analysis of the criteria used to classify persons by race. Neither did they provide the epistemological, ontological, or logical grounds on which these classifications are justifiable. The large majority of the studies borrowed U.S. census categories without evaluation or critique (a problem more apparent in early than in recent research); treated race as a dichotomous or multichotomous variable; ignored mixed race categories; and, in some cases, conflated race and ethnicity to the point that they became interchangeable concepts. Here immigrant status was equated implicitly with racial status.19 Webster20 claimed that to provide a thorough analysis of the criteria used to classify persons by race, or to provide the epistemological, ontological, or logical grounds on which these classifications are justifiable, would require a philosophical reconstruction of U.S. sociology as a discipline. In contrast, in most research race appears as a natural fact observable and quantifiable in the form of a dummy variable. In statistically significant relationships, race is presumed to have explanatory power. However, the articles in total published in the leading journals of sociology since 1970 or so do not make clear what race represents. In effect, reification transforms race into a self-evident reality that is hypothesized, or shown statistically, to affect various processes. Specifying the statistical contribution of race in multiple regression equations gives the appearance of explanation; however, we learn little about race relations per se because the conceptual language used in this experimental research is inadequate to the task.21 This use of race, as Miles22 observed, “disguises the fact that it is an idea created by human beings in certain historical and material conditions, and used to represent and structure the world in certain ways, under certain historical conditions and for certain political interests. The idea of ‘race’ is therefore essentially ideological.” If Miles is correct, then it is fair to say that quantitative work in the sociology of race relations perpetuates inadvertently racial classification systems that have no ontological status. The reification of skin color “mistakenly privileges one specific instance of signification”; it ignores evidence that other populations have been signified

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as distinct and inferior without reference to skin color.23 The concept of race implies that “being” is predominantly racial—an assumption that has not been demonstrated—and it emphasizes differences rather than similarities among people.24 A racial category is a social construction, that is, the product of the conscious activities of one or more of the respective groups. A racial category must by definition presuppose physical differences (i.e., phenotypical variations such as skin color) and the attribution of significance to such differences, whereas social class is a reality that can exist independently of a consciousness of social class. It follows logically that race-consciousness and social class–consciousness are not equivalent concepts. As a social construction, race presupposes the existence of a collective consciousness of physical differences, whereas social class, as a material fact, does not presuppose the existence of a consciousness of a definite mode of production, the forces that gave rise to it, or one’s objective place within it.25 Therefore, in principle race-consciousness can decline without a corresponding rise in social class–consciousness. Racialization is an ideological (visà-vis a material) process that locates certain populations in specific socialclass relations and, therefore, structures the exploitation of labor power in particular ways.26 As a consequence, racialization has “real independent effects.”27 As a process, it creates social-class fractions, such as the disproportionate representation of blacks in the competitive sector of the U.S. economy. They may resist by utilizing the concept of race as a focal point for building social movements.28 Although Wilson did not address these issues explicitly, The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears implicitly challenged the practice of racialization. Racialization imbues social phenomena with racial meanings. For example, as interest increased in studying differences in crime rates by race, the etiology of crime was racialized. Explanations offered to account for these differences carried implicit racial connotations, as in references to an alleged black subculture of violence rooted in a legacy of slavery. A similar process has not been applied generally to whites, with the exception of an alleged rural white subculture of violence found in the U.S. South.29 Wilson reasserted the importance of urban ecological and demographic variables in explaining crime and, in so doing, implied that black crime should be assessed in the same way as white crime, thus encouraging the deracialization of criminological theories. By shifting this focus, high crime rates no longer say something about “blackness” (i.e., race); rather, they point to the structural conditions that affect blacks disproportionately. In fact, when statistically controlled comparisons between blacks and whites are made, race differences in crime almost disappear; residuals can

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be accounted for by the different structural conditions that blacks face. As Wilson made clear, a disproportionate number of blacks live in neighborhoods that have a cluster of urban ecological and demographic characteristics that encourage crime.30 This argument is race-neutral to the extent that it assumes whites in the same circumstances would behave similarly. In general, criminologists have not formulated ground rules that define how large the difference has to be in crime rates by race “before the crime of black criminals requires the discovery of some uniquely black phenomenon.” 31 Neither have they made clear when racial motives to criminal behavior should be assigned and when they should not be assigned.

What Is Racism? From January 1969 through March 2001, none of the leading journals in U.S. sociology32 published any research on racism as a form of discourse and practice. In fact, in approximately 950 articles on racial and ethnic relations published during this period in this set of journals, racism as an analytical construct does not appear (although references to racism have appeared in Social Problems). 33 Wilson’s 34 use of the concept, which apparently he equated with terms such as “racial antagonism,” did little to clarify its meaning. The concept of racism is of recent origin35 and has not been studied systematically from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge. Ground rules for the appropriate use of the concept have not been developed, and the analytical value of the concept for empirical research has been questioned. 36 Depending on the critic, the concept has been defined too narrowly, too broadly, inconsistently, or taken for granted without justification. For example, some authors view it as a white phenomenon only; that is, racism is an ideological belief system constructed by whites and intended to sustain white superiority and oppress blacks.37 However, as Miles38 observed, a concept that is formulated by reference to a single historical example has a degree of specificity that seriously limits its analytical scope. In addition, this formulation ignores a variegated history of oppression; attributes to whites an “essence” that is not sustainable on ontological, logical, or empirical grounds; and carries unstated moral and political implications. Other authors argued that it is more appropriate to speak of racisms rather than racism. Racisms appear in multiple forms and result from a variety of social processes. These forms include doctrines, ideologies, cognitive processes derived from motives that may or may not be intentional, practices such as discrimination, consequences such as racial inequality, or any combination thereof.39 Little agreement exists on the appropriate scope

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of the concept; on whether or not the concept should be divorced from various institutional structures and practices and restricted to ideology; and on what forms of discrimination and inequality qualify as racism.40 Miles41 criticized the most inclusive definitions as lacking “discriminatory power.” He argued the case for limiting the use of the concept of racism to ideology on the assumption that a concept’s analytical value is determined by its ability to describe or explain societal processes. For example, “institutional racism” does not refer to exclusionary practices per se; rather, the term refers to the fact that a once-present discourse is now absent and that it justified or set in motion exclusionary practices that institutionalized that discourse. Therefore, a racial belief system is embodied in a set of practices. However, this warrants classification as institutional racism only when the so-called process of determinacy can be identified. Thus, in order to determine the presence, or otherwise, of institutional racism, one assesses not the consequences of actions but the history of discourse in order to demonstrate that “prior to the silence . . . a racist discourse was present.”42 Conceptually rich but difficult to operationalize, this definition challenges the quantitative orientation common in the U.S. sociological research literature on race relations. It also raises questions about the practicality of separating historical (or past) discrimination from contemporary discrimination. The definition itself is problematic, as Miles 43 acknowledged. For example, must a racist discourse be logically structured and systematic, deliberately created and reproduced; or can it consist of hidden assumptions, spurious relationships, and a loose—even contradictory—logical structure that may reproduce itself without conscious intention? How are racist discourses to be distinguished from other discourses such as classist, sexist, or nationalist? Do racist discourses have a transhistorical character, or are they undergoing transformation? How are exclusionary practices attributable to racist discourses separated empirically from exclusionary practices attributable to class or sex discourses?44 A recent tendency in sociology is to argue that racism is social-psychological in nature and that this form is difficult to study quantitatively. Philomena Essed45 provided an example of racism studied qualitatively: racism appears as unacknowledged negative feelings and beliefs on the part of whites toward blacks and is expressed in avoidance behaviors. Racism may manifest itself as a belief that blacks don’t subscribe to a secularized version of the Protestant ethic and as opposition to changes in the status quo. These views are stated more subtly than in the past to avoid sanctions.46 However, if racism is defined as a set of feelings or beliefs, almost any feeling or belief could be construed as racist. Therefore, charges of racism cannot be falsified. For example, to characterize some of Louis Farrakhan’s statements as racist may be interpreted as a white plot to dis-

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credit a black leader.47 This tendency creates the possibility of an infinite regression in interpreting data. How are feelings and beliefs that are deemed racist conceptually distinct from other feelings and beliefs? How much subjectivity is involved in assessing the effects of these feelings and beliefs on avoidance behaviors? Are these feelings and beliefs, as Robert Park48 claimed, simply “an elementary expression of conservatism” and “an instinctive and spontaneous disposition to maintain social distance?” As a concept, racism is value-laden, accusatory, and political. Discussions of racism are plagued by assertions and counterassertions; they show a disregard for rules of logic and empirical means of proof. Racism implies a condition that is morally reprehensible and in need of correction. It denotes what one is against as much as what one is for; thus, it is openly partisan and socially activist.49 In short, racism’s baggage compromises objectivity in positivist sociology.50 The race-relations articles that have been published in the leading sociology journals are written in a language that has been deracialized, perhaps in order to avoid accusations of partisanship from reviewers, editors, or readers. Therefore, in addition to the concept’s inherent difficulties, the normative structure of journal-article publishing itself may obviate use of the concept. Racism is not a priori a general feature of all human societies; it exists in historically specific forms.51 Racism represents a set of relations—a combination of ideologies, structures (e.g., apartheid and Jim Crow), and practices that are used to “legitimate, effectuate, and reproduce” an unequal division of power and resources both material and nonmaterial between groups on the basis of race.52 Racism also represents a form of discourse and practice that can be harnessed to different political projects, including nation-building and nationalism.53 Racist premises can be built upon in particular ways to further the interests of specific social classes reflected, for example, in the split labor market. However, according to Michael Omi and Howard Winant,54 a racial project can be defined as racist if and only if it creates or reproduces structures of domination based on the “essentialist categories of race.” Although racism cannot be reduced to other social relations such as social class, racism cannot be explained in abstraction from them. Racism has a relative autonomy from other relations, whether they are economic, political, or ideological. However, racism’s effects will be delimited by the “wider sets of capitalist social relations.”55 In contradistinction to Wilson in The Declining Significance of Race, locating racism as the product of various social-class interests at the level of production is inadequate because racism is not a necessary prerequisite for, even if it may facilitate, class exploitation. For example, racism may be an important construct in articulating the struggle for scarce resources.56 Stated differently, racism is not a “mere epiphenomenon,” legitimizing post hoc the placement of people in,

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and their confinement to, particular positions in the relations of production. Rather, it is a social construct arising from the economic and political structures and complex social relationships characteristic of capitalist societies. It actively structures competitive relations in a specific manner in order to bring about and reproduce a spatially segregated system of production on the basis of race.57 According to Miles, then, racialization and racism are not exclusive “products” of capitalism but have origins in European societies prior to the development of the capitalist mode of production and have a history of expression within social formations dominated by noncapitalist modes of production in articulation with the capitalist mode. In other words, it [racism] is an ideology with conditions of existence which are, at least in part, independent of the interests of the bourgeoisie, a class specific to the capitalist mode of production, and therefore specific to a certain period of history.58

Racism is a necessarily contradictory phenomenon. The expression of racism, and the subsequent structuring of political and economic relations, will have a variety of temporally specific consequences for all those implicated in the process; whether or not they are advantageous will depend upon social-class position and historical conjuncture.59 Wilson’s60 historical, if mechanistic, overview was consistent to some extent with Miles’s61 observations, expressed in the proposition that race relations change as structural relations between groups change. Nevertheless, in this context, Wilson contributed to, rather than clarified, the conceptual confusion that dogs the sociology of race relations. His interchangeable use of racial discrimination, racial antagonism, and racism failed to establish appropriate ground rules or to address the moralistic and pejorative implications of racism.62 In this context, it is premature to argue, as Wilson did, that racism’s explanatory value is marginal in accounting for the black underclass because it is not clear what racism is.

Confusion Compounded: The Multicultural Movement Whereas Wilson understood the importance of social-class struggle in the shaping of racial history, the multicultural movement apparently has not.63 John Higham argued that some multiculturalists do not acknowledge the concept of social class at all. Rhetorically, he asked, how could they ignore one of the “great structures of inequality,” thereby “unwittingly [defeating their] own egalitarian purpose?”64 It is not surprising, then, that a review of the citations in the multicultural literature reveals few, if any, references to Wilson. According to Higham,65 the danger is the creation of “absolutized

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racial differences” that obscure broader inequalities of social class based on asymmetrical property relations and thereby prevent the formation of wider social movements in the pursuit of justice. Ironically, Wilson stressed this point in The Bridge Over the Racial Divide; that is, pressing the demands of single racial groups likely would be self-defeating. Higham66 concluded that multiculturalism is a “movement without an overall theory.” In Horace Kallen’s67 metaphoric prose, cultural pluralism (or its contemporary variant, multiculturalism) is a descriptive concept characterizing the United States as a “symphony” of diverse groups denoted by ethnicity. The term “ethnic group” refers to any group that “is defined or set off by race, religion, or national origin, or some combination of these categories.”68 Conceptually problematic, these categories “nevertheless have a common social-psychological referent in that all of them serve to create, through historical circumstances, a sense of peoplehood for groups within the United States.”69 Cultural pluralism is more than a descriptive concept, however; it is also a system of beliefs justifying the value of preserving distinctive ways of life in a context of mutual toleration (but not necessarily love and admiration) and peaceful coexistence. Each group is free to maintain and develop its own culture, not totally separated but voluntarily segregated to some degree from each other. Cultural pluralism may be highly correlated with structural pluralism; however, they are not identical concepts. 70 As a reaction against assimilation, pluralism generally accords these groups rights and in some versions allows them to claim that they constitute the foundation of the social order. As an ideological counterattack to the Americanization movement and a response to the realities of immigration today, cultural pluralism attaches special significance to ethnic associations but also encourages participation in supra-ethnic associations.71 In the U.S. liberal conception of cultural pluralism, the attachment to ethnic-group membership requires a simultaneous commitment to a broader set of Anglo-Saxon Protestant ideals, such as individual autonomy; tolerance of, and respect for, others; empathetic understanding; cooperation; compromise; equality of opportunity; meritocracy; and pluralistic political processes. This view tends to focus on the less controversial and more expressive aspects of culture such as customs, rituals, and cuisines; it opposes the more extreme forms of structural pluralism such as separatism. To succeed, cultural pluralism requires that group identity be sufficiently strong to preserve distinctive heritages but sufficiently weak to discourage the factionalism, xenophobia, and intolerance that may result in high degrees of institutional closure.72 The concept assumes, alternately, that members of ethnic groups cannot, should not, or will not discard particularistic allegiances and local identities.73 In the first case, ethnicity is viewed as a primordial sentiment,

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so constitutive of persons that it cannot be renounced. In the middle case, ethnicity constitutes a set of normative expectations whose enforcement varies widely. In the last case, ethnicity is sustained by group practices; in some respects, it is self-serving. The U.S. liberal conception of cultural pluralism argues that the obligations of membership in an ethnic group should not be imposed on individuals who view them as barriers to self-realization; they are to be allowed the opportunity to pursue their own ends as free as possible from all restraints.74 This view rejects the premise that societal integration requires cultural integration as reflected, for example, in melting-pot ideologies; ethnic subcultures can be maintained so long as all groups subscribe to a set of universal values identified broadly as “cosmopolitanism” and suppress particularistic or nationalistic tendencies. By definition, then, cultural pluralism is “democratically agreeable” and implies a means of reducing conflict while adhering to a core set of values that are not challenged.75 These underpinnings reflect a U.S. preference for consensus and an avoidance of conflict. The concept is a compromise between the more extreme forms of assimilation, such as Anglo conformity, and balkanization. The U.S. liberal view of cultural pluralism assumes that processes of assimilation eventually will erode the boundaries of ethnicity on the basis of equality of opportunity, continued economic growth, pluralistic political processes, and a neutral state. This assumption stigmatizes ethnicity as “quasitribalistic” in a society that is impersonal, individualistic, competitive, meritocratic, achievement-oriented, and increasingly universalistic. In this view, competing ethnic groups form alliances or contend with one another to make claims on the state and shape the decisionmaking process. As such, the state is more an object than a subject in the structuring of ethnic-group relations. Discriminatory practices can be corrected by moral appeals and political strategies.76 This (usually implicit) conception of the state assumes that no single ethnic group can monopolize all resources; organizational freedoms and avenues of access to the state are available to redress grievances and allocate resources, subject to certain limits; and the outcomes of state activity reflect the preferences of ethnic groups in the aggregate. The state is justified in acting as it does because it represents aggregated (and presumably) supra-ethnic interests. Ethnic groups at a comparative disadvantage gain advantage through pluralistic strategies and actions that pressure the state to effect social change, to the extent that individual rights are not restricted.77 The U.S. liberal view insists on the right of association; however, that right belongs to individuals. To uphold this principle, ethnic groups are not licensed by the state and given formal legislative or administrative representation. Therefore, cultural pluralism implies “a system of interest representation where the constituent interests are unspecified in number, volun-

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tary, competitive, nonhierarchically ordered, and unlicensed.”78 However, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian Americans may under certain circumstances constitute an exception to this general statement. 79 Generally, the U.S. liberal view does not support state recognition of ethnic groups; by opposing discrimination, it hopes to ensure meritocratic principles and equality of opportunity.80 Lack of change is attributable to lack of organizational pressure on the state. Therefore, the liberal conception of cultural pluralism implies a view of the state that does not, as a general rule, claim any authority to define and constitute ethnic groups. The groups define and constitute themselves, and they develop their institutional structures independently of the state.81 Much like the concepts of race and racism, the concept of cultural pluralism lacks precision and analytical rigor. By definition, the concept requires that ethnic groups be reified and that, as a consequence, it does little more than reflect back the phenomenal world. This process is difficult to justify on ontological or epistemological grounds. Furthermore, it conflates race with ethnicity. Cultural pluralism as ideology postulates an ideal-typical society that constitutes a compromise between the extremes of Anglo conformity and balkanization. As such, the concept plays an important role in maintaining the status quo. However, this compromise does not withstand critical scrutiny as a view free of internal contradictions or other problems in logic. In addition, it diverts attention from structures of oppression, particularly social class, to an anthropological interest in cultural differences;82 thus, it may be inherently conservative. The concept of cultural pluralism is constructed on a set of domain assumptions that suggest how the phenomenon of multicultural diversity is to be viewed. These domain assumptions may, or may not, be good approximations of the real world, are difficult to prove true or false, are accepted or rejected before the fact without recourse to conclusive evidence, and are more likely to be accepted by those who share the values they imply than by those who do not.83 Some examples include the following: (1) Ethnicity is primordial or “essentialist” and includes feelings of attachment to those with similar characteristics (i.e., a sense of peoplehood). (2) Ethnic groups are “involuntary.”84 (3) Ethnic-group identities are a basic organizing principle of social life and can be identified by virtue of common linguistic and other cultural traditions, 85 as well as by self-categorization, rules of descent, and other forms of social organization. (4) These groups have relatively clearly defined boundaries and constitute, in and of themselves, communities that have to varying degrees distinctive histories, social structures, and degrees of consciousness and cohesion. (5) Ethnic considerations are more important than social-class considerations in the construction of communities.86 (6) The dominant group—however it is defined—tends to practice cultural imperialism as a consequence of the confluence of ethnocen-

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trism and disproportionate power. In the more extreme of these views, the members of the dominant group are seen as inherently racist. In either case, restraining institutions are required. Although these assumptions appear reasonable, critical scrutiny renders them problematic. For example, these assumptions reify ethnic groups and minimize or deny the significance of social-class structuration. In other words, they rely on common sense and ahistorical levels of understanding; and they take for granted, rather than examine empirically, how boundaries between groups are constructed. Like race, reification transforms these groups into self-evident realities 87 and consequently diverts attention away from the following problematics: (1) Similarities of national origin or religion are not sufficient to account for the formation of ethnic groups and not necessary to account for the formation of racial groups.88 Explaining these group formations sociologically is a challenging task made more difficult by (a) a conceptual language that may be inadequate to the task; (b) a lack of definitional consistency within and between academic and popular discourses; and (c) disagreement on whether or not ethnic groups and racial groups are analytically distinct phenomena.89 (2) What are viewed as the ethnic characteristics of groups are, in fact, relations. As Tove Skutnabb-Kangas90 observed, “If you are ‘different,’ you have to be different from something. Therefore, differences should . . . be conceptually constructed and treated as mutual relations between the definer and the defined.” (3) The implicit claims in the multicultural movement today that (a) an “ethnic frame of reference” is capable of functioning as a community, and (b) individuals are searching for community ethnically vis-à-vis occupationally or professionally, are (properly) empirical questions. (4) If Gordon91 was correct in arguing that structural pluralism “is the major key to the understanding of the ethnic makeup of American society, while cultural pluralism is the minor one,” then one must wonder why the multicultural movement places disproportionate emphasis on the latter. By “naturalizing” the groups that ethnicity identifies, the multicultural movement encourages the idea that ethnicity is the main determinant of the behavior of these groups.92 This idea reinforces, rather than undermines, neoconservative accounts of the black underclass. It denies an understanding of ethnicity as a form of discourse and practice that may be harnessed to different projects.93 The popular idea that ethnicity is primordial and both precedes and transcends social-class systems and nation-states is not defensible in this context.94 More compelling is the argument that ethnicity is a socially constructed phenomenon emerging on the basis of contradictory developments within modes of production, structures of opportunity, and the “exigencies of survival.”95 For example, the persistence of certain ethnic groups such as the Gypsies and Travelers may be a function of their

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ability to fill a gap in, and to exploit the surplus of, a particular system of production.96 Shaped in important ways by the state, to some extent ethnicity becomes a matter of political expediency—a discourse and practice to gain advantages in the competition for scarce resources.97 Contemporary references to ethnic group conflict as expressions of (1) mutually exclusive, incompatible, and difficult-to-reconcile goals and objectives, (2) disputed territorial claims with roots in periods of classical colonialism and state formation, and (3) forced assimilation policies98 support a claim that the concept of cultural pluralism as used in academic and popular discourses generally inhibits an understanding of ethnicity as a social process with motives in the material forces and relations of production constituting particular modes of production. Particularly, ethnic significations imply social processes of inclusion and exclusion in the competition for scarce resources; as a function of political alliances and coalitions, the boundaries that are constructed are socially negotiated and politically contested. It follows that the domains they delineate will vary in clarity, consistency, and complexity.99 In this context, ethnicity may replace social-class struggle as a strategy to capture scarce resources100 and the institutions through which they are allocated or reallocated. Pierre Van den Berghe 101 suggested that the “appeal and salience of ethnicity as a basis for political action seems to be roughly inverse to those of class” on the grounds that “class organization being based on the rather abstract notion of interest, is intrinsically more difficult to achieve than ethnic organization, based as it is on recognition of readily identifiable cultural symbols.” These symbols embody “a kind of identity politics.” Identity politics constitute a claim to dignity and selfworth in the face of a history of subjugation, denigration, and exclusion.102 Consistent with observations Wilson made in passim in The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears, ethnicity embodies, at least in part, a culture of resistance emerging from marginalization and responding to structural inequality.103 In the U.S. liberal view, cultural pluralism as a form of practice presupposes pluralistic political processes. However, this presupposition does not mean that all groups share power equally. In his classic book Assimilation in American Life, Gordon 104 referred to these processes as political or power pluralism. However, he also noted that the requisite group solidarity involves a willingness on the part of its members to give up some degree of individual liberty—a point expressed well in Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton’s105 famous dictum that before a group can enter an open and pluralistic society it must first close ranks. As Gordon made clear, this dictum requires a commitment to group life that may not be feasible in the United States. Cultural pluralism as a form of practice is rooted in a liberal conception of the state that focuses on its (presumed) roles as neutral

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arbiter between competing groups and as guarantor of individual rights. In the broadest sense, competing ethnic groups form alliances or contend with one another to make claims on the state and shape the decisionmaking process. As such, the state is more an object than a subject in the structuring of pluralistic relationships. A variant on the liberal position argues that the state must be neutral with respect to the majority yet assist minorities as necessary via ameliorative programs, such as affirmative action, on the grounds that all will benefit in the end.106 This quintessentially liberal view of the state denies that the state plays an important role in the process of ethnic-group formation and identity, structures their relationships, and sets parameters on the political capabilities of ethnic groups to effect social change. An alternative view, developed below, suggests that the state is not a neutral arbiter. Rather, it is simultaneously an object, product, and determinant of ethnic-group relations understood within the context of the contradictory imperatives of capital accumulation and legitimation, as well as the degree to which the institutions of the state are at any point in time in the hands of various factions of the capitalist class.107 In a strictly sociological sense, then, reifying ethnic groups denies the complexity of social-class relationships within their domains. Popular accounts of cultural pluralism proceed as if these groups are relatively homogeneous internally. However, the complex literatures on the split labor market and the ethnic enclave, and the acrimonious debate on the declining significance of race, should caution one against such generalizations. Correctly identifying the most important variables that affect how people construct identities and the consequences of these identities for lifechances requires a high level of methodological sophistication, as well as the use of concepts that have disappeared from popular and academic discourses. Therefore, it is somewhat surprising that the concept of the ethclass, as formulated by Gordon,108 largely has been ignored. The term “eth-class” refers to a social location defined by the intersection of ethnicity and social class. If, within a particular ethnic group, the social-class structure is relatively homogeneous, then the affective components of ethnicity should provide an effective basis for group mobilization. If, within a particular ethnic group, the social-class structure is relatively heterogeneous, then the affective components of ethnicity are not likely to provide an effective basis for group mobilization. Intergroup mobilization (e.g., political coalitions) or individualistic strategies (e.g., assimilation) would replace “diminished ethnic assertion.”109 These propositions might prove useful for understanding the evolution of ethnic identity and the formation of eth-class alliances in the pursuit of material justice.110 The body of Wilson’s work shares in common with the multicultural movement its liberal underpinnings and, with the more innovative work on

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ethnicity, its power-conflict underpinnings. (Interestingly, a similar inconsistency in domain assumptions could be found in Carmichael and Hamilton’s classic book Black Power.) However, Wilson paid little attention to ethnicity as a variable of consequence expressed in the concept of the eth-class and in social movements such as the Nation of Islam.111 The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, especially, would have been a richer book sociologically had it addressed questions such as the following: Under what conditions will the emergence of significant social-class differences within a particular ethnic group attenuate ethnic identity and reduce its ability to close ranks? To what extent are the “upper” eth-classes of a particular ethnic group able to influence the construction, or reconstruction, of group identity on the basis of their access to the ideological means of production? Do some eth-classes “have a greater ability to define group identities and interests, perhaps even to the extent of mobilizing subordinate eth-classes in a manner contrary to their objective material interests?”112

Race, Class, and the Problem of Epistemological Incoherence As early as the 1930s, W. Lloyd Warner, John Dollard, and Robert E. Park, among others, argued for the inclusion of the concept of social class in studies of race relations. In 1948, Cox made a much stronger case in his seminal book Caste, Class, and Race.113 However, the literature on what constitutes social classes is immense and acrimonious.114 For example, a bibliography on the concept of social class prepared by Albert Benschop at the University of Amsterdam (downloadable from the Internet), cited more than 2,000 references. The fundamental difficulty is the ontological question of ascertaining the reality of social classes. Wilson’s115 definition sensitized the reader to the distributive rather than the relational aspects of social-class inequality; that is, it focused on differences in the allocation of scarce resources to occupational categories defined arbitrarily. 116 The research literature that followed the publication of The Declining Significance of Race did not depart significantly from this definitional tendency. The result was a view of social classes as a series of gradations between relatively distinct, but overlapping, categories whose empirical relationship to one another was unspecified or incidental. These categories often represented the merging of “ill-defined occupational classifications” and implied a high degree of arbitrariness.117 Without sufficient justification, Wilson’s definition incorporated into the black middle class some occupational categories that sociology generally regards as working class (e.g., the crafts); and it combined the black upper class with the black middle class. Wilson largely ignored the tradi-

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tional black working class, including bus drivers, construction workers, firefighters, police officers, postal workers, and health care workers.118 His ideas on social class were in a vague way Weberian and did not satisfy critics. He defined social classes “in terms of their relationship to other classes within the market where different commodities are bought and sold and where people with various resources (goods, services, or skills) meet and interact for purposes of exchange.”119 In The Declining Significance of Race, occupational titles were used to indicate social-class positions as embodied in the “social relations of exchange.” Wilson outlined a black social-class structure in which the middle class consists mainly of those in white-collar, skilled craft, and foreman positions; the working class consists mainly of “semiskilled operatives”; and the lower class consists mainly of unskilled laborers and domestic workers. Social class was operationalized, then, primarily as a set of occupational categories. 120 The proletarianization of white-collar work, and the fact that skilled craft and foreman positions traditionally have been considered working-class, raises doubts about the validity of this scheme. Wilson did not specify the structural determination of social classes economically, politically, or ideologically; and with the exception of the black underclass, he minimized the significance of class-based cultural heterogeneity. This heterogeneity is visible in phenomena as varied as social orientations, family interactions, and patterns of consumption. (But accounts that are “overdetermined” do not fare any better because they address “theoretically constructed proletariats expected by imputation of interest to appear and act in history in particular ways.”121) The extent to which political and ideological factors enter into the determination of social-class positions is itself determined by the degree to which those positions occupy a contradictory location at the level of the social relations of production. Positions that coincide with basic social-class relations are less likely to be influenced by political and ideological factors than positions that do not coincide with basic social-class relations.122 Certain contradictory locations are especially affected by their relationship to the political and ideological apparatuses of the state. For example, it is impossible to understand the social-class position of some personnel—say, police officers—on a purely economic level. Police officers are wage laborers; however, their role protecting the interests of the state places them closer to the bourgeoisie.123 Whether or not the black middle class is growing depends in part on how “social class” is defined, as well as the theoretical framework and corresponding criteria used to identify social classes generally.124 Wilson’s loose specification of social-class boundaries overestimated the socioeconomic status attainment gains of the black middle class when contrasted

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with the white middle class. Furthermore, significant changes have occurred within the black social-class structure since the civil rights movement; however, some contemporary social-class analyses have failed to grasp the nature of these changes. Without an appropriate specification of social classes, it is impossible to assess accurately the relative importance of social class or race on black life-chances. Throughout his work, Wilson emphasized the middle class and underclass to the detriment of the black working class. “Excessive attention” to the black middle class and underclass has detracted from a thorough understanding of the black working class in the modern industrial period.125 Hayward Horton et al.126 compared the changes from 1850 to 1990 in the size of the black working class with the changes in the same period in the size of the white working class. Despite Wilson’s emphasis on the black middle class and underclass, “the most compelling story of race and class” is the reemergence of the working class as the “modal category” for blacks. Most of the growth of the black working class occurred between 1870 and 1950, that is, prior to the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement either sustained a trend that was under way, or it played a role in increasing the comparatively small black middle class in the face of a separate trend toward growth in the black working class. The increasing percentage of blacks generally in the working class apparently resulted from a decline in the percentage of blacks in the lower class. Throughout most of the 140year period that the authors studied, the relative size of the black middle class was “minuscule.” Only in the recent past (i.e., 1970 through 1990) did it show significant growth. Insofar as the concepts of race and social class contain mutually exclusive analytic components, combining them increases the risk of epistemological incoherence when constructing theoretical accounts. 127 “Social class” can be defined objectively—if controversially—in relation to actual material circumstances while race is socially constructed and arbitrarily defined; its importance is subject to historical circumstances and social negotiation.128 For example, the term “white employer” combines an amorphous racial category that is essentially ideological with an objective social-class position that is essentially materialist. When assessing hiring decisions, the use of the term “white employer” means that a racial explanation in and of itself, or a class explanation in and of itself, will be regarded as reductionist. A claim that the employer’s decisions are a combination of both must be supported theoretically (e.g., establishing that the terms are not analytically incompatible and therefore avoiding epistemological incoherence) and empirically (e.g., showing that the terms measure what they claim to measure). Obviously, these tasks are difficult to accomplish, as Wilson’s equivocation in explaining employer motivations made clear in

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When Work Disappears. In order to avoid a state of perpetual challenge and counterchallenge in the race-class debate, the epistemological foundation of the debate itself should be evaluated. Failure to do so generates claims that race relations are distinct from social-class relations, “express” socialclass relations, “overlap” with social-class relations, or are identical to social-class relations. 129 Jeffrey Prager 130 argued that neither race nor social class is sufficient to explain race relations in the United States. Both are mediated through popular discourses and the specific “political realities” that exist in the American polity. As concepts, race and social class occupy different ontological grounds; as I have tried to show, the reason lies in an objectification process that is crucial for race relations but that is more or less absent in social-class relations.131 The process of racial categorization (including attributing social significance to physical features) does not alter the socialclass determination of either those who advance the process of categorization or those who are the objects of the same process. Social class designates a structural relationship and is rooted in the dominant mode of production in a given social formation. 132 Nevertheless, race plays an important but historically specific role in social-class formation and structuration, and social class plays an important role in racial group formation and structuration. Stated differently, race constitutes part of the process whereby social class membership is assigned and social-class identity is constructed.133 A member of a racial category such as African American or black is not independent of the structure of social-class determination by virtue of the process of racial categorization. Blacks retain their social-class positions, even if they are excluded from access to certain educational, occupational, and income opportunities.134 The process of racial categorization (i.e., inclusion and exclusion on the basis of phenotypic variations) is located in the context of a particular social formation. In a capitalist social formation, the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion are “laid across” the already given and qualitatively distinct social-class relations between capitalists and workers, but they do not alter the fundamental structure.135 In this sense, it is a misnomer to speak of the increasing significance of social class. Blacks are not a race apart superimposed on the social-class structure; rather, they are a people “whose forms of political struggle can be understood in terms of racialisation within a particular set of production (class) relations.”136 Production relations provide the historical and structural contexts within which racialization occurs.137 This shift in how the race-class debate is posed opens a new avenue for research. Specifically, how autonomous are processes of racialization or categorization from the processes of social-class formation and structura-

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tion; how do these processes interact (or “articulate”); and what is the role of the state in this context? Wilson138 argued that race was used to increase profits in the preindustrial period and delimit competition in the industrial period. He did not explain why, or how, racial categories emerged from, and were negotiated in the context of, specific social-class and state structures. The arbitrary separation of the economic sector from the sociopolitical order denies a fundamental problem, which is to examine race structuration within the context of economic, political, and ideological relations.139 Thomas Boston 140 argued that the social-class structure itself was shaped by the “racial contradiction.” That is, racial conflict and subordination produced a contemporary black social-class structure qualitatively different from that of whites. Therefore, it is incorrect to imply, as Wilson did in The Declining Significance of Race, that an increase in the predictive power of one variable (social class) necessitates a decrease in the predictive power of another variable (race). According to Wright,141 “if it is true that the returns to education vary substantially across class positions, and if it is true that black and white males are distributed quite differently across class positions, then much of the racial difference in returns to education could in fact be a consequence of the class distribution of races.” The most obvious way in which race articulates with social class is in the social processes (largely ignored by Wilson) that distribute people into class positions in the first place.142 However, Wilson was on firmer ground than some who have claimed that attempts to divide blacks into social classes—regardless of whether the variant is Marxist or Weberian—are invalid on the basis that racial oppression experienced collectively has made the concept of social class irrelevant to blacks.143 As Michael Hughey and Arthur Vidich144 argued, the black community consists of a “multiplicity” of social-class divisions and cultures, which often are more important than a collective experience in shaping interests and loyalties. For example, as the black middle class grows and stabilizes, its interests and loyalties increasingly derive from occupational and professional associations,145 eroding racial identification with the black underclass. Furthermore, the black community is divided into numerous ethnic groupings, whose members may have little in common with the American blacks who descended from slaves. Therefore, “a collective disadvantage is not necessarily an individual disadvantage; and, similarly, the determinant of the collective disadvantage is not necessarily the determinant of the individual disadvantage.”146 In sum, Wilson’s147 error was threefold: He failed to establish on epistemological grounds the equivalence of race and social class as analytic concepts; he reified the concept of race and oversimplified the definition of

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“social class”; and, by creating an arbitrary distinction between the economic sector and the sociopolitical order, he avoided altogether the necessity to explain his treatment of the state.

Empirically Validating the Thesis of the Declining Significance of Race In addition to the epistemological and ontological difficulties identified above, attempts to empirically validate the thesis of the declining significance of race face a number of problems. For example, to what extent does historical (or past) discrimination “explain” socioeconomic status attainment differences between blacks and whites today? Webster148 claimed that a “plausible answer” couldn’t be constructed because methodological procedures are not adequate to the task. The debate on the declining significance of race centers on the extent to which these differences are a legacy of historical discrimination, the product of contemporary discrimination, the consequence of disparities in human capital acquisition (which in turn must be explained), or the cumulative effects of discrimination against blacks over the “life course.” In other words, it is possible that over time black workers may gain and then lose a part of what they have gained.149 Because blacks historically attended lower-quality schools, earnings returns to education for blacks were less compared to whites (other factors being equal). However, the black-white earnings gap narrowed recently because the earnings returns to education rose faster for blacks compared to whites as the quality of education for blacks improved. Among cohorts with at least some college education, earnings returns to education are almost the same for blacks compared to whites. This finding implies “cohort-differentiated racial variations in earnings.”150 Conclusions about the extent of convergence on earnings by race depend on how, and which of, the following variables (among others) are included in multiple regression equations: sex; educational attainment; age; occupational category; tenure; geographical region; population composition and distribution; labor market characteristics; and economic expansions or contractions. Therefore, the link between income disparities by race and racial discrimination is not certain; income disparities do not prove the existence of discrimination because other factors may account for them.151 Conversely, reductions in income disparities may not demonstrate declining racial discrimination because discrimination could have been excluded from the model before the fact. Multiple regression analysis is used widely for racial comparisons; however, the operationalization of independent and dependent variables has not been consistent across studies. The problem of multicollinearity is com-

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mon, especially between race and other independent variables. This problem makes regression coefficients “unstable” from sample to sample, decreasing confidence in the findings.152 For example, the classical validation method is based on the assumption that differences in earnings by race should reflect differences in merit (i.e., human capital characteristics). Racial discrimination may be observed by examining the variance remaining in the dependent variable (earnings) after other factors have been statistically controlled. Controlling for interaction effects is difficult, however, and processes of discrimination, often described as a residual, are not limited to the contribution of race as a predictor variable to a dependent variable.153 Estimates of racial discrimination, as well as claims about the reasons for socioeconomic status attainment disparities, depend on which variables are controlled in, and which variables are omitted from, the multiple regression analyses.154 Variables of consequence may range from human capital characteristics to the rate of black population growth in a given area. For example, according to W. Frisbie and Lisa Neidert,155 the relative size of the black population in a given area may be a “robust predictor” of income disparities between blacks and whites. As the size of the black population increases relative to the white population, black income levels decrease relative to white income levels. If the authors are correct, failure to include this variable skews results. Age may, or may not, be a significant factor in explaining income disparities between blacks and whites. Andrew Cherlin and Robert Hodge 156 argued that controls for age are useful only if researchers are specifically interested in earnings differences between elderly blacks and elderly whites. If, however, they are interested in assessing earnings differences between blacks and whites between the ages of twenty-five and sixty-four, then, they argued, failure to standardize for age is not a serious shortcoming. George Farkas and Kevin Vicknair157 claimed that a control for “cognitive skill” significantly affects the extent to which racial discrimination statistically explains income disparities between blacks and whites. However, adding variables does not solve the problem of the meaning of racial discrimination and the degree to which it can be accurately measured. For example, are some blacks choosing low-paying, menial, and dead-end jobs, or are they forced into them? In this context, how does one distinguish between self-selection and attempts by whites to restrict blacks’ access to the more desirable jobs? If the latter is the case, how does one determine whether exclusionary practices originate with employers or with “advantaged” employees?158 Research studies that examine black gains in earnings base their analyses in large part upon comparisons of the ratio of black median income to white median income over time. Because income distributions are skewed, meaningful comparisons usually involve the median

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rather than the mean.159 Consequently, much distributional information is discarded, resulting in methodologically crude comparisons. How occupational classification systems are incorporated into attempts to measure occupational inequality by race also may skew results. Regardless of their source, occupational categories tend to be very broad. Therefore, some sociologists have argued that it is important to construct comparisons of jobs within occupational categories. A major occupational category is not equivalent functionally to an occupation. For example, a candidate does not apply for a job as a “professional, technical, or kindred worker”; rather, he or she applies for a job as a teacher.160 A major occupational category may disguise as much as it reveals. Between 1960 and 1980, the percentage of blacks in the occupational category of “professions” increased. However, this finding does not distinguish by profession, and it refers only to black men who have entered the labor force. Thus, this finding overstates racial progress, especially in the context of the observations that not all professions are created equally and that labor force participation rates for black men have dropped.161 In general, considerable controversy exists about the appropriate way to measure occupational inequality. Identifying changes over time in occupational inequality by race may be affected by what measure of racial occupational inequality is used.162 Ross Stolzenberg and Ronald D’Amico163 noted that the social evaluations of occupations (which, they argued, are consistent across time) include judgments of the extent to which incumbency in various occupations are appropriate or inappropriate for “members of identifiable social groups.” Judgments of this sort are widespread; they create racial differentials in occupational distributions. They are sufficiently homogeneous that the so-called race-occupational relationship does not vary much from city to city. Stolzenberg and D’Amico claimed that cities in general do not depart from the norm sufficiently to justify the substantial effort that has been made in understanding intercity variations in racial occupational inequality. In contrast, Mark Fossett and Gray Swicegood164 argued that while racial occupational inequality is “great” in all of the cities that they considered, variations both within and between regions are considerable. These variations, which are statistically as well as substantively significant, are crucial for understanding inter-city differences. Furthermore, changes in racial occupational inequality are not necessarily uniform across regions. Denise Gottfredson165 argued that “substantive inferences” derived from observed differences in educational attainment by race are unwarranted on the basis of the multiple regression coefficients that appear in the research literature. Studies examining differences in educational attainment by race do not agree on the nature or extent of these differences; and inconsistencies persist even when samples, methods, and models are held con-

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stant as much as possible. In fact, directly comparing the results of these studies may be inappropriate because of variations in populations, sampling techniques, time frames, operationalization and measurement procedures (including variable transformation and missing data treatments), mathematical modeling, degree of adherence to statistical assumptions, and inference procedures. These variations cause means, standard deviations, and associations among the variables to vary from study to study. Meta-analyses show that inconsistencies in results persist even when these variations are taken into account. In short, inconsistent conclusions across studies result because of differences in regression coefficients, which are subject to many artificial sources of fluctuation, and because substantive inferences based on such differences are weak at best. Interpretations for differences in regression coefficients range from socialization experiences to allocation processes. A broad or general picture may emerge; however, detailed interpretations must be viewed with caution.166 Ignoring measurement errors (e.g., retrospective reports of parents’ socioeconomic status are not very accurate) exaggerates racial differences in returns to schooling and occupational attainment.167 That is, ignoring measurement errors results in modest understatements of the contributions of both socioeconomic background and educational attainment to occupational attainment and somewhat larger overstatements of the amount of inequality in occupational attainment attributable neither to socioeconomic background nor to educational attainment. Biases in substantive models for blacks are larger than those for nonblacks, yielding exaggerated assessments of differences between the races in the stratification process. 168 William Bielby et al.169 argued that ignoring measurement errors underestimates the degree to which schooling is converted into occupational successes by about 15 percent for nonblacks and probably by much more than that for blacks. In addition, in the absence of corrective statistical procedures, black and white mobility parameters may appear similar because a combination of high rates of upward mobility and low rates of downward mobility for whites are rendered equivalent to a combination of low rates of upward mobility and high rates of downward mobility for blacks.170 According to Stolzenberg and D’Amico,171 if racial disparities in occupational distributions do not vary much from city to city, then it is unlikely that demographic differences between cities are responsible for these disparities. Mark LaGory and Robert Magnani172 responded that the size of standard metropolitan statistical areas (SMSAs), the percentage of blacks as a proportion of the total population, the rate of black population growth, and the extent of school segregation statistically predict intercity differences in occupational inequality by race. For example, compared to smaller SMSAs, the probability of black occupational mobility is greater in larger SMSAs in both the North and the South. Racial differences in labor force

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composition (measured by sex, age, and education) also statistically predict intercity differences in occupational inequality by race. The relationships between these variables are complex and confusing. Differences in occupational inequality may be attributable, at least in part, to differences in the structural characteristics of local labor markets, differences in human capital characteristics across regions, demographic factors, employment opportunities, and cultural factors.173

Inferring Causality Any claims to the declining, increasing, or continuing significance of race (expressed in the residual, racial discrimination) must rule out all other possibilities. The elimination of spuriousness is the fundamental challenge to the justification of causal inferences. These claims must “specify the mechanism that describes the process by which one variable influences the other”; in other words, how it is that X produced Y. Mechanisms, such as industrial restructuring, are vital to causal explanations because they indicate which variables should be controlled in order to highlight existing causal relations.174 Plausibility alone is unlikely to lead to valid conclusions. In this context, comparative-historical research is interesting because it focuses on large-scale events; it is a rare form of research in the U.S. sociology of race relations. However, selecting interesting events for analysis is a type of sampling—and a none-too-systematic type at that. If arguments are generalized from the sample, biases that are inherent in the unsystematic nature of the sample will reduce the explanatory value of the arguments.175 If differential returns to education for blacks and whites largely disappear when social class is controlled in multiple regression equations, this does not mean that race is insignificant in determining life-chances. Boston176 argued that many control variables, such as level of education and job tenure, are related causally to racial discrimination. If the correlation of a control variable with discrimination is not explicitly taken into account in model construction, then any measure of discrimination is correspondingly flawed. For example, earnings disparities disappear if comparable individuals are examined, such as black and white Ph.D. holders who have similar experiences in the same field. However, this example does not prove that discrimination has disappeared; rather, it shows only that the salaries of blacks in the sample are similar to the salaries of whites in the sample. Nothing can be concluded for blacks whose graduate education was prevented by discrimination because they are not in the sample. Therefore, if researchers focus only on the earnings of doctorates in the same field, they will fail to uncover the extent to which earnings disparities

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by race are a function of unequal access to education.177 A similar problem arises when examining the hourly wages of workers.178 Discrimination is evident not so much in earnings disparities as in the differential access to educational, employment, and promotion opportunities. If one controls for occupational distribution while examining earnings differences, he or she also controls for discrimination because one of its primary forms is the relegation of blacks to lower-paying occupations (or out of the workforce altogether).179 Given the high concentration of blacks in lower-paying occupations, Boston180 argued that it is obvious that a more equitable occupational distribution would reduce earnings disparities with whites. Therefore, the primary form of racial discrimination is not differential wages paid to comparable and equally productive black and white workers; rather, it is differential access to educational, employment, and promotion opportunities. Stated differently, controlling for occupation is equivalent to controlling for discrimination, especially if they are highly correlated. Researchers thereby eliminate discrimination a priori from the results. Furthermore, if a relationship between discrimination and occupational distribution exists, then the problem of multicollinearity is likely, making it difficult to accurately determine the size of the discrimination coefficients.181 In summary, establishing the validity of Wilson’s thesis of the declining significance of race, and drawing valid conclusions about the race-class debate, require that a variety of problems must be solved. These problems include adequately operationalizing the variables of race and social class; capturing complex processes such as racialization; conceptualizing appropriate control variables in multiple regression equations; identifying samples and appropriate time frames; determining whether to use cross-sectional or longitudinal data; assessing interaction effects among variables and solving problems of multicollinearity; and justifying substantive inferences.182 Solving these problems is important because conclusions derived from studies on socioeconomic status attainment disparities between blacks and whites may be little more than an artifact of the methods used.183 Few studies have attempted to sort out interaction effects as diverse as socialization practices in schools (which may lower aspirations), residential segregation (which blocks spatial assimilation), informal hiring practices (which circumvent antidiscriminatory laws), and state interventions (such as equal employment opportunity legislation and affirmative action programs).184 Despite these problems, the underlying premise in much of the sociological literature is that race is important for understanding and interpreting changes in allocative social processes,185 which play a critical role in reproducing inequality. Wilson’s thesis of the declining significance of race has emerged as the predominant theoretical perspective that attempts to explain the complex interplay between race and social class in the life-chances of

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blacks in the United States.186 However, it is difficult to be completely objective in debates as acrimonious as this. If findings fit the “political necessities” (as Thomas F. Pettigrew put it), then questionable studies may be accepted as rigorous; if the findings do not fit the political necessities, then rigorous studies may be disparaged as inconclusive. Furthermore, from the variety of competing perspectives on U.S. race relations, policymakers can select as rationales those inferences most congruent with their own inclinations.187 Nevertheless, through trained capacity, I believe it is possible to identify and assess the evidence without regard for what the analysis implies about the worth of one’s position (see Chapters 3 and 4). The American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, and Social Forces are most important to the task at hand because, compared to all other journals in sociology, they appear to have the highest standards of methodological rigor in the conduct of empirical research. Also, formulating and validating theory are subject to systematic ground rules, even if these standards are not adhered to at all times. (Reviews of the research literature demonstrate that the use of concepts such as race, ethnicity, and social class is less than rigorous.) As a foundation for the analysis that follows, I examined all articles addressing any aspect of the race-class debate published between January 1969 and March 2001 in the following journals: American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Problems, and Sociological Quarterly. Between January 1969 and March 2001, they published more than 950 refereed articles on racial and ethnic relations generally; of that total, approximately 400 (or 42.1 percent) were relevant to an assessment of the race-class debate as it is defined here. Disproportionately, the studies were empirically based and tested hypotheses derived from one or more aspects of Wilson’s work, such as the male marriageable pool index. Studies that focused exclusively on other groups, such as Hispanics or Asian Americans, were not considered. I attempted a more selective (or cursory) review of other literatures such as political economy. The journals devote substantially more space to racial and ethnic relations research than highly specialized journals (e.g., Rural Sociology, Sociology of Education, Sex Roles) and regional journals (e.g., Sociological Spectrum, Pacific Sociological Review, Free Inquiry in Creative Sociology), although the latter also were searched. In addition to the 400 articles noted above, at least 100 more articles published in other scholarly journals, including the regional journals, were identified and utilized, primarily by searching tables of contents for the period. Of particular interest and value were the journals Ethnic and Racial Studies, Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and Review of Black Political Economy. Approximately

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5,000 abstracts on racial and ethnic relations in the database Sociofile were reviewed as well. A few studies from the fields of economics and labor and industrial relations were utilized; however, their typically narrow focus did not contribute much to an assessment of the sociological implications of the race-class debate as a whole.188 In summary, the articles identified here represent the most rigorous research available; they are applied to an evaluation and critique of Wilson’s work as a whole. Chapters 3 and 4 will show that, contrary to critics, Wilson was more often right than wrong. However, the reality of black life-chances is complicated. Therefore, generalizations about the effects of race on socioeconomic status attainments should be viewed with caution.

Notes 1. Niemonen, “The Race Relations Problematic in American Sociology.” 2. C. Payne, “On the Declining—and Increasing—Significance of Race,” 121–122; Solomos and Back, Racism and Society, 26. 3. E.g., Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Racialized Boundaries; Miles, Racism; Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations’; Solomos and Back, Racism and Society. 4. Petersen, “The Classification of Subnations in Hawaii.” 5. Massey and Denton, “Trends in the Residential Segregation of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians,” 805. 6. In Webster, The Racialization of America, 35, 54. Webster observed that race “is an officially engineered and electorally exploited construct whose popularity reflects poorly developed reasoning skills” (italics in original). Yet race cannot be dismissed as analytically useless; see page 33. According to D. Mason, “A Rose by Any Other Name . . .? Categorisation, Identity, and Social Science,” it may be impossible to discuss social life without such categories. 7. McKee, “Review Essay [of Race and Other Misadventures],” 100. 8. Webster, The Racialization of America, 80–81; Bonilla-Silva, “The Essential Social Fact of Race.” 9. Webster, The Racialization of America, 79. 10. Miles, Racism; Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations’; cf. Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 193–194; R. Peterson and Hagan, “Changing Conceptions of Race,” 56; Solomos, “Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of ‘Race,’ Class, and the State,” 98. 11. Geschwender, “The Portuguese and Haoles of Hawaii”; Petersen, “The Classification of Subnations in Hawaii.” 12. Cf. A. Smith, “Racial Tolerance as a Function of Group Position,” 559. 13. Solomos, “Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of ‘Race,’ Class, and the State,” 99; Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations,’ 48. 14. San Juan, Articulations of Power in Ethnic and Racial Studies in the United States, 48. 15. Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations,’ 49. 16. McKee, “Review Essay [of Race and Other Misadventures],” 100. 17. Solomos and Back, Racism and Society, 207, 209; Snipp, “Some Observations About Racial Boundaries and the Experiences of American Indians,” 668.

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18. Loveman, “Is ‘Race’ Essential?” 893–894; cf. Bonilla-Silva, “The Essential Social Fact of Race.” 19. Connolly and Breese, “The Forgotten People: Multiracial Individuals,” 54; Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations,’ 111; Niemonen, “The Race Relations Problematic in American Sociology.” 20. Webster, The Racialization of America, 262. 21. Cf. Outlaw, “Toward a Critical Theory of ‘Race,’” 68; Webster, The Racialization of America, 32. 22. Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations,’ 45. Italics in original. 23. Ibid., 87. 24. Webster, The Racialization of America, 263. 25. Miles, “Class, Race, and Ethnicity,” 185; cf. Miles, Racism, 75. 26. Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations,’ 50–51; cf. Cole, “‘Race’ and Class or ‘Race,’ Class, Gender, and Community?” 120–121. The internal colony is an interesting example of an explanatory mode in this context. 27. Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations,’ 50. 28. Ibid., 51. 29. Covington, “Racial Classifications in Criminology,” 548, 551, 553. 30. Ibid., 554–556. 31. Ibid., 562. 32. Including the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Problems, and The Sociological Quarterly. 33. Cf. Niemonen, “The Race Relations Problematic in American Sociology.” 34. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 35. Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations,’ 81 ff. 36. Patterson, The Ordeal of Integration, 83–87; Webster, The Racialization of America, 8, 11; J. Williams, “Redefining Institutional Racism,” 323–324. 37. For an overview of these arguments, see Miles, Racism, 50 ff. 38. Miles, Racism, 56–60; Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations,’ 149. 39. Anthias, “Connecting ‘Race’ and Ethnic Phenomena,” 421; Solomos and Back, “Conceptualising Racisms,” 150; Webster, The Racialization of America, 11, 87; J. Williams, “Redefining Institutional Racism,” 342. 40. Anthias, “Connecting ‘Race’ and Ethnic Phenomena,” 430. 41. Miles, Racism, 77, 85, 100. 42. Ibid., 85. 43. Ibid., 41–42. 44. Anthias, “Connecting ‘Race’ and Ethnic Phenomena,” 430–431. 45. Essed, “Understanding Verbal Accounts of Racism.” 46. Sniderman et al., “The New Racism,” 424; Weigel and Howes, “Conceptions of Racial Prejudice,” 119. 47. Webster, The Racialization of America, 51, 84, 88. 48. Park, The Collected Papers of Robert Ezra Park, 233, 259. 49. Hawkins, “The ‘Discovery’ of Institutional Racism,” 176–178; Webster, The Racialization of America, 85, 87, 196; J. Williams, “Redefining Institutional Racism,” 328. 50. Niemonen, “The Race Relations Problematic in American Sociology,” 34. 51. Solomos, “Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of ‘Race,’ Class, and the State,” 92. 52. Skutnabb-Kangas, “Legitimating or Delegitimating New Forms of Racism,” 85.

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53. Anthias, “Race and Class Revisited,” 37. 54. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd ed., 71. 55. Solomos, “Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of ‘Race,’ Class, and the State,” 92, 101. 56. Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Racialized Boundaries, 94–95. 57. Miles, Racism, 129; Solomos, “Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of ‘Race,’ Class, and the State,” 107. 58. Miles, Racism, 99. 59. Ibid., 100. 60. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 61. Miles, Racism. 62. Cf. Webster, The Racialization of America, 88; J. Williams, “Redefining Institutional Racism.” 63. Higham, “Multiculturalism and Universalism.” 64. Ibid., 219. 65. Higham, “Multiculturalism and Universalism”; cf. San Juan, “The Multiculturalist Problematic in the Age of Globalized Capitalism.” 66. Higham, “Multiculturalism and Universalism,” 220, 224–225. Higham concluded that multiculturalism is a “buzzword, a crusade, and a gigantic mystification.” Cf. Snider, “Legal Aid, Reform, and the Welfare State.” The discussion that follows is adapted from Niemonen, “Deconstructing Cultural Pluralism.” 67. Kallen, “Democracy Versus the Melting Pot,” parts 1 and 2. 68. M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life, 27. 69. Ibid., 27–28. 70. M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life. 71. Cf. ibid., 158. 72. Abu-Laban and Mottershead, “Cultural Pluralism and Varieties of Ethnic Politics,” 53; Holmes, “Liberalism for a World of Ethnic Passions and Decaying States,” 601–602. 73. Holmes, “Liberalism for a World of Ethnic Passions and Decaying States,” 601–602. 74. R. T. Hogan and Emler, “The Biases in Contemporary Social Psychology,” 485; R. M. Smith, “Unfinished Liberalism,” 661. 75. Hune, “Pacific Migration to the United States”; Klaff, “Pluralism as an Alternative Model for the Human Ecologist,” 108; Spencer, “Multiculturalism, ‘Political Correctness,’ and the Politics of Identity,” 562. 76. Metzger, “American Sociology and Black Assimilation,” 635, 637, 639; M. Gordon, “Assimilation in America,” 283; M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life, 236, 251; Gouldner, The Two Marxisms, 41, 100; J. Horton, “Order and Conflict Models of Social Problems as Competing Ideologies,” 707, 710–711; Blackwell, “Persistence and Change in Intergroup Relations,” 331; Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 145, 150, 154, 205; Hirschman, “America’s Melting Pot Reconsidered,” 400; Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s, 1st. ed., 21–24; Taylor, “Black Ethnicity and the Persistence of Ethnogenesis,” 1405; Muga, “Academic Sub-Cultural Theory and the Problematic of Ethnicity,” 11; Medalia, “Myrdal’s Assumptions on Race Relations,” 225–226; Meyers, “Minority Group: An Ideological Formulation,” 4; J. Moore, “Minorities in the American Class System,” 276; Tabb, “Race Relations Models and Social Change,” 431, 433; Vander Zanden, “Sociological Studies of American Blacks,” 33; Niemonen, “The Role of the State in the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations,” 28; Margalit and Halbertal, “Liberalism and the Right to

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Culture,” 503; cf. Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Personality; Myrdal, An American Dilemma; Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide. 77. Esping-Andersen, Friedland, and Wright, “Modes of Class Struggle and the Capitalist State,” 189; Girardin, “On the Marxist Theory of the State,” 199; Jessop, “Recent Theories of the Capitalist State,” 356; Leiman, “The Political Economy of Racism,” 74; Margalit and Halbertal, “Liberalism and the Right to Culture,” 503; Miliband, “State Power and Class Interests,” 59; Niemonen, “The Role of the State in the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations,” 28; Ono, “The Limits of Bourgeois Pluralism,” 50–51; Poulantzas, “The Problem of the Capitalist State,” 72; Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In,” 4; Esping-Andersen, “Power and Distributional Regimes,” 233; Isaac and Kelly, “Racial Insurgency, the State, and Welfare Expansion,” 1353; Isaac and Kelly, “Developmental/Modernization and Political Class Struggle Theories of Welfare Expansion,” 209, 212; Skocpol, “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis,” 160. 78. Starr, “Social Categories and Claims in the Liberal State,” 286–287. 79. Ibid., 291; cf. Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide. 80. Abu-Laban and Mottershead, “Cultural Pluralism and Varieties of Ethnic Politics,” 59. 81. Starr, “Social Categories and Claims in the Liberal State,” 266; cf. Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 394–397. 82. K. Brown, “Keeping Their Distance.” 83. Cf. Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. 84. M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life, 145. 85. Stein and Hill, “The Limits of Ethnicity,” 181; Vasta, “Multiculturalism and Ethnic Identity,” 211; cf. Ravitch, “Multiculturalism: E Pluribus Plures”; Ravitch, “Multiculturalism: An Exchange.” 86. Cf. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears; Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 87. Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations,’ 45, 87; Webster, The Racialization of America, 263. 88. Haug, “Social and Cultural Pluralism as a Concept in Social System Analysis,” 294; McLellan and Richmond, “Multiculturalism in Crisis,” 676; Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 1st ed.; Starr, “Social Categories and Claims in the Liberal State,” 278; Vasta, “Multiculturalism and Ethnic Identity.” 89. Anthias, “Connecting ‘Race’ and Ethnic Phenomena”; Goldberg, “The Semantics of Race”; Isajiw, “Definitions of Ethnicity”; Isajiw, “Definitions of Ethnicity: New Approaches”; Meyers, “Minority Group: An Ideological Formulation”; Muga, “Academic Sub-Cultural Theory and the Problematic of Ethnicity”; Niemonen, “Some Observations on the Problem of Paradigms in Recent Racial and Ethnic Relations Texts”; M. Smith, “Some Problems with Minority Concepts and a Solution.” 90. Skutnabb-Kangas, “Legitimating or Delegitimating New Forms of Racism,” 79. Italics in original. 91. M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life, 159. 92. Goldberg, “The Semantics of Race”; Solomos, “Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of ‘Race,’ Class, and the State.” 93. Albert and Hahnel, Unorthodox Marxism; Anthias, “Race and Class Revisited”; Aronowitz, The Crisis in Historical Materialism; Berreman, “Race, Caste, and Other Invidious Distinctions in Social Stratification”; Oliver, “Review Essay”; Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 1st ed.; Prager,

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“American Political Culture and the Shifting Meaning of Race”; Willhelm, “Can Marxism Explain America’s Racism?” 94. Bonacich, “Class Approaches to Ethnicity and Race,” 9; Stavenhagen, “Ethnic Conflicts and Their Impact on International Society,” 123–124. 95. Bonacich, “Class Approaches to Ethnicity and Race,” 9, 11–12; Muga, “Academic Sub-Cultural Theory and the Problematic of Ethnicity,” 12–13; Yancey, Ericksen, and Juliani, “Emergent Ethnicity: A Review and Reformulation,” 400; cf. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 96. Lauwagie, “Ethnic Boundaries in Modern States.” 97. Dormon, “Ethnic Groups and ‘Ethnicity,’” 26; I. Horowitz, Ideology and Utopia in the United States, 1956–1976, 67–75; Stavenhagen, “Ethnic Conflicts and Their Impact on International Society,” 123–124; Yancey, Ericksen, and Juliani, “Emergent Ethnicity: A Review and Reformulation,” 392. 98. Archer, “The Myth of Cultural Integration,” 337; Stavenhagen, “Ethnic Conflicts and Their Impact on International Society,” 120, 126; cf. Nagel, “Constructing Ethnicity,” 259; Nagel, “Ethnic Nationalism, Politics, Ideology, and the World Order.” On the basis of a rapidly growing and substantive research literature, Nagel showed that ethnicity emerges out of complex social, structural, and ecological processes. “Questions of history, membership, and culture are solved by the construction process.” Ethnic groups, thus constituted, attempt to articulate political and economic interests through the state under conditions of scarce resources. 99. Staiano, “Ethnicity as Process,” 29; Starr, “Social Categories and Claims in the Liberal State,” 283; cf. Alba and Chamlin, “A Preliminary Examination of Ethnic Identification Among Whites”; Belanger and Pinard, “Ethnic Movements and the Competition Model,” 446; Hechter, “The Political Economy of Ethnic Change,” 1151, 1177; Leifer, “Competing Models of Political Mobilization”; Portes, “The Rise of Ethnicity”; Ragin, “Ethnic Political Mobilization,” 619. 100. Klaff, “Pluralism as an Alternative Model for the Human Ecologist,” 111. 101. Van den Berghe, “Ethnic Pluralism in Industrial Societies,” 251–252. 102. Gitlin, “From Universality to Difference,” 17. 103. Vasta, “Multiculturalism and Ethnic Identity,” 217. Yet powerful forces challenge these cultures of resistance, evidenced in advertising’s ability to co-opt counterconcepts and narrow the “universe of discourse.” See Marcuse, OneDimensional Man; Ewen, Captains of Consciousness. 104. M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life. 105. Carmichael and Hamilton, Black Power. 106. Margalit and Halbertal, “Liberalism and the Right to Culture,” 510; cf. Wilson, When Work Disappears; Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide. 107. Niemonen, “The Role of the State in the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations.” 108. M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life. 109. Doane, “Rethinking the National Question,” 182. 110. Ibid., 183. 111. M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life; cf. Yancey, Ericksen, and Juliani, “Emergent Ethnicity: A Review and Reformulation,” 391, 399–400; Geschwender, “The Portuguese and Haoles of Hawaii,” 516, 525; Cummings, “White Ethnics, Racial Prejudice, and Labor Market Segmentation,” 948–949; D. Gordon, “Immigrants and Municipal Voting Turnout”; Greeley, “Political Participation Among Ethnic Groups in the United States”; Nielsen, “Toward a

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Theory of Ethnic Solidarity in Modern Societies,” 134–135; Sama, “From Immigrants to Ethnics,” 370–378. 112. Doane, “Rethinking the National Question,” 183. 113. Cox, Caste, Class, and Race; Webster, The Racialization of America, 209. 114. Cf. Webster, The Racialization of America, 226. 115. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, “Race, Class, and Public Policy.” 116. Stolzman and Gamberg, “Marxist Class Analysis Versus Stratification Analysis,” 120. 117. Ibid., 121; Boston, “Racial Inequality and Class Stratification,” 58. 118. Boston, “Racial Inequality and Class Stratification,” 7, 48, 52; cf. H. Horton et al., “Lost in the Storm.” 119. Wilson, “Race, Class, and Public Policy,” 125. 120. Shulman, “Race, Class, and Occupational Stratification,” 23; cf. Isaac and Kelly, “Developmental/Modernization and Political Class Struggle Theories of Welfare Expansion,” 213. 121. Katznelson, “Working-Class Formation and the State,” 260. 122. Wright, “Class Boundaries in Advanced Capitalist Societies,” 39–40. 123. Ibid., 40. 124. Pinkney, The Myth of Black Progress, 99 ff. 125. Kusner, “African Americans in the City Since World War II.” 126. H. Horton et al., “Lost in the Storm,” 131–133. On pp. 129–130, the authors explained how they operationalized the black working class. 127. Webster, The Racialization of America, 213; cf. Covington, “AfricanAmerican Communities and Violent Crime”; McNulty, “The Residential Process and the Ecological Concentration of Race, Poverty, and Violent Crime in New York City,” 26. 128. Prager, “American Political Culture and the Shifting Meaning of Race,” 76–77. 129. Webster, The Racialization of America, 215, 218. 130. Prager, “American Political Culture and the Shifting Meaning of Race,” 77. 131. Anthias, “Race and Class Revisited,” 21, 34; Chang, “Toward a Marxist Theory of Racism,” 43–44; San Juan, Articulations of Power in Ethnic and Racial Studies in the United States, 47; cf. Geschwender, “The Portuguese and Haoles of Hawaii.” 132. Miles, “Class, Race, and Ethnicity,” 184. 133. Martinot, “The Racialized Construction of Class in the United States.” 134. Miles, “Class, Race, and Ethnicity,” 185. 135. Ibid. 136. Robert Miles, quoted in Solomos, “Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of ‘Race,’ Class, and the State,” 101. 137. Solomos, “Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of ‘Race,’ Class, and the State,” 101. 138. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 139. Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Racialized Boundaries, 19. 140. Boston, “Racial Inequality and Class Stratification,” 47, 52, 67; cf. Martinot, “The Racialized Construction of Class in the United States.” 141. Wright, “Race, Class, and Income Inequality,” 1369. 142. Cf. San Juan, Articulations of Power in Ethnic and Racial Studies in the United States, 47–48.

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143. McDermott, “Race/Class Interactions in the Formation of Political Ideology,” 349. 144. Hughey and Vidich, “The New American Pluralism,” 173. 145. Cf. Merton, “Insiders and Outsiders.” 146. Miles, Racism, 57. 147. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; cf. Muga, “The Marxist Problematic as a Model Interdisciplinary Approach to Ethnic Studies,” 70. 148. Webster, The Racialization of America, 170. 149. M. Thomas, Herring, and Horton, “Discrimination Over the Life Course,” 608. 150. Ibid., 611. 151. O’Neill, “Discrimination and Income Inequality.” 152. Leahy, “Are Racial Factors Important for the Allocation of Mortgage Money?” 187–188. 153. Yamatani and Koeske, “Strategies for Examining Racial Discrimination Patterns.” 154. Mindiola, “Age and Income Discrimination Against Mexican Americans and Blacks in Texas, 1960 and 1970,” 205–206; Jiobu and Marshall, “Urban Structure and the Differentiation Between Blacks and Whites”; Farkas and Vicknair, “Appropriate Tests of Racial Wage Discrimination Require Controls for Cognitive Skill,” 557. 155. Frisbie and Neidert, “Inequality and the Relative Size of Minority Populations,” 1029. 156. Cherlin and Hodge, “Age Adjustment of Racial Income Differences.” 157. Farkas and Vicknair, “Appropriate Tests of Racial Wage Discrimination Require Controls for Cognitive Skill,” 558. 158. Lyon et al., “The National Longitudinal Surveys Data for Labor Market Entry,” 532–536; Tomaskovic-Devey, “The Gender and Race Composition of Jobs and the Male/Female, White/Black Pay Gaps,” 45–48. 159. Villemez and Rowe, “Black Economic Gains in the Sixties,” 182. 160. Stolzenberg, “Education, Occupation, and Wage Differences Between White and Black Men.” 161. Sokoloff, “Evaluating Gains and Losses of Black and White Women and Men in the Professions, 1960–1980.” 162. Carlson, “Inequality: Conceptual and Measurement Issues”; Fossett, Galle, and Kelly, “Racial Occupational Inequality, 1940–1980,” 428. 163. Stolzenberg and D’Amico, “City Differences and Nondifferences in the Effects of Race and Sex on Occupational Distribution,” 948–949. 164. Fossett and Swicegood, “Rediscovering City Differences in Racial Occupational Inequality,” 687. 165. Gottfredson, “Black-White Differences in the Educational Attainment Process,” 543, 546. 166. Ibid., 542, 546; cf. Zhou and Logan, “In and Out of Chinatown.” 167. Bielby, Hauser, and Featherman, “Response Errors of Black and Nonblack Males in Models of the Intergenerational Transmission of Socioeconomic Status,” 1242. 168. Ibid., 1243. 169. Ibid., 1277. 170. Pomer, “Labor Market Structure, Intragenerational Mobility, and Discrimination,” 650; cf. Fossett, Galle, and Burr, “Racial Occupational Inequality, 1940–1980,” 423–424. 171. Stolzenberg and D’Amico, “City Differences and Nondifferences in the

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Effects of Race and Sex on Occupational Distribution,” 948; cf. D’Amico and Maxwell, “The Continuing Significance of Race in Minority Male Joblessness.” D’Amico and Maxwell claimed that racial disparities in employment opportunities do not vary greatly by region of the country, or between central cities and suburban or rural areas. This statement may be misinterpreted if it is taken out of context. The authors meant to say that in only a few areas are black employment opportunities comparable to white employment opportunities. 172. LaGory and Magnani, “Structural Correlates of Black-White Occupational Differentiation,” 167–168. 173. L. Hogan and Harris, “The Occupational-Industrial Structure of Black Employment in the United States,” 13–14; cf. Cutright, “Region, Migration, and the Earnings of White and Black Men”; Grindstaff, “The Negro, Urbanization, and Relative Deprivation in the Deep South”; Lichter, “Race, Employment Hardship, and Inequality in the American Nonmetropolitan South,” 444–445; Lieberson, “A Reconsideration of the Income Differences Found Between Migrants and Northernborn Blacks,” 964–965; Rankin and Falk, “Race, Region, and Earnings.” 174. Kiser and Hechter, “The Role of General Theory in Comparative-historical Sociology,” 4–5, 7. 175. Ibid., 13. 176. Boston, Race, Class, and Conservatism, 60. 177. Ibid. 178. Ibid., 61. 179. Ibid., 72. 180. Ibid., 74. 181. Ibid., 84–87; cf. Wright, “Race, Class, and Income Inequality.” 182. Beggs, Villemez, and Arnold, “Black Population Concentration and Black-White Inequality,” 86; Ratcliffe, “Housing Inequality and ‘Race,’” 5–6; M. Thomas, “Race, Class, and Personal Income,” 330. 183. Villemez and Rowe, “Black Economic Gains in the Sixties,” 181. 184. Roscigno, “The Black-White-Achievement Gap, Family-School Links, and the Importance of Place.” 185. Featherman and Hauser, “Changes in the Socioeconomic Stratification of the Races, 1962–73.” 186. G. Wilson, “Payoffs to Power Among Males in the Middle Class,” 607; cf. G. Wilson and Royster, “Critiquing Wilson’s Critics.” 187. Hraba and Richards, “Race Relations, Social Science, and Social Policy,” 1443–1444; cf. McCarthy and Yancey, “Another Reply to Hraba and Richards”; Metzger, “Reply to Hraba and Richards.” 188. For a comparative analysis of, and a commentary on, the journals that served as a database, see Niemonen, “The Race Relations Problematic in American Sociology,” 18, 28–30.

3 Debates Surrounding The Declining Significance of Race

Some Observations on Racial Formations Two propositions—that the United States experienced a succession of racial periods or formations, and that white gains from racial subordination are historically (and within the racial grouping “white”) class-specific—are not in dispute. Indeed, Wilson’s use of historical analysis allowed him to explore the underlying structures of race relations as they changed over time.1 However, Wilson’s overview of the succession of periods slighted the complexities of understanding the transition from one mode of production to another, the articulation of different modes, the possibility of contradictions within each mode, and the manner in which the functioning of a mode simultaneously reproduces and undermines its own conditions of existence. 2 Wilson’s overview of the succession of periods was more mechanical than dynamic; for example, the black experience was largely passive. A “moving narrative of human beings involved in social conflicts” was absent, including the impact of organized black working-class protest on the racial policies of both companies and unions.3 Wilson did not analyze the implications of black activism in its various guises for racial progress; neither did he evaluate the relationship between racial insurgency and the expansion of the welfare state. Without a doubt, human beings are “determined” by the structural conditions of their existence. However, this observation does not change the fact that these structural conditions are produced, reproduced, and transformed through the situated action of partially knowing subjects.4 The coexistence of different modes of production is complex and contradictory. In an uneven process, the capitalist mode of production progressively subordinates and “dissolves” other modes of production. It subordi-

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nates other modes of production even as it conserves them in restructured (partially dissolved) form; only later does it dissolve them outright.5 The relationships among economic, political, and ideological structures differ from one mode of production to another. Structures are modified depending on the manner in which a given mode of production combines with other modes in a concrete social formation.6 Each constituent and relatively autonomous structure has “distinctive mechanisms and principles of operation”;7 a major change in any one of the structures necessitates corresponding changes on the part of the other structures. Changes do not necessarily occur in a gradual and incremental fashion; changes may occur so rapidly that a distinctly different set of relationships arises. Specific racial formations arise from, are interdependent with, and function within the context of a specifiable dominant mode of production. The transition period from one racial formation to another can be dated, for example, in the changing constitutional status of the concept of race and the legal regulation of race relations8—a problematic that Wilson recognized but did not take advantage of. In effect, a thorough review of legal and judicial changes rooted in an epistemologically coherent theory of the state would have provided a stronger justification for his conceptualization of the three periods of race relations. Other evidence supports Wilson’s claim that orthodox Marxist and split labor market theories are not applicable to the modern industrial period, although controversy exists over the extent to which they are applicable to the preindustrial and industrial periods.9 Here Wilson was criticized for an argument that failed to account for blacks’ contributions to, and participation in, the forces of social change. Disproportionately, the literature centers on the modern industrial period—the transition from racial subordination to social-class subordination as a consequence of macroeconomic and political changes.10 Critics generally agreed that the statements made about the modern industrial period of race relations are the most controversial component in Wilson’s work as a whole.11 Despite critics’ claims to the contrary, a careful reading of The Declining Significance of Race shows that Wilson never argued that racial equality had been achieved in the modern industrial period and that little more needs to be done. Rather, the variable of social class had become more important than the variable of race in determining the life-chances of blacks. Wilson was more successful in supporting a general claim that race was decreasing in significance than he was in documenting how, and in what ways, social class was increasing in significance.12 The Declining Significance of Race implied that a substantial part of U.S. racial history could be explained on the bases of economic competition between racial groups and the extent of white working-class power. However, Wilson provided insufficient empirical data to substantiate his description of the nature and level of competition, as well as his conclu-

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sions about the extent of white working-class power, in each period. He grounded “racial antagonism” almost exclusively in material factors, ignoring superstructural factors such as the role of ideology. Wilson acknowledged the role of the polity, which was introduced to account for variations in race relations not explained by economic competition. However, his treatment was brief and did not contain a formal theory of the state. 13 Neither did it address the extent to which the state’s autonomy is, or is not, constrained by structural imperatives. In Wilson’s framework, political power appeared to be a derivative of economics or, more specifically, the forces and relations constituting a particular mode of production.14 Social psychologists have criticized such accounts for their failure to incorporate ideological factors or, more broadly, for their failure to link the mediating ideas through which people understand the world to the reproduction of, and challenge to, prevailing race relations.15 In a comprehensive search of the sociological research literature, I found few studies examining Wilson’s16 claim that orthodox Marxist theory applied only to the preindustrial period of U.S. race relations (in other words, that the social class most antagonistic to blacks was the plantation elite). This gap in an otherwise growing body of assessments may be a corollary of the absence of theoretical discussions on the state in the sociology of racial and ethnic relations generally. 17 A study by Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and Vincent Roscigno18 was one of the exceptions; they developed a contemporary counterpart to Wilson’s claim. They argued that racial competition is associated with increased inequality between blacks and whites and increased poverty among blacks. However, these phenomena occur only where the concentration of landownership among traditional elites is high (e.g., in North Carolina) and a large black population is available to be exploited. The local elite gains from black subordination primarily by dividing the working class along racial lines.19 However, to make any claim for orthodox Marxist theory, the dynamics of black subordination must be analyzed in the context of local histories and state structures. Furthermore, Tomaskovic-Devey and Roscigno20 cautioned that the importance of racial divisions in the working class to the character of contemporary economic development in North Carolina might be declining. Their observations implied that the demarcation of periods in Wilson’s The Declining Significance of Race is problematic because elements of the preindustrial period persist into the modern industrial period. Racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainment outcomes reflect factors more fundamental than human capital, namely, the social class structure and racial character of the local economy. A unified elite at the local level will influence racial competition and the resultant inequality to the extent that race can be used to undermine the power of labor generally.21 Therefore, it is crucial to understand who controls local and state gov-

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ernments, because such control has profound implications for the structuring of race relations in the political economy at the local level. Wilson slighted the political economy of localities and oversimplified the elite, who may be divided into factions. Collective action requires political organization and state control. Without a study of the political economy of localities, it is difficult to empirically determine the extent to which race is the organizing principle of elite economic activity or the extent to which race can be used to undermine the power of labor generally.22 Some empirical support exists for Wilson’s23 claim that split labor market theory applied to the industrial period of U.S. race relations, as well as for the premises of split labor market theory generally.24 Wilson’s use of split labor market theory to characterize the industrial period is not coincidental. Split labor market theory, derived in part from the work of Oliver C. Cox, is a delimited theory of racial and ethnic relations grounded in a materialist rather than an idealist interpretation of history. It emphasizes the “material bases of racial and ethnic antagonism”; and it appears to be relevant particularly for the period from 1916 to the end of the New Deal.25 Split labor market theory assumes that race, in and of itself, is of minor importance. In other words, race is a political construct that represents a conflict over scarce resources in a materialist world rather than a primordial hate of certain skin colors or a remnant of precapitalist societies.26 The real division is not between white and black; rather, it is between higher-priced and lower-priced workers. The race problem is subordinated to the social-class problem; that is, the price of labor is an important factor for the issue of who is oppressing whom. The social class most overtly antagonistic to blacks is the white working class, not the capitalist class, whose primary interest is maximizing profits by hiring from the cheapest available labor pool.27 White workers erect racist barriers to protect their interests. When the circumstances that create split labor markets change, then a decline in racially oppressive practices by the white working class should follow (as Wilson predicted). This decline may be accomplished by restricting capitalists’ access to lower-priced workers, outlawing dual wage structures, raising minimum wages and extending coverage to a greater proportion of the labor force, and recognizing the right to bargain collectively. Demarcating the transition to the modern industrial period,28 New Deal labor legislation removed important sources of antagonism between white and black workers. However, the rising costs of labor power drove capitalists to automate, exploit unprotected labor enclaves within the United States, and relocate overseas. These processes hurt blue-collar black workers disproportionately, leaving a group of hard-core unemployed in the ghettos. Split labor market theory represents a paradigmatic shift away from liberal accounts of race relations by claiming that sociohistorical and

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political economic processes are more fundamental to understanding racial conflicts than social-psychological processes. From the start, it has been controversial. For example, Jonathan Turner et al.29 and Turner and Royce Singleton30 argued that it is inappropriate to view cultural processes as a residual of structural processes or as “mere ideological justifications” for the exploitation of one group by another. These authors claimed that the conflict created by contradictory values, attitudes, and beliefs often provides the impetus to social change; that is, the contradictory values, attitudes, and beliefs embodied in cultural processes interact with structural (or political economic) processes to create the structures of racial oppression. To analytically separate social-class interests from local or situationally bound interests is problematic as well. To paraphrase Claus Offe, the former requires a degree of rationality “cleansed of situational and particular coincidences and divergences.”31 Wilson32 argued that in the industrial period white workers were the biggest enemy of black civil rights. In the South, Jim Crow (i.e., state-enforced) segregation and political disenfranchisement accompanied the rise of lower-class whites to power after the Civil War and enhanced the ability of white workers to eliminate economic competition from black workers. In the North, a small black population prevented the white working class from imposing state-enforced segregation and political disenfranchisement. According to David James,33 however, at least one of these claims was flawed and reflected a failure to grasp the importance of local or situationally bound interests. In the South, white sharecroppers and agricultural laborers may have competed with blacks; however, white planters and farmers did not. They had a common interest in suppressing the wages of sharecroppers and agricultural laborers regardless of race. Given the divergent interests of white Southerners, racial solidarity probably reflected the domination of white planters and farmers over the lower classes of both races rather than competition between lower-class whites and blacks.34 Finally, split labor market theory may not be consistent with the historical record. According to Cliff Brown,35 the tendency to minimize the role of capitalists in the formation and reproduction of split labor markets (i.e., to assume that their behavior is constant) results from “static, synchronic methodologies.” Some research examining split labor markets contained a selection bias that confirmed the theory’s original claims about the role of capitalists. In contrast, Brown’s analysis showed that capitalists (as well as state actors) intervened in conflicts between racial groups in the labor market. Particularly, capitalists racialized the social-class struggle when black workers became increasingly militant and unions strived for racial inclusiveness. Any successes would have undermined attempts by capitalists to suppress labor costs. The fact that capitalists will manipulate relations between the races in

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split labor markets (if it is to their advantage) does not contradict the premises of split labor market theory generally. However, it is difficult to avoid overgeneralizations in the application of this theory. For example, Wilson36 implied that the white working class generally gained from racial subordination. Evidence that this was the case is not convincing. In a controversial study, Albert Szymanski37 claimed that white workers did not economically benefit by discriminating against black workers. White workers gained when discrimination was absent, measured in part by the absolute level of their earnings. Other sociologists argued that mainly employers and “higher-level employees” gained from black subordination, whereas lower-level employees, including manual workers, did not.38 In his analysis of 1970 U.S. census data, George Dowdall39 concluded that in the South, but not in the North, some whites benefited from the subordinate position of blacks primarily through higher occupational status, lower unemployment, and higher family income. Data on the occurrence of conflicts between, and violence against, various racial and ethnic groups in the eighty-one largest U.S. cities (1880–1914) showed that the rising supply of low-wage laborers through immigration, a downturn in economic fortunes, the growth of the unionization movement, and “contagion processes” increased levels of competition (and, by definition, rates of racial and ethnic conflict) in urban labor markets.40 Immigration provided a reserve army of low-wage laborers whose presence threatened the growing power of labor unions and the effectiveness of strikes. Labor unions resisted the influx of foreign workers and black workers. Because the division between skilled workers and unskilled workers coincided roughly with ethnic and racial divisions, economic selfinterest encouraged antiforeigner and antiblack sentiments. Mechanization exacerbated the situation. Unskilled workers and machines could replace skilled and unionized workers. Therefore, anti-immigrant and antiblack sentiments may be driven by skilled workers’ fear of de-skilling and unemployment rather than by racism per se.41 Susan Olzak42 empirically substantiated the argument that antiblack activity, or racial antagonism, coincided with the growth of labor unions. Labor unions provided the organizational bases for several kinds of collective action, including violence directed against blacks. Changes in immigration patterns intensified competition among all groups and increased the rates of violence; however, the attacks were directed disproportionately against blacks. How proponents of split labor market theory conceptualize the structure and functions of the state in this context is not clear. In the main, split labor market theory subscribes to, but does not supercede, a neo-Weberian assumption that the state has a relative degree of autonomy—“a somewhat independent force”—that in turn has (mostly unspecified) implications for social-class struggle. 43 This position does not represent a theoretical

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advance over orthodox Marxist views of the state, wherein the state is conceptualized as little more than a divide-and-conquer instrument in the hands of the capitalist class—a view that has been criticized extensively as simplistic and ahistorical.44 In the latter case, racism persists because it is functional to the capitalist class; in the former case, racism persists because it is functional to the white working class. In this respect, Wilson’s45 analysis was consistent with the so-called class mobilization thesis, which differs from structuralist accounts of the state by its emphasis on social classes as the main agents of social change, and by its argument that the balance of class power determines distributional outcomes. To emphasize class mobilization does not rule out the state before the fact. However, Wilson did not address a critical issue in the industrial period: how social class power is translated into state policies. If at various levels the state is relatively autonomous in the industrial and modern industrial periods, then in principle it may serve interests that are antagonistic to the “active parties.”46 For the most part, Wilson’s observations on the industrial period in The Declining Significance of Race appeared consistent with the historical record. However, the details were sketchy, and understanding remains incomplete. Why split labor markets emerge and perpetuate themselves, and who benefits from their presence or absence, are questions that require more research. Critical variables include developments in the mode, forces, and relations of production; immigration and migration patterns; the nature and extent of racial and ethnic competition; patterns of segregation; the appropriate place of racial discourses; capitalists’ intentions; and the role of the state.47

Racial Inequality in the Aggregate: Trends over Time Based on a review of approximately 400 studies, I concluded that Wilson48 was broadly correct in arguing that social class has become more important, and race has become less important, in determining black life-chances in the modern industrial period. However, statements such as these aren’t very useful because the reality of black life-chances is much more complicated, and the issues concerning the reification of race have not been resolved.49 The studies that provided the strongest support for Wilson in the pre-1980 period examined the relative effects of race and social class in structuring intragenerational and intergenerational occupational mobility patterns. Socioeconomic criteria played an increasing role in determining the access of black men to middle-class occupations, as well as their ability to pass on to their children their relative occupational advantages.50 The debate about the educational, occupational, and income gains of blacks relative to whites is rooted in an assumption of “statistical equality,”

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in which blacks and whites should be distributed throughout various strata (such as educational and occupational structures) in proportion to their percentage in the population.51 Whether measured by educational, occupational, or earnings attainments, the position of blacks relative to whites has improved since the early 1960s.52 Szymanski53 claimed that the ever stronger need of the corporation for a homogeneous working force, which would maximize the number of potential workers in each job classification, hence decreasing wages and increasing the flexibility of its labor forces, has exerted itself over the older principle of racial discrimination. The profit opportunities involved in a homogeneous labor force seem to have come to outweigh the profit possibilities of using blacks as strikebreakers and menial laborers.

If Szymanski’s observations hold true, then they constitute prima facie evidence for Wilson’s premise that race relations change as structural relations between groups change. General evidence suggests that the educational, occupational, and earnings attainments of blacks compared to whites are beginning to converge. Age-constant comparisons of blacks with whites indicate an increase in mean levels of educational, occupational, and earnings attainments. For example, by 1973 the level of occupational attainment achieved by native northern blacks resembled the U.S. white majority more so than that of native southern blacks. This pattern implied increased internal differentiation and inequality within the black community. Probably, it was related, at least in part, to internal migration patterns and economic expansion.54 The fact that blacks have made progress reducing educational, occupational, and earnings disparities in both relative and absolute terms since the early 1960s is not to say that these disparities have disappeared, however. Reductions in inequality during the 1960s were small. In most cases, black progress matched white progress, leaving the gaps altered only slightly. Progress was most apparent among younger cohorts. Some data indicate that younger age groups experience less racial discrimination than older age groups; therefore, newer cohorts may be starting their labor force careers in a more favorable position than previous cohorts.55 Yet as Wilson56 argued, blacks did not lose ground during recessions. This fact emerged from indicators such as years of schooling completed, the quality of schools attended, earnings returns to schooling, the proportion of workers in managerial and professional occupations, and proportional representation of elected officials.57 Whether these trends reflected the changing significance of race or other factors, such as exceptional economic growth or concerted state action, is not clear. Improvements in aggregate inequality between blacks and whites reflected a confluence of trends and should be interpreted with great caution. Although the greatest

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convergence has occurred for young adults, an important exception is the increased levels of joblessness among black youths relative to white youths.58 A variety of explanations have been offered for improvements in aggregate inequality, including decreasing prejudice among successive cohorts of whites; increasing ability to acquire the requisite human capital; favorable judicial rulings, laws, and programs; political pressures from black groups; the expansion of state sector employment; and industrial and white-collar (but not craft) unionization.59 Mark Fossett et al.60 suggested that improvements in aggregate inequality can be explained in part by the migration of blacks from the South to areas outside the South, with little improvement occurring in relative opportunities within each region. However, it appears that the potential for interregional demographic shifts to produce improvements in aggregate inequality at the national level has diminished considerably. Future reductions, these authors argued, must come from improvements in relative educational and occupational opportunities for blacks within regions. Regardless of race, earnings generally improve by assimilation (read: integration), acquisition of human capital, and favorable structural factors. However, claims that racial discrimination continues also receive support;61 the bases for these claims are reviewed below. Furthermore, employment opportunities continue to be severely limited for many black men as reflected, for example, in the growth of the black underclass. Blacks have difficulty gaining access to certain whitecollar positions; and the earnings of black men compared to white men continue to lag, albeit in complex ways.

School Practices and Educational Attainment Late in his work, Wilson62 distinguished between two types of racism: biological racism and cultural racism. The latter refers to a belief that “cultural deficits” are so ingrained that they cannot be overcome. Thus, some educators do not place black students on the same track as white students because—it is believed—they will not achieve the same. Institutional cultural racism exists when this assumption is embedded in school practices. Wilson approvingly cited contemporary arguments that claim that although biological racism has waned, cultural racism continues. For example, standardized achievement scores are not sensitive to the cumulative effects of race, which Wilson63 referred to as “long-term intergenerational effects.” Wilson suggested that “racial restrictions” (which he did not specify) result in lower achievement scores for black students from middle-income families; lower scores handicap them in college and university admissions. Despite substantial methodological difficulties in assessing the relative

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effects of independent variables in educational attainment and outcome models,64 and despite evidence of some convergence between blacks and whites, it is clear that disparities continue.65 For example, a substantial and well-documented gap exists between the achievement scores of black students compared to white students. This gap is smallest in predominantly white schools, apparently because black students in white schools perform better than their counterparts in racially mixed or predominantly black schools. Whether or not school desegregation is the major factor accounting for improved black achievement scores is difficult to determine. In a meta-analysis that included ninety-three studies, Robert Crain and Rita Mahard66 concluded that the inconsistent findings of the effects of school desegregation on black achievement scores were attributable mainly to methodological differences. A partial correction for this bias suggested that desegregation has a positive effect on black achievement scores; however, this effect appears to be limited to the primary level. The influence of family background on achievement scores is mediated partially through classroom dynamics and school practices; more bluntly, the institutions of education reproduce the inequalities that children “walk into school with.”67 Relative to their white counterparts, black students are disadvantaged especially in areas where opportunities are constricted—for example, in socially isolated, impoverished black neighborhoods. Because place of residence determines to a large extent which school is attended, it may be a crucial variable in accounting for the comparatively weak performance of students in predominantly black schools.68 Classroom dynamics and school practices are negatively affected by the attributes of these places.69 A cultural context may emerge that sustains antieducational attitudes. For example, Alan Kerckhoff and Richard Campbell70 suggested that, under certain circumstances, those who perceive constricted opportunities are likely to lower their expectations. More specifically, students who perceive a bleak future may be less inclined to complete schooling and acquire marketable skills because of a belief that society will not reward them through the job market. In turn, local governing bodies may not invest in the educational infrastructure because of a belief that those who succeed will migrate out.71 For example, in a sample of black students, Patricia Gurin72 discovered that those who believed that others can control what happens in their lives had low aspirations; that those who believed this and internalized the view that ability, hard work, and other personal factors are the most important determinants of success in life had even lower aspirations. These students attributed problems in the black community to internal factors such as lack of motivation rather than to external factors such as cultural racism.73 Ironically, compared to white students, black students as a whole do not perceive fewer returns to education or delimited occupational opportu-

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nities.74 The problems that highly disadvantaged blacks face are not necessarily characteristic of the experiences of blacks generally. In fact, black students have more proschool attitudes than white students. While black students value schooling, they fail to put forth the necessary effort for success. A possible reason is that black students live disproportionately in neighborhoods with material conditions that are less likely to foster the skills, habits, and “styles” that lead to success. These behaviors are strong predictors of academic performance and mediate substantially racial effects on grades.75 Michael Hout and William Morgan76 observed that parental encouragement has a strong positive effect on grades for black females; however, it has no effect on grades for black males. This difference among the sexes was attributed partially to the normative expectations of peers that discourage black males from converting parental encouragement into better grades. Hout and Morgan stressed that positive support from parents and teachers is important especially for black males who remain in school to offset the influence of their counterparts who drop out of school.77 For white students, educational attainment is a patterned and predictable process; its major determinants are ability, goal-directedness, and the routinized consequences of school credentials. For white students, institutionally conferred grades, apart from their psychological effects, apparently carry them toward predictable levels of achievement.78 For black students, educational attainment is more problematic since institutionally conferred grades are viewed with greater skepticism; they become more dependent on others, such as mentors or sponsors. Administrators devalue black students’ grades, especially those from all-black schools, as an indicator of differential achievement in high school and as a credential that counts in college and university admissions.79 Black students are punished more frequently than white students, even though self-report data indicate that the former do not misbehave more than the latter. The rate of serious in-school offenses may be higher for black students compared to white students; however, the rate of nonserious inschool offenses apparently is lower for black students compared to white students. The strongest predictors of punishment are knowledge of the student’s past punishment(s), followed by the teacher’s perception of the student’s general level of acceptable behavior, and the student’s grades. When these variables are controlled, other possible influences have no effect statistically, including age, sex, socioeconomic status, and home situation. Race has an indirect impact only, through the student’s perceived demeanor, recent academic performance, and history of official punishment. Since disadvantaged students are likely to be found deficient in perceived demeanor, academic performance, and punishment history, the result is an educational system that perpetuates their status. This phenomenon

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occurs even though the system appears to operate with universalistic norms.80 Reductions in the black-white earnings gap stagnated during the 1980s, in part because the black-white skills gap persisted while the returns to skills increased. In other words, the academic achievements of black students in the inner city failed to improve relative to the academic achievements of white students generally. 81 Lagging educational performance leads to lost earnings later in life. However, David Maume et al.82 cautioned that cognitive deficiencies are not responsible primarily for blacks’ lower earnings and that racial parity in earnings cannot be achieved without addressing racial differences in labor market experiences. These authors recommended research that examines how employers evaluate and use cognitive skills. For example, Melvin Thomas83 showed that blacks with high levels of educational and occupational attainment are less able than their white counterparts to translate these assets into comparable earnings. Recent research showed that major employers pay significant wage premiums for schooling and cognitive skills and that blacks lag behind whites on both. Therefore, providing blacks with opportunities to develop skills that are valued in the labor market would improve their chances of entering the high-wage segment of the labor market in the absence of affirmative action programs. However, improving the quality of black schooling does not ensure that blacks will find employment in large companies and that the black-white earnings gap will close. Employers’ perceptions of the worth of potential employees and the skills that they bring into the workplace are important and not always unbiased. Improved schooling and the acquisition of cognitive skills may not solve the problem of earnings disparities if statistical discrimination on the part of employers, employees, or customers prevents qualified black workers from attaining positions of authority. Black workers may get discouraged if they are not given adequate opportunities for employment and upward mobility in large companies; discouragement may lower the supply of skilled black workers in the future.84

Earnings Attainment Generalizations about decreasing income inequality between blacks and whites should be viewed with caution. A variety of measures used to estimate income inequality by race, as well as differences in samples, models, and methods, make it difficult to construct a composite view. In addition, income inequality studies often restrict their analyses to full-time workers, ignoring long-standing racial differences in employment status.85 In spite of small reductions in racial disparities in earnings attainment within edu-

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cational levels, the overall gap between whites and blacks increased from the late 1950s through 1970. This finding reflects the fact that the labor force shifted upward to an educational level where the gap between whites and blacks was larger. 86 After 1970, blacks’ income increased both in absolute terms and in relative terms, although blacks continued to lag behind their white counterparts in earnings attainment generally. These gains were due mainly to an increase in average levels of education and occupational status among blacks and because of the implementation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawing racial discrimination in hiring and pay rates.87 Although black men now are more likely to hold high-paying jobs, the probability of being employed relative to whites has not improved since World War II.88 The evidence for Wilson’s thesis of the declining significance of race, as measured by earnings attainment, is modest. Progress is not uniform and depends upon sex, age, education, and geographical location.89 Despite a small decline in income inequality between the late 1960s and the late 1980s, disparities persisted between blacks and whites in personal income after controlling for social class and other variables. Social class and other variables explained a large proportion of the initial gap between blacks and whites in personal income; however, a racial effect remained that, according to Thomas,90 reflects the negative consequences of being black. In both 1968 and 1988, the negative effect of race on income was greater for higher-status blacks than for lower-status blacks; the negative effect of race on income was greater for married-couple black families than it was for female-headed black families.91 The negative effect of race appears to be specific to black men. Compared to the effect of race on income, the effects of social class and sex on income are greater for black women than for black men. Generally, black women have come closer to income equality with white women; however, women as a whole have been unable to close the gap relative to white men.92 The employment and earnings patterns of black women and white women are more similar to each other than they are to their male counterparts.93 The earnings gap between black families and white families has remained constant (indeed, it may be increasing), reflecting the rapid increase in the proportion of female-headed families among blacks. 94 Income gaps vary widely across regions, however. (In contrast, Maume et al.95 found that among workers who entered the labor force in the post1965 period, the proportion of the racial gap in earnings that was due to discrimination was larger among a cohort of young workers in 1985 than among a similar cohort of young workers in 1976.) A fundamental question here is how income inequality unfolds over a work career. It appears that the effects of race on earnings are not constant over time. As blacks age, income differences become more pronounced

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between blacks and comparable whites. 96 For example, Thomas with others97 demonstrated that racial gaps in earnings were greater at midcareer than in early career among several cohorts of black men and their white counterparts, including one for the 1980 to 1990 period. In other words, black men and white men are more likely to be paid equally at the beginning of their careers than in the middle of their careers. Similarly, George Wilson and Ian Sakura-Lemessey, 98 who followed two cohorts of men through the early stages of their work careers in “middle-class jobs” during the periods 1975–1982 and 1985–1992, determined that the earnings gap between blacks and whites increased for both cohorts and was more pronounced in the most recent cohort. In short, earnings of young blacks fall behind white counterparts as they age, possibly as a result of subtle discriminatory processes in job evaluations and mobility tracks.99 A variety of mechanisms such as informational recruitment networks, exclusionary practices by labor unions and professional associations, and the so-called taste for discrimination may steer blacks into the secondary labor market. Here, additional years of experience do not count for much. In addition, disproportionate underrepresentation in positions of authority means that blacks are less able to influence decisions concerning hiring, retention, and promotion of subordinates. Projections suggest that the earnings of young blacks will fall behind their white counterparts as they age; after retirement, with sharp drops in white income, they will converge. The convergence among the elderly is due in part to whites relying more heavily on accumulated wealth than their black counterparts. Whites who are more affluent may retire early, leaving lower-earning whites in the workforce.100 These projections imply that blacks may experience a cumulating disadvantage that Wilson was not aware of in his overview of statistics in The Declining Significance of Race.101 Wilson’s claim that a legacy of past discrimination accounts for the continuing racial disparity in earnings is difficult to defend in the context of these observations. Blacks are employed disproportionately in large companies, some of which Wilson102 cited as racially progressive; yet they earn less than whites even after controlling for educational attainment, test scores, job tenure, job characteristics, and company characteristics. Blacks are underrepresented and undercompensated in supervisory jobs. The underrepresentation of, and unequal returns to, blacks in supervisory jobs in large companies may be important factors contributing to the disparity in earnings.103 Introducing only human capital variables, and not the structural characteristics of the workplace, into multiple regression equations apparently underestimates the true extent of the disparity in black-white earnings. Some studies claimed that employment in large companies increases the wages of all workers in general. In contrast, Aparna Mitra104 argued that the inclusion of

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structural characteristics increases the magnitude of the earnings disparities between blacks and whites. Contrasted with their northern counterparts, the inability of southernborn and -educated black men to convert their educational attainments into expected earnings attainments appears to be related to employers’ perceptions of the quality of schooling received in the South, as well as to the possibility that southern-educated black men are less productive workers; a poor productivity record would produce slower growth in earnings. Southern-born black men who migrate north are more likely to be in the secondary labor market where education is less important as a predictor variable. In such jobs, working longer hours and more weeks per year, they earn higher incomes than many black men educated in the North. However, they forfeit the occupational prestige and earnings attainment advantages ordinarily associated with additional years of schooling.105 Despite the growth of economic opportunity in rural labor markets of the U.S. South, agricultural and nonagricultural black workers still occupy a labor market position inferior to that of whites, if measured by earnings, employment levels, and job mobility. Factors affecting black employment opportunities include the mechanization of agriculture, inadequate education, lack of referral services or networks, and out-migration.106 Although it is reasonably certain that whites earn more on the average than blacks in the United States, considerable controversy exists over the reasons. The disparity in earnings between blacks and whites cannot be attributed to age differences alone. Economists generally agree that due to discrimination older black cohorts are likely to be farther behind their white peers in educational attainment, work experience, and income compared to younger black cohorts. Although the size of the earnings gap is smaller for younger cohorts, still it is “rather significant.”107 These disparities (as well as some of the apparent contradictions in the findings) may be attributed to a number of factors.108 First, the structural transformation of the U.S. economy had a profound impact on black earnings. From 1970 to 1982, underemployment increased over time for both blacks and whites. However, racial polarization accelerated in northeastern and north-central cities as the absolute gap in underemployment between blacks and whites increased, especially among the young and least educated in the black ghettos.109 Demographic shifts, combined with processes of deindustrialization and disinvestment, compounded the problems of employment marginality and joblessness. Generally, the decline in entrylevel blue-collar jobs as a percentage of all jobs most severely affects young adults seeking their first jobs and those with insufficient education to find anything better. (Indeed, Daniel Lichter110 concluded that the lack of a good education has greater implications today for the quality of employment than it did twenty years ago.) Not surprisingly, for these groups, rela-

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tive employment circumstances deteriorated the most since the early 1970s—a problem exacerbated by an increase in the percentage of young black adults relative to the black population as a whole. The latter has roots in racial differences in fertility rates and patterns of suburbanization; that is, urban black concentration is increasing because of more rapid white suburbanization compared to black suburbanization.111 The persistent racial gap in underemployment and unemployment may be due to migration and fertility patterns, declining schools (an indirect consequence of deindustrialization and disinvestment), differential access to employment opportunities by region, labor market segmentation, occupational placement procedures, and labor market discrimination. 112 According to Lichter, Wilson’s claim that the deteriorating plight of urban blacks is largely the result of past discrimination and contemporary demographic and employment trends is not easy to dispute. “Yet it is equally difficult to discount the fact that race [had] more bearing on the likelihood of being underemployed in 1982 than it did in 1970. There is little evidence of the ‘declining significance of race,’ at least as it pertains to labor-force marginality in the urban core.”113 In the 1980s, among workers twenty-five to thirty-four years of age, the earnings gap between black and white workers increased. Decreasing demand for manufacturing workers as a consequence of deindustrialization and disinvestment processes, and rising returns to skills in an increasingly service-oriented economy, are partially responsible.114 As Wilson115 noted, black workers were concentrated in manufacturing industries that experienced the greatest job displacement between 1979 and 1986, and these workers were less likely than their white counterparts to reenter manufacturing industries following a period of unemployment. Blacks suffer disproportionately from job displacement because of the difficulty of acquiring a good education, concentration in the unskilled ranks, union seniority rules that may be “universalistic” but protect older white workers given blacks’ later entry, and residential segregation, making it difficult for blacks to follow decentralizing industries. 116 However, Silvia Cancio et al. 117 argued that no more than a third of the widening racial gap in earnings in the 1980s could be attributed to changes in the U.S. occupational structure. They suggested that the widening gap is due in part to the retreat from equal opportunity employment and affirmative action programs during the Ronald Reagan administration—a point that contradicts Wilson’s118 claim of a state apparatus committed to racial equality. The federal government’s lack of enthusiasm for enforcing these programs affected the hiring, pay, and promotion practices of organizations and companies. Therefore, these authors believed that the “long-term trend toward racial parity has reversed.”119 Second, both the changing labor market characteristics of, and the

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changing rates of return to, black women reduced the earnings gap between black women and white women between 1958 and 1981.120 In this period, black women and white women entered the private and state sectors at the same time, in the same relative numbers, and in the same age groups. Black women and white women now exhibit similar occupational distributions and are highly concentrated in clerical, sales, and service occupations. In other words, black women have been integrated into occupations once reserved for white women. However, black women have a higher probability of being in lower-status jobs.121 It appears that black women were able to close the gap as a consequence of increasing employment opportunities in the state sector rather than as a consequence of less discriminatory recruitment, hiring, and pay procedures in the private sector. In addition, the “wage penalty” for being in a predominantly female occupation in the private sector is even greater among black women compared to white women.122 Whites’ higher average educational attainment and disproportionate placement in jobs requiring higher-level cognitive skills statistically explain part of the earnings gap between them and blacks generally. However, because educational differences between blacks and whites are greater for men than for women, this factor explains more of the race gap in pay for men than it does for women. Differences in years of job experience between blacks and whites also explain more of the race gap in pay for men than they do for women.123 In the determination of the causes of inequality in earnings, the interactions between race and sex are complex. Evidence suggests that black men and black women do not experience in the same way the structural transformations described by Wilson in The Declining Significance of Race and When Work Disappears.124 For example, expanding educational and occupational opportunities for women, coupled with support from the social welfare system and informal familial networks, may have reduced the impact of deindustrialization on black women. Nevertheless, their unemployment rates have increased relative to white women. This phenomenon results partly because they have moved into occupations and regions where unemployment rates are comparably higher. 125 Other evidence suggests widening disparities over time in employment returns to education among black women compared to white women. Industrial restructuring, the influx of unskilled immigrants from Latin America, economic downturns, and racial discrimination are possible mechanisms responsible for the declining labor market position of black women.126 Although James Cunningham and Nadja Zalokar127 believed that the improvement in the relative earnings of black women after 1960 was due largely to decreased racial discrimination, they pointed out that this phenomenon may not be applicable in the South, where racial discrimination has been more persistent. In a controversial proposition, Szymanski128 claimed that the greater

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the “significance” of racial discrimination in a region, the less the labor market discrimination against women; and the lesser the significance of racial discrimination in the region, the greater the labor market discrimination against women. When sufficient numbers of blacks are available to perform, and are relegated to, the lowest-paying, menial, and dirty-work jobs (such as cleaning motel rooms), white women do not perform them to the same extent; instead, they are found in the better-paying jobs. Yet when insufficient numbers of blacks are available, white women are relegated to the lowest-paying, menial, and dirty-work jobs that in other cases would be filled by blacks. Wayne Villemez129 challenged Szymanski’s imputation that racial discrimination and sexual discrimination are similar manifestations of a structural phenomenon peculiar to capitalist economies. Stated differently, Szymanski oversimplified a complex set of relationships. For example, women (generally) and black men are concentrated in the secondary labor market but in different segments. Consequently, racial discrimination and sexual discrimination are not functional substitutes; rather, discrimination against blacks and discrimination against women are different phenomena. Third, at least in part, racial differences in the acquisition of human capital130 and shifts in demand for workers account for the disparities in earnings by race. This fact suggests that improvements in education and labor market access, as well as affirmative action programs, are important to reducing black-white earnings differentials.131 Curtis Skinner132 argued that human capital attainments alone will not solve skills mismatches and that problems of demand are at work. (However, whether or not fullemployment policies are an adequate solution is not clear. In contradistinction to those who have argued that the most acceptable solution lies in continued economic growth, the correlation between economic growth and reductions in racial inequality is—across a forty-year period—inconsistent at best.) General agreement exists that human capital characteristics explain at least a part of the earnings gap between blacks and whites generally and that social-class differentials will reproduce human capital disadvantages even in the absence of racial discrimination. Particularly, differences between blacks and whites in years of education completed account for some of the earnings gap. However, lower earnings rates for blacks persist even after a variety of background characteristics are controlled in multiple regression equations.133 In addition, if the increasing acquisition of human capital by blacks is responsible for the narrowing of the earnings gap, why does it not have the same positive effect on black unemployment? In most studies, models that emphasize human capital characteristics could account for less than 50 percent of the gap, leaving a large unexplained residual.134 The acquisition of cognitive skills predicts access to cognitively

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demanding jobs and higher earnings. Differences in cognitive skill levels between whites and blacks explain a part of the earnings disparity because jobs that have more demanding cognitive skill levels generally have higher rates of return and whites are more likely than blacks to hold these jobs. However, differences in cognitive skill levels do not explain the higher wages of men compared to women within any racial group. Likely, a greater share of the racial gap in pay is explained by disparities in cognitive skill levels today than was the case in the past, not because the racial gap in cognitive skills has increased (more likely, it has decreased) but because the returns to such skills have increased.135 Patrick Mason136 discounted the possibility that black job skills are of a lower quality than white job skills and that this difference explains earnings disparities. What is not clear is how determinations of cognitive skill levels affect job placement and wages at the point of hire. Mechanisms include testing by employers, verbal interviews that informally assess cognitive skill levels, and reviews of credentials.137 The placement of blacks in jobs requiring fewer cognitive skills results in part from racial differences in educational attainment, the disproportionate concentration of blacks in secondary labor markets as a function of— for example—residence, and racial discrimination. Particularly, part of the earnings gap can be explained by racial discrimination in hiring and promotion, differential access to training, and social closure processes. Consistent with Wilson,138 compared to whites, blacks have more difficulty learning about job opportunities and obtaining referrals, sponsors, or mentors. In addition, some evidence suggests that some blacks underinvest in human capital assets because of anticipated discrimination in hiring. To some extent, the educational investments and occupational choices of blacks may be influenced by the presence of racial discrimination in labor markets. However, various practices in schools also may lower aspirations. In short, occupational discrepancies cannot be adequately explained without an understanding of the early stages of career development.139 Fourth, to some extent, black population concentrations “explain” racial disparities in occupational, and hence earnings, attainments. Racial disparities in occupational attainment are more pronounced in some cities and regions than in others.140 Leann Tigges and Deborah Tootle141 argued that, in areas where the black population exceeds 15 percent of the total population, increased racial competition decreases black men’s ability to acquire and hold on to jobs. More specifically, black population concentration combines with occupational segregation to determine the degree of racial competition within labor markets and the resulting disparities in unemployment rates. Where occupational segregation is high, black men hold disproportionately more low-wage jobs than whites; however, where occupational segregation is low, they experience relatively (and absolutely)

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higher levels of unemployment and are more disadvantaged relative to whites. Occupational segregation is important not just as a control for the degree of direct racial competition; it helps to determine the form that discrimination will take. Occupational progress may encourage “defensive discrimination.”142 Black visibility or threat is linked with higher levels of inequality. When blacks are present in large numbers, whites apparently exercise control over the allocation of jobs more rigorously by restricting relative black access.143 According to Tigges and Tootle, then, Effectively excluding [blacks] from employment can be accomplished by political actions, such as the underfunding of schools, housing, and public safety in [black] neighborhoods. Together these political decisions combine to make [black] residents less desirable for, and in some cases less desirous of, employment than whites with equal educational attainment.144

Yet racial disparities in occupational and earnings attainments may be reduced in SMSAs that have high population densities and monopoly-sector characteristics.145 Don Grant and Toby Parcel146 argued that population density makes possible a clustering of jobs and other resources around centers of black residents. Relative to what may occur in more geographically dispersed areas, clustering facilitates the flow of information about jobs and eases the problem of transportation to work. These authors also claimed that the presence of a large Hispanic labor pool acts as a resource for blacks because Hispanics may be relegated to the least desirable jobs, pushing black workers farther up the labor queue (at least compared to where they would have been if blacks were the only minority population). The earnings losses associated with labor markets that have a high concentration of blacks are greatest among workers with a college education and least among workers who have not completed high school. The fact that college-educated whites gain most from black concentration emphasizes how both ascribed (race) and achieved (education) variables interact to generate white earnings advantages.147 Large and statistically significant earnings differences between highly educated white men and their black counterparts indicate that more schooling, by itself, is insufficient to narrow these differences. In other words, despite Wilson’s148 claim to the contrary, competition and discrimination seem to be more intense among the most-educated than among the least-educated, who lack the power to bring about the changes necessary to improve their labor market standing. Conceivably, because well-educated blacks pose a threat to whites who have traditionally dominated prestigious, high-paying jobs, competition between these segments of labor could intensify. Therefore, the significance of race appears to depend on level of schooling,149 although the rela-

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tionship does not follow the pattern suggested by Wilson in The Declining Significance of Race. Fifth, skin-tone variations among blacks apparently complicate socioeconomic status attainment outcomes. Using data from the National Survey of Black Americans (1979–1980), Verna Keith and Cedric Herring 150 examined the effects of skin-tone variations on socioeconomic status attainment outcomes, including education, occupation, and income. Controlling for a variety of background variables, including parents’ socioeconomic status, sex, age, marital status, region of residence, and “urbanicity,” their research concluded that skin-tone variations have statistically significant effects on attainment outcomes and that they are “a more consequential predictor” of occupational and income attainments than parents’ socioeconomic status. Lighter skin is associated with higher socioeconomic status— an observation that held true from 1950 through 1980. Individuals with lighter skin do not originate disproportionately from socioeconomically advantaged families, suggesting that the explanation for this relationship is to be found in social processes that occur in the ongoing lives of blacks.151 Margaret Hunter152 arrived at a similar conclusion. After controlling for background variables such as education and urban residence, she discovered that lighter-skinned black women are more likely to advance their education and acquire greater earnings compared to darker-skinned black women. Hunter noted that the lightest-skinned black women earn incomes much closer to that of white women than do the darkest-skinned black women. Research153 on the experiences of working-age men in the Los Angeles labor market suggested that skin tone plays a major role in determining who works and who does not work. Dark-skinned black men are more likely to be unemployed than light-skinned black men and are much more likely to be unemployed than white men. Employment opportunities improve with increased education and job training; nevertheless, skin tone is important. In the Los Angeles survey, 10.3 percent of light-skinned black men with thirteen or more years of schooling were unemployed in 1994, compared with 19.4 percent of dark-skinned black men with comparable schooling. The unemployment rate for light-skinned black men with thirteen or more years of schooling was similar to, but slightly higher than, the unemployment rate for white men with comparable schooling. Among men who participated in job-training programs, light-skinned black men had a lower unemployment rate than white men (11.1 percent compared to 14.5 percent). Dark-skinned black men who participated in job training programs had an unemployment rate of 26.8 percent.154 Apparently, employers are not color-neutral in their responses to employment constraints, such as basic skills deficiencies, a history of anti-

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social behavior or involvement in illegal activities, and geographical isolation from mainstream opportunities.155 These findings are consistent with an interpretation (albeit controversial) suggesting that the continuing disadvantage darker-skinned blacks experience is due to persisting discrimination against them. These findings parallel the results of similar studies conducted prior to the civil rights movement.156 It appears that skin color is an important factor in the life-chances of blacks apart from social class and that its impact is continuing. Sixth, earnings gaps reflect, in part, the differential distribution of blacks and whites among labor market divisions. Differential distribution explains perhaps one-third of the total black-white earnings gap. According to Robert Kaufman,157 this factor represents the direct impact of labor market discrimination in employment opportunities, as well as other forms of discrimination. Apparently, race is a significant factor in the allocation of workers across labor market segments.158 More specifically, other factors being equal, blacks have a lower probability of holding monopoly-sector jobs and a higher probability of holding competitive-sector jobs than do whites. With increasing age, young whites have a greater probability than young blacks of leaving the competitive sector. This movement does not occur for blacks; even with increasing age, they remain trapped in the competitive sector. Furthermore, an emphasis on narrowing earnings gaps between blacks and whites ignores the lowered participation rates of blacks in the labor force over time.159 Although no clear-cut racial differences have been found in occupational desirability, whites more than blacks end up in professional, managerial, sales, clerical, and craft occupations. Much of the underrepresentation of blacks apparently is due to discrimination in employment.160 However, another part of the black-white earnings gap may be caused by differences in the wage determination processes for blacks and whites within labor market divisions. Thus, race appears to be as important as the labor market structure in determining the outcome for blacks.161 (In contrast, Larry Lyon et al.162 argued that racial discrimination has only a small impact in the labor market on “pay and prestige” for fulltime workers entering the labor market. Their statistical estimates of racial discrimination are consistent with the claim that labor market discrimination is declining.)

Occupational Attainment Occupational gains by race can be overstated. In other words, specific (compared to broad) occupational categories reveal more segregation by race. 163 In addition, the black middle and upper-middle classes lack income-producing assets and inherited wealth. Compared to their white

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counterparts, they experience greater difficulties in accumulating assets.164 In general, for blacks and whites, the importance of educational attainment for occupational placement has increased since the 1960s. In this context, black sons’ ability to inherit the middle- to upper-middle-class standing of their fathers has improved. However, the probability of doing so is less than that of white sons in similar circumstances, and the gap has not closed. This problem is complicated by the fact that the abilities of whites and blacks to convert educational attainments into occupational placements are not constant; that is, they vary over time and place. For example, the state sector provided more high-status and middle-status occupations for black men than did the private sector. The state sector played a crucial role by opening professional and managerial positions to black men; downward mobility was less likely here than in the private sector. It appears that the state sector was an important factor in decreasing the degree of racial inequality—not only through legislation but also through its own employment practices. However, the state sector was more selective in recruiting blacks from middle-class and skilled manual backgrounds than was the private sector.165 In the 1940s, black, Hispanic, and Native American men had the lowest occupational attainment rates of any group in the United States. Charles Hirschman and Ellen Kraly,166 as well as others, cited the absence of any dramatic change through 1960; black men were excluded systematically from higher-paying occupations. Michael Johnson and Ralph Sell167 analyzed U.S. census data from 1960 and 1970. They concluded that (1) the differences in white and nonwhite occupational distributions were reduced significantly between 1960 and 1970, particularly among young men; (2) the reduction of differences in these distributions was most apparent at the lowest and highest educational levels; (3) the absolute gap between white and nonwhite earnings (in constant dollars) increased; and (4) the increased earnings gap was due in large part to an upward shift of the labor force into occupational categories that had a more pronounced earnings differential by race. Between 1962 and 1973, blacks aged twenty-five to thirty-four reduced the gap with same-aged whites because changes in occupational opportunities, together with reductions in racial differences in educational attainment, combined to reduce the occupational status differentials between blacks and whites. However, blacks continued to experience occupational discrimination, and the likelihood of a young black being in the labor force decreased from 1962 to 1973. The average occupational attainment of blacks in 1973 remained below the average occupational attainment of whites in 1962.168 For whites in 1973, schooling remained the single most important determinant of status allocation. At the same time, whites were unable to convert their educational attainments into occupational statuses at the same level, as did men of equivalent schooling in 1962. The increased

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occupational value of each additional year of schooling was more noticeable among blacks than among whites and more evident among younger than older workers. Blacks did not experience the downward shift in education-specific occupational status that occurred among whites. The racial gap in mean socioeconomic status declined, and similarities in the process of status allocation for young men of both races increased. That is, black fathers were increasingly able to transfer their socioeconomic statuses to their sons.169 Therefore, according to David Featherman and Robert Hauser,170 the process of stratification appeared to be moving toward a racially homogeneous pattern. However, disparities in returns to education and family resources remained, as did gaps in average occupational status; these gaps were attributed in part to discrimination and the persistence of segregated housing. Broadly speaking, stratification grew more universalistic and less race-specific, and the educational attainment of blacks increased in importance for status acquisition. Over time, the black population has become more differentiated internally by occupation, creating distinctive socioeconomic strata, with educational attainment serving as a mechanism allocating persons to jobs. In this context, the efficacy of race appears to have declined as an explanation.171 Interestingly, between 1960 and 1970, blacks in the highest occupational categories became slightly less residentially segregated from whites, whereas whites and blacks in the lowest occupational categories became slightly more segregated.172 These findings suggested that segregation was maintained at a relatively constant level in the face of residential redistribution. Wilson173 argued that the occupational gains made by blacks during the 1960s created new social-class divisions that did not exist within the black population prior to 1960. Some evidence supports Wilson. By 1973, the occupational standing of black men depended on socioeconomic criteria to a greater extent than was true in 1962.174 Prior to 1962, discrimination blocked the occupational advancement of black men whose socioeconomic backgrounds were comparable to those of whites who had attained highstatus occupations. Decreasing discrimination between 1962 and 1973 was followed by upward mobility of blacks from relatively advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, creating social-class differences in life-chances within the black population. According to Michael Hout,175 the opportunities that opened up between 1962 and 1973 benefited black men with relatively advantaged backgrounds more compared to those with relatively disadvantaged backgrounds. (In short, as Wilson had claimed, social class had become a significant factor affecting the occupational mobility prospects of black men.) Black men who beat the odds and attained higher-status occupations by 1962 were able to hold on to those positions to a greater extent than in the past. Black men whose 1962 occupations were closest in status

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to the new occupations that were emerging were also the ones who could take advantage of these opportunities. None of these observations imply proportional occupational standing among the races. The differences in occupational mobility observed between blacks and whites are related more to the fact that blacks are involved in a mobility process that is qualitatively different from whites than to any differences in the social origins of the two groups. Black occupational mobility is hampered not only by “deficiencies” blacks bring into the labor market but also by their lower chances compared to those of whites. For example, even though the number of blacks occupying middleclass and upper-middle-class positions has increased, some data176 do not support the conclusion that the application of universalistic criteria dominates the job-acquisition process. Through the 1980s, fathers’ occupational attainment continued to be a statistically significant predictor of intergenerational occupational mobility for both black sons and white sons. However, the ability of sons to inherit the statuses of their fathers (intergenerational occupational persistence) was greater for whites than for blacks. Black fathers at the upper end of the occupational structure could not protect their sons from downward mobility to the same extent that white fathers could. In addition, the sons of lowerwhite-collar black fathers experienced on average greater occupational mobility than the sons of upper-white-collar black fathers. Relative to that of white men, the growth in the percent of black men employed in whitecollar positions was minimal. White men in the 1980s were twice as likely as black men to be employed in these positions.177 The mobility prospects of black men and white men initially employed in lower-paying jobs appear to differ. Compared to that for whites, black upward mobility is less frequent and more restricted. Disproportionately few blacks become managers or move from low-paying positions in peripheral industries to moderately well paying positions in core industries.178 For example, during the period 1962–1973, upwardly mobile blacks were confined mainly to manual or lower nonmanual occupational “destinations,” whereas upwardly mobile whites often moved to managerial positions.179 The disparities between black returns and white returns on qualifications may be caused, in part, by the tendency for blacks to be initially placed in poorer internal labor markets; once they are placed in a particular internal market, then mobility across labor market boundaries is difficult.180 In other words, young blacks who start work in the secondary labor market tend to stay there as they age, whereas young whites tend to move to betterpaying occupations in the primary labor market.181 To the extent that labor market divisions reward differentially, disparities between blacks and whites are determined in part by how these groups distribute across them. Therefore, racial redistribution across divisions could change the degree of

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inequality between blacks and whites, absent any changes in the labor market division’s rewards.182 Within companies, blacks receive a return to their resources comparable to whites; however, whites gain a mobility advantage by moving from one company to another, which is more difficult for blacks to accomplish. Blacks in the state sector fare much better. These findings provide evidence of the importance of structural influences on mobility, shift attention from human capital characteristics to how labor market structures shape career advancement, and counter the contention that discrimination against blacks was eliminated during the 1960s.183 Black employment prospects vary in a predictable way with the structural characteristics of the labor market. (Therefore, in contradistinction to Richard Payne,184 attitudinal change is not sufficient to improve prospects within the black community.) Until recently, few sociological studies have examined job dismissals by race. The data suggest, but do not prove, that employers base layoff and termination decisions on the racial characteristics of workers.185 Studies that examined racial differences in job dismissals found that blacks are about twice as likely as whites to be laid off or fired (other factors being equal). In addition, blacks are overrepresented in jobs that have high firing rates. Human capital and other worker characteristics do not account for these disparities; for example, education and age protect white male household heads, but not black male household heads, from being fired. Long tenure in jobs produces similar benefits for young workers and old workers regardless of race; however, major differences become apparent at low levels of tenure. There, blacks are more likely than whites to be laid off (although they tend to be “more sensitive” to recessions at higher levels of tenure as well).186 Based on a study of North Carolina workers, Alfred Field and William Winfrey187 concluded that, relative to their white counterparts, blacks (1) are laid off in numbers disproportionate to their composition in the labor force, even after controlling for sector of employment and occupation; (2) are more likely to be repeatedly laid off; (3) are forced disproportionately into lower-paying occupations upon reemployment; but (4) spend shorter spans of time among the unemployed. White workers (male and female) apparently benefit from the fact that black workers shoulder the heaviest labor market burdens accompanying a recession. Compared to white workers, black workers are concentrated disproportionately in cyclically sensitive or recession-prone industries. In this sense, the idea that blacks comprise a reserve army of labor is consistent with some of the data. Irrespective of labor market placement, minority workers generally are the most vulnerable during economic downturns. Prior to 1975, levels of unemployment among black adult men and women were highly responsive to cyclical factors. This pattern changed after 1975, as levels of unemployment became more responsive to structural factors,188

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particularly among black teenagers whose employment opportunities declined, even if they acquired a high school diploma. In contradistinction to Wilson,189 Robert Hill190 attributed this problem to racial discrimination first, then to structural changes in the economy and lack of effective job targeting. Scott Cummings191 claimed that “simple discrimination based on race” remains a major factor in the U.S. labor market, both during periods of expansion and contraction. Stephen Petterson192 rejected the view that blames the employment problems of black youth on personal dispositions and normative structures; he argued that the antipathy of many employers toward black youth does not appear to be “well-earned.” In this context, racially discriminatory hiring practices may be as important a determinant of unemployment as cyclical factors, structural factors, and lagging human capital assets.193 Some arguments have suggested that the presence of a large black labor force is negatively correlated with an industry’s level of productivity because, it is hypothesized, both blacks and women have a relatively weak attachment to the workforce.194 Research by Omer Galle et al.195 found no evidence to support this contention. If anything, an industry’s level of productivity is positively related to the percentage of blacks in that industry’s labor force, once other factors are controlled in multiple regression equations. Examples of controlled variables include extent of investment in capital, size of the labor force, and average age and educational level of the labor force within the industry. Their basic conclusion was that blacks are neither more nor less productive than their white counterparts in the manufacturing industries. The fact that greater numbers of blacks are moving into high-paying professional and managerial jobs does not by itself constitute proof that deracialization has occurred in the labor market. Structures of opportunity are sensitive to, and have fluctuated in response to, the politics of race, including pressures from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. Examples include minority issues–oriented personnel and public-relations jobs created by corporations during the 1960s and 1970s, as well as jobs that resulted from compliance efforts in government contracts. When blacks constituted a sizable proportion of sales, corporate managements responded by making blacks visible in management. Therefore, the growth of the black middle class has been, at least in part, politically mediated. Higher educational attainments and race-specific programs such as affirmative action enabled middle-class and upper-middle-class blacks to “climb occupational and income hierarchies historically closed to them,”196 which Wilson197 also argued. However, other data198 do not support the assumption that the increased mobility of the black middle and upper-middle classes indicates that blacks are assimilating into a color-blind labor

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market. Broad occupational titles may overstate the case for black advancement given race ceilings and the fact that racialized positions are vulnerable to shifting political climates—a point that became apparent during the Reagan administration. Many successful and apparently fully assimilated black executives are utilized in a racialized niche of managerial jobs that are linked to the needs of the black community. In other words, affirmative action may have produced parallel job ladders. Blacks’ job ladders, then and now, are qualitatively less important to the central work of the organization compared to those for whites. Furthermore, the rewards are quantitatively smaller.199 Many black professionals are employed as personnel and public-relations managers in response to black political mobilization; however, these jobs are not avenues to positions in higher management. Often they are oriented toward recruiting other minorities. This employment pattern creates a racialized labor market in that incumbents are considered qualified only for the positions mandated by public policies.200 Sharon Collins 201 has argued that human capital and structural accounts are not mutually exclusive. For example, a race-based system of job allocation creates deficits in on-the-job training and experience that, in turn, become barriers to black advancement. In Collins’s study, the black managerial vanguard attempting to enter the domain traditionally dominated by whites was eased out of the running for the top executive positions; factors included corporate pressure, career naiveté, and blocked mobility tracks. Within organizations, black managers may face unrealistic expectations, lack mentors or sponsors, or be directed into positions addressing minority personnel or community-relations problems confronting the organization.202 Racialized jobs incorporate blacks into the system but minimize their impact on organizational structure and culture. Over time, these jobs are routinized and devalued. (In contradistinction, Orlando Patterson203 claimed that Collins’s account of the black middle class “flies in the face of clear evidence that their fortunes have not declined during periods of conservative Republican ascendancy.”) Human capital explanations assume that labor markets should sort individuals into jobs that are commensurate with their human capital characteristics and individual proclivities. If racial differences in occupational placement are observed, then they should be the consequence of individual differences reflected in educational, labor force, and tenure experiences, as well as personal preferences.204 Scott205 claimed that in The Declining Significance of Race Wilson relied on a human capital account to explain the relative underachievement of blacks, that in fact institutional discrimination by organizations is a better explanator. In indirect ways, racial discrimination is partially responsible for the continued underrepresentation of blacks in professional and managerial occupations. It is unlikely, as human capital theory claimed, that these distributions result from individual

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choice. For example, allocative mechanisms operating at the initial point of organizational contact may be important determinants of the overall and job-specific composition of the labor force through their effect on the composition of applicant pools. Limited job postings and the use of informal networks for the dissemination of job information operate to produce racially delimited applicant pools. Underrepresentation is maintained because applicant pools set the parameters for the final composition of these occupations.206 Equating racial discrimination with individual preferences seems antiquated in this context.207 Higher-status groups preserve their advantages by reserving the most desirable opportunities in the organization for themselves. The implication is that advantaged white male employees may benefit from, and thereby struggle for, exclusionary practices. For example, large companies in the oligopolistic sector of the economy can afford to employ the higher-paid white men who deny blacks (as well as women) access. Employers respond to pressures from this group by allocating blacks to jobs requiring skills lower than those they actually have.208 This practice suggests that advantaged employees structure career trajectories to the extent that social closure processes sort blacks into less desirable jobs. When a job becomes associated with blacks, it further disadvantages the job relative to other positions with similar skill requirements or power resources. The status composition of a job affects the organizational evaluation of the job’s worth. Jobs that are held disproportionately by blacks acquire a devalued status and are stereotyped. In short, the denial of access to the more desirable jobs is a status closure process; the devaluing of jobs is a status composition process. The former is one of the primary sources of job segregation; the latter is one of the consequences of job segregation.209 This argument does not concentrate on discrimination against individuals; rather, it concentrates on discrimination against jobs. Job sorting translates into earnings inequality because jobs typically filled by white men tend to have more organizational power, and are more likely to be favored, compared to jobs filled by black men.210 Therefore, an important source of earnings inequality by race is differential access to desirable jobs attributable to discrimination in hiring and promotion processes.211 Another important source of earnings inequality by race are human capital differences attributable to both historical (or past) and contemporary forms of discrimination. Blacks are disadvantaged further in that intergenerational social-class disadvantages as a consequence of historical discrimination will reproduce human capital disadvantages even in the absence of contemporary discrimination.212 In the 1970s, industries underrepresented by blacks included communications, finance, insurance, and real estate. The U.S. Postal Service is overrepresented by blacks.213 The proportionate number of black faculty in predominantly white colleges and

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universities is small, largely because the number of black doctorate holders, though somewhat greater than in the past, is still modest and does not show significantly increased growth. This fact shows up particularly in faculty recruitment efforts at elite colleges and universities. However, many black college graduates decide against pursuing the kind of graduate training necessary for academic careers. With declining tenure-track opportunities, many of these college graduates are choosing law, medicine, business, or other fields that offer higher salaries, increased mobility prospects, or greater relevance to minority-community needs.214 In short, it is inappropriate to make blanket statements about the progressiveness of the monopoly sector in offering the black middle class “unprecedented opportunities,” as Wilson215 claimed. For example, in contrast to blacks in less formal organizations, those in formal organizations are less likely to encounter overt discriminatory processes. Formalization refers to the extent to which rules, regulations, instructions, and procedures are written down. When organizations formalize decisionmaking processes, explicit references to ascribed characteristics such as race rarely are included as criteria for hiring or promotion. As criteria become more explicit, the discretionary power in making decisions about hiring and promotion is limited accordingly.216 Decreased discretion does not rule out discrimination, however. In addition, blacks tend to have greater opportunities for promotion in organizations where most of the hiring and promotion decisions are made in a central office than in organizations where those decisions are left to managers scattered throughout the organization. Blacks who are employed in jobs that are part of an internal labor market, wherein job openings are posted within the organization and candidates are obtained from there, advance faster. Career development, then, is dependent on access to internal labor markets.217 Organizations with comparably greater resources that can be diverted to discretionary needs are better able to recruit and train blacks. Political factors internal and external to the organization play an important role here. The greater the visibility of an organization’s operations, the greater is the impact of political factors on black participation in the workforce; visibility attracts the attention of the general public, as well as that of government agencies and private interest groups. Particularly, public organizations have a greater percentage of blacks relative to other organizations, due in part to being nonprofit, tax-supported, highly visible, and sensitive to government equal employment opportunity policies. Not surprisingly, then, the greater the organization’s dependence on government contracts, the greater the impact of equal employment policies on black participation in the labor force.218 The greater the scarcity of available workers in the local labor force, the more likely blacks will be hired for positions in the organization.

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However, to the extent that an organization dominates a local labor market, it has the potential to discriminate against a captive labor force. If the organization has a high demand for labor, economic and political factors (e.g., rapid organizational growth combined with affirmative action pressures) will encourage the integration of workforces. Expanding organizations are able to accomplish racial integration more quickly than organizations that are stagnant. The hiring patterns of new organizations are influenced by local community values; out of tradition, older organizations may continue past patterns of hiring that may be discriminatory.219 Finally, small organizations with black chief executive officers, such as radio stations and travel agencies, tend to have proportionately greater black participation in the workforce than large organizations. Whites may choose not to work for such organizations, or black executives may actively or more equitably recruit and promote blacks.220 The “unprecedented opportunities” available to the black middle and upper-middle classes are not available to the black lower class. Wilson221 explained the difficulty of many lower-class, inner-city black men in obtaining and keeping jobs as a function of the absence of effective job networks, the availability of illegal activities, and pressures to pursue alternative modes of subsistence. In addition, employers may be adverse to hiring lower-class, inner-city black men.222 Often, employers direct hiring efforts to white neighborhoods and avoid recruitment sources that yield a disproportionate number of black applicants. Inner-city black men may perform poorly in job interviews, in part because they lack the work experiences that are a focal point of the interview, and in part because of cultural differences that are both race-based and class-based. Cognitive-skills testing is associated with higher proportions of black workers in entry-level jobs, suggesting that screening prospective employees more objectively provides less latitude for racial discrimination.223 An important variable here is the acquisition of a high school education, which broadens employment horizons and apparently provides access to opportunities “less laden with exclusionist practices by employers.”224 For jobs requiring cognitive skills, some employers assume—without directly testing applicants—that blacks have more difficulty with basic skills such as reading, writing, and computing. Consequently, these employers express a reluctance to hire blacks for jobs that require such skills; however, the same is not true of jobs that require as a minimum a bachelor’s degree.225 Wilson226 recognized that employers who perceive young black men to be uneducated, uncooperative, unstable, and dishonest might exacerbate the problem of joblessness. Racial stereotyping appears to be greater among those employers with lower proportions of blacks in their workforce, especially blue-collar employers who stress the importance of subjective qualities such as work attitudes. These employers apparently practice statistical

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discrimination, whereby judgments about a job applicant’s productivity, which is difficult to measure, are based on his or her group membership. Black applicants, because of public school attendance, inner-city residence, or social-class background, are screened out early in the hiring process. These factors are used as proxies for judgments about worker productivity. However, Wilson227 observed that the practice of statistical discrimination will vary depending on the tightness of the labor market and should not be analyzed, as a consequence, without reference to the overall state of the local or national economy. It is not easy to determine the degree to which the reluctance to hire young black men from the inner city is a consequence of racial discrimination or represents an objective assessment of worker qualifications. Employers express concerns about personal character, language and social skills, family influences, neighborhood milieu, and “cultural predispositions.”228 Race appears to be a factor in some employer decisions; however, the issue is complex and cannot be reduced to racism alone. Generally, employers do not recognize discrimination against young black men as a major factor in their employment woes; black employers express negative views of young black men as well.229 However, selective recruitment—limiting the job search for candidates in various ways—is widely practiced; thus, inner-city neighborhoods often are overlooked. Factors used to screen candidates include identifying the location or quality of schools, avoiding social-service and state employment programs, and relying on informal job networks rather than advertising in citywide newspapers.230 In a departure from The Declining Significance of Race, Wilson concluded that many of the selective recruitment practices do represent . . . statistical discrimination: employers make assumptions about the inner-city black workers in general and reach decisions based on these assumptions before they have had a chance to review systematically the qualifications of an individual applicant. The net effect is that many black inner-city applicants are never given the chance to prove their qualifications on an individual level because they are systematically screened out by the selective recruitment process. Statistical discrimination . . . is clearly a matter of race.231

Kathryn Neckerman and Joleen Kirschenman232 found that the hiring decisions made by white employers and black employers are based in large part on their perceptions, or attributions, of qualities such as honesty, stability, literacy, competence, helpfulness, and ambition. Employers’ perceptions, or attributions, of these qualities to a job applicant are strongly affected by whether the applicant is white, black, or Hispanic. However, they are also affected by their attempts to “read” the applicant’s social-class background from how he or she talks, acts, or dresses, as well as from the applicant’s educational background (e.g., public versus private), marital

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status, and place of residence (e.g., inner city versus suburb). Thus, landing a job depends on the interaction of race and social class. The percentage of jobs available for the least educated and least experienced has declined, particularly for black men in disadvantaged neighborhoods. 233 Therefore, for the members of this group, race employment penalties are especially severe. The difficulties blacks experience in locating jobs early in their lives accumulate, creating “profiles of disadvantage through experience deficits.”234 These people acquire a history of instability and joblessness that prospective employers use against them. Black men accumulate greater experience deficits between ages eighteen to forty-five, thereby accentuating disparities in labor market outcomes among adults.235 Local opportunity structures are an important determinant of employment outcomes. For example, residential segregation is detrimental to the employment prospects of black youth. Black youth are less likely to have the means to commute, and they are less familiar with the areas outside their immediate neighborhoods.236 The high costs of commuting compared to the incomes that can be earned discourage job-seeking in the suburbs even if they could reach these jobs.237 According to James Elliott,238 lesseducated job seekers from high-poverty neighborhoods are much more likely to use informal contacts (friends, relatives, non-neighbors) to look for work whether in isolation from, or in conjunction with, formal channels. Better-educated job seekers tend to use formal channels. These findings suggest that even though Wilson239 was correct to emphasize the general lack of job contacts in high-poverty neighborhoods, it does not follow that all residents are affected in the same way, or that informal job contacts are absent or ineffectual in the job-matching process. In fact, among lesseducated job seekers, the opposite scenario appears to be true: informal contacts are the means by which they find work, accounting for nearly three-fourths of jobholders.240 The use of informal contacts of any kind is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, informal contacts enable an individual to find a job under difficult circumstances; on the other hand, these contacts lead to significantly lower earnings compared to what would have been expected (statistically) through the use of formal channels. Use of a black contact imposes an earnings penalty, which becomes even greater when that contact is a neighbor. 241 Jobs tend to be in smaller, predominantly black settings where wages are depressed. Therefore, local labor markets should be viewed as both a cause and a consequence of race-based disparities.242

Authority Attainment The extent to which race affects the authority attainment process (i.e., the acquisition of authority in the occupational structure of organizations) has

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been established only in part. This component of life-chances has not been studied as extensively as other sources of black-white differences in socioeconomic status attainment,243 even though a persistent underrepresentation of black men in managerial positions has been documented. Part of the reason lies in the fact that job discrimination based on the exclusion of qualified blacks is easier to identify than that based on denial of access to authority positions. Nevertheless, available evidence suggests that racial differences in access to job authority represent an “important and persistent” source of inequality.244 Earnings are one of the most tangible benefits derived from authority attainment. In this regard, empirical studies have consistently found that variations in authority generate earnings differentials among comparable workers and are a robust predictor of workplace inequality.245 Research to date on authority attainment has been limited because (1) analyses were restricted to single points in time; (2) the data were not based on nationally representative samples; (3) the data preceded the rapid changes in recent decades in both the structure of the economy and the demographic composition of the workforce; and (4) the measures of job authority that were used apparently were flawed.246 A valid test of Wilson’s thesis of the declining significance of race must account for the possibility that blacks who entered the labor force prior to the civil rights period are more susceptible in principle to the legacy of past discrimination than blacks who entered the labor force after that.247 The few studies that are available suggest substantial racial differences; in other words, white men are favored over black counterparts in the attainment of job authority. Differential access to authority positions by race may account for as much as a third of the earnings differential between black and white men.248 A study of changes over time, using data from the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, concluded that race remains an important factor in the lifechances of black men. However, the impact of race on the authority attainment process is mediated by the time period under consideration, whether observations are made at the lower end or upper end of the authority hierarchy, and whether the men reside in large or small cities.249 These limitations make it difficult to determine the extent of changes over time in the black-white authority gap among men, whether observed racial differences occur nationally, and the extent to which racial disparities are an artifact of the measure(s) of job authority used. If race were declining in significance, then racial disparities in job authority should decline as well because of increased access to higher education, the implementation of affirmative action, and the enforcement of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In other words, members of the black middle and upper-middle classes should be able to take advantage of increased access to education and white-collar employment to acquire

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greater job authority. However, racial discrimination may limit the relative authority attainment of blacks because a high value is placed on workplace authority. Objective criteria such as formal credentials (or, more broadly, human capital) may have less impact on authority attainment than on occupational or earnings attainments, because authority attainment is a more subjective process and therefore susceptible to discrimination. 250 Discrimination may appear in the guises of homosocial reproduction;251 particularistic manipulation;252 devaluation of blacks’ credentials such as grade-point averages, prior work experiences, and references; lack of opportunities to demonstrate such characteristics as loyalty, trustworthiness, and good judgment that are crucial to moving into positions of authority;253 or social closure processes.254 These processes offer insights into why some candidates enter positions of authority and others do not. At their core lies the issue of racial discrimination. In addition, blacks’ dependence on the accumulation of human capital credentials and relevant job experience limits opportunities for authority attainment because of discriminatory obstacles encountered in their acquisition.255 The criteria for advancement into the higher levels of the authority structure often are vague and left to the subjective interpretations of employers and managers. In organizations whose power structure is dominated by white men, this fact alone may restrict blacks’ access to the higher levels of the authority structure, resulting in comparatively lower returns to human capital.256 For example, according to Rosabeth Kanter,257 “homosocial reproduction” refers to a system within bureaucratic organizations whereby managers distribute power and resources to subordinates who are socially similar to themselves. Because white men are represented disproportionately in positions of authority, black men are less likely to get promoted on this basis alone. When promotions are based on vaguely defined criteria, race may become a factor in the decisionmaking process.258 The presence or absence of internal labor markets (characterized by the posting of job openings within the organization with the intent to obtain candidates for promotion from within) is another determinant of a candidate’s opportunity to attain greater job authority. Interestingly, blacks who are employed in jobs that are part of an internal labor market advance faster than counterparts employed in jobs that are not. Hiring practices can thereby effectively limit the promotion chances of blacks in predominantly white organizations.259 In addition, the most consequential forms of human capital leading to the highest positions of authority in the workplace are obtained through a narrowly prescribed set of job assignments that facilitates the development of individual skills and expertise. Blacks may be restricted from obtaining the skills needed to gain access to the highest positions because they are segregated into jobs that do not offer appropriate training.

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Comparing a sample of black men and white men from Milwaukee, James Kluegel260 found that the mean job authority of black men was significantly lower compared to whites. He attributed nearly 70 percent of the racial gap in job authority to discrimination. Black men received a lower earnings return to authority than did white men; this discrepancy became pronounced at the highest occupational levels. On average across occupations, it accounted for approximately one-third of the total black-white earnings gap. Generally, reductions in earnings inequality between blacks and whites occurred for reasons other than gains in job authority. For example, between 1962 and 1973, blacks moved in substantial numbers into the more desirable jobs within the blue-collar sector (i.e., those found in large companies with strong unions). However, these jobs presented few opportunities for advancement up the authority structure.261 The gap is smaller for younger blacks compared to older blacks. At the low end of the authority hierarchy, differences in the earnings returns to job authority among black and white men are minimal. However, among men at the high end of the authority hierarchy, differences are significant and favor white men over black men. That is, black men receive substantially lower earnings returns to job authority. Disparities did not decline between 1972 and 1994.262 Ryan Smith’s263 analysis showed that black men earn less than white men, even after adjusting for “authority location,” occupational position, human capital characteristics, and place of residence. According to Smith, it may be that the declining significance of race was short-lived as economic restructuring and the political retrenchment that occurred during the Reagan administration negatively affected black socioeconomic progress. Using national data from the General Social Surveys, Smith264 examined over the period 1972 to 1994 differences in the magnitude of, and possible changes in, the black-white gap among men in the odds of gaining access to positions of authority at work. Consistent with earlier research, his results showed that blacks were less likely to gain the highest levels of job authority, controlling for human capital characteristics, social-class background, occupational location, and region of residence; however, access to lower positions of authority was becoming more equitable. His results also showed that blacks received lower authority returns to education. That is, in the period from 1972 through 1988, the educational investments of black men as a means to the upper levels of authority weakened as a predictor of their inclusion.265 Separate analyses based on subsamples of men living and working in small versus large cities suggested that the racial gaps in access to authority, and in authority returns to education, were narrower among men who lived in small cities. (Even so, the chances of black men who lived in small cities attaining high levels of authority decreased over the time period.)

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The relative authority status of black men apparently was at its worst from 1980 through 1988—a period that witnessed decreasing employment probabilities, earnings, and earnings returns to job authority, as well as decreasing chances of reaching positions of upper authority. Possible reasons include a governmental retreat from affirmative action and antidiscriminatory initiatives, a shift in federal policy from grant-based support to student loans resulting in a drop in the college and university enrollment rates of blacks, industrial restructuring, and the allocation of blacks to “marginalized slots” in white-managed companies in the monopoly sector.266 In summary, blacks have to demonstrate the values and attitudes that are consistent with being a supervisor or manager to a greater degree than their white counterparts; the pathways to higher levels of authority are more narrow and circumscribed for blacks than for whites; racial differences in access to authority are more pronounced in private organizations than in public organizations; and employers tend to reward the credentials of white men at a significantly higher rate than any other group.267 In addition, black employment in high-status occupations is partially dependent on a structure of opportunity that fluctuates in response to race-conscious political conditions. These conclusions imply that black socioeconomic status attainments are not necessarily evidence of deracialization in the labor market; rather, they are dependent on employment practices sensitive to the politics of race.268 The finding of racial disparities in access to positions of high authority, but comparatively fewer racial disparities in access to positions of low authority, is useful for understanding the following problematic. A growing body of research shows that educational attainment plays an important role in determining who gets access to positions of low authority at the early stages of the employment process; however, it does little to explain the racial gap in men’s access to positions of high authority. Racial disparities at high levels of authority are endogenous to the labor market and are not explained, statistically, by differences in the human capital acquired before entering the labor market. Instead, racial disparities develop within the structure of organizations where access to important skill and authorityenhancing experiences is restricted via the assignment of blacks to “racialized jobs” and to noncentral segments of the job structure. Once relegated to such positions, it is nearly impossible to develop the skills necessary to move into positions of power and influence in the organization.269

Unions and the Black Working Class According to Wilson in The Declining Significance of Race, state intervention in the form of labor market regulation undermined the split labor mar-

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ket during the industrial period. State antidiscriminatory actions that Wilson identified were important because they encouraged industrial unions to organize blacks who were part of the jurisdiction that industrial unions sought to control. Nevertheless, unions discriminated heavily against blacks by incorporating whites-only clauses into constitutions, channeling black workers into segregated auxiliaries, restricting black membership through qualification tests and informal nepotism rules, and negotiating separate pay scales and seniority lines. 270 The post-1960s record is mixed.271 Research on interindustry and interstate wage differentials concluded that earnings disparities between black and white workers are smaller in labor markets organized by industrial unions than in those organized by craft unions or unorganized altogether.272 In fact, studies on unionization show consistent support for the argument that craft unions generally have been more exclusionary toward blacks than have industrial unions.273 Exclusion of blacks from skilled jobs continues to characterize the construction industry, where black gains have been modest at best. The political power of craft unions, especially, combines with informal recruitment and training practices 274 to prevent blacks from achieving parity. Despite improvements in black applicants’ human capital characteristics, the increasing rate of acceptance of blacks into construction unions after 1969 required community mobilization, demonstrations, and political negotiations; affirmative action may have preserved gains when labor demand slackened.275 As Russell Schutt276 noted in his study, controlling for human capital characteristics (including education, work experience, health, and age) reduced, but did not eliminate, the impact of race on acceptance. The history of affirmative action in construction bears witness to the unions’ ability to influence policy outcomes and protect their interests.277 The state provides millions of dollars for construction and plays an important role in regulating relations in the construction industry. Consequently, the state has the power to alter existing institutional arrangements reflected, for example, in the construction industry’s employment practices. Dependent on state contracts, the unions attempt to control the consequences through various tactics, including internal control of licensing programs, the use of parallel tracks, the development of training plans that do not guarantee a union card, discriminatory selection procedures, and restrictions on the size of the membership. State departments of labor may collude by failing to enforce affirmative action plans.278 When only recruitment patterns are modified, state directives leave intact the institutionalized interests of unions and management. (In contrast, nonunionized industries characterized by fragmentation and fewer connections to the state are less attractive as a policy target.)279 Drawing upon in-depth interview data from seventy-six black contrac-

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tors in the construction industry in a southern metropolitan area, Joe Feagin and Nikitah Imani280 concluded that the informal social arrangements of the construction industry make it difficult for black entrepreneurs to break into the ranks. As entrepreneurs in the construction industry, blacks are disproportionately dependent on the federal government for contracts. They face a variety of barriers embedded in contracting and bidding processes, construction project conditions, and the bonding, lending, and supplier networks critical to a successful construction business. Feagin and Imani noted that “much has been written of the ‘declining significance of race’ in society generally and in the economic sector in particular.”281 However, they believed that there has probably been no such decline. Craft unions tolerate racially inequitable working arrangements and are unlikely to change their practices unless pressured to do so.282 Nevertheless, arguments that blame organized labor for earnings disparities by race are difficult to support. Although many unions, particularly the crafts, have pursued racially discriminatory policies, on the balance unionization has elevated black incomes and reduced earnings disparities in urban labor markets in the contemporary United States. In other words, industrial unionization is related inversely to black-white income inequality.283 Although unionized blacks have not achieved earnings parity with unionized whites, they enjoy a relatively better economic status than nonunionized blacks. Not only are unionized blacks better off than their nonunionized counterparts, the earnings disparities between unionized white workers and black workers are less than the earnings disparities between nonunionized white workers and black workers.284 However, these results are not conclusive; for example, they are based on cross-sectional, not longitudinal, data. The argument that unions favor whites to the detriment of blacks—thus between-race inequities increase and within-race inequities decrease in regions where unions are dominant—is consistent with Bonacich’s285 split labor market theory. Faced with increasing labor militancy among whites, capitalists turn toward blacks in order to maximize profits. Whites, threatened with having their position undermined, attempt to protect their interests by utilizing mechanisms such as unions to segregate blacks in the labor market.286 E. M. Beck287 claimed that this argument has support in that “decreases in unionization” are associated with reduced earnings disparities between black and white workers. However, this effect appeared only at lower income levels, not at the highest income levels. The magnitude of the effect at lower income levels was small. More likely, unions and the internal labor markets associated with large corporations provide some protection against discrimination for those black workers who obtain jobs. Union membership increases job tenure substantially, and it reduces quitting among middle-aged blacks and whites.

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Furthermore, it appears to have a positive effect on black occupational mobility. However, discriminatory practices characterize promotion and seniority. For this reason, caution is necessary in drawing conclusions, pending more thorough research.288 Ironically, job protections may worsen racial disparities in access to employment by increasing the percentage of blacks excluded from employment in the first place.289 Three trends may be significant in forthcoming years: the growth of unionism among certain white-collar occupations, including teachers and civil service workers; the growth of unionism in the distributive and service-producing industries; and an increasing percentage of blacks and women in the union ranks.290

Black Life-Chances in the State Sector One of the strongest conclusions to emerge from the stratification-oriented research literature on race relations is that the state (or public) sector is of profound importance for black socioeconomic advancement—through legislative and judicial efforts and through its own employment practices. As Wilson291 acknowledged, the expansion of the state sector has been a major factor in the rise of the black middle class.292 The “old” black middle class consisted of schoolteachers, ministers, doctors, lawyers, morticians, and small entrepreneurs. The “new” black middle class adds salaried professionals and managers, many of whom are employed in the state sector. Government efforts at promoting nondiscriminatory hiring practices have been more successful in the state sector than in the private sector. These efforts have resulted in greater opportunities for blacks.293 In his statistical comparisons, Wilson 294 combined white-collar employment in the state and monopoly sectors, as opposed to comparing and contrasting possible differences in earnings, promotions, and tenure.295 Occupational inequality by race changed little from 1940 to 1970; however, it decreased between 1970 and 1980 as employment opportunities for black professionals increased. Greater numbers of blacks moved into higher-paying professional and managerial jobs, as well as personnel and public-relations jobs created during the 1960s and 1970s. Legislative and judicial efforts at the national level altered hiring practices sufficiently to allow the black middle class to ascend.296 Compared to the monopoly and competitive sectors, the state sector has provided more opportunities for blacks to move into middle-status and high-status occupations, partially as a consequence of government-mandated guidelines.297 Therefore, at least in part, the emergence of the new black middle class was politically mediated. Nevertheless, upward mobility has been racially delineated. Pressures to eliminate discriminatory hiring practices came from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Office of Federal

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Contract Compliance Programs; thus, increasing job opportunities for blacks would not have occurred as rapidly in the absence of federal intervention. In addition, organized black protests and civil disturbances contributed to the expansion of job opportunities. Several authors have observed the link between federal intervention and black occupational gains.298 The main evidence comes from the 1960s and 1970s, a time when government employment was growing rapidly and the state actively promoted racial equality. This may not have been the case in the 1980s under the Reagan administration. Major policies that affected the black socialclass structure included (1) the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which focused on eradicating employment discrimination and established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to monitor compliance; (2) Executive Order 11246 (1965), which required federal contractors to take affirmative action to recruit, employ, and promote minorities and created the Office of Federal Contract Compliance with the power to terminate federal contracts for failure to comply with these provisions (the Reagan administration amended Executive Order 11246 to eliminate timetables and other measures of compliance); and (3) a court case, Griggs v. Duke Power (1971). In its ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court forbade employment practices (e.g., requiring preemployment tests or a degree) that were not based on “business necessity.”299 The growth of the black middle class cannot be attributed to an expanding economy alone. The state became a major employer for black professional, managerial, and technical workers. However, when blacks are employed in the state sector, they are disproportionately represented in positions at the local and state levels serving the black dependent population. Service systems in which blacks are concentrated include public welfare, housing, corrections, hospitals, health services, and civil rights.300 Black professionals are underrepresented in service systems aimed at the general public. At the federal level, blacks are (and were) found disproportionately in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Health and Human Services, and Community Service Administration.301 The political volatility of these branches is well known. For example, the Reagan administration abolished the Community Service Administration. Should budget cuts occur, blacks in intermediary positions are vulnerable to being laid off. Factors that may slow the movement of blacks into higher-status occupations include fiscal policies and tax revolts that result in any decline in the growth of government at the local, state, or federal levels. A significant segment of the black middle class is a political product whose function is to monitor the numerous social programs that were a legacy of the 1960s. This function can become too costly when it is no longer seen as politically expedient.302 Shifts in the political climate are

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important in this context. For example, the Reagan administration was reluctant to enforce equal employment opportunity legislation and affirmative action programs; this reluctance may have affected the hiring, pay, and promotion practices of a number of companies and organizations. In general, studies suggest, first, that the attainment of a college or university degree is a valuable investment for blacks and whites—regardless of sector of employment. Second, earnings disparities between college-educated black and white professionals are greater in the monopoly and competitive sectors than in the state sector. Indeed, once background variables such as sex, human capital characteristics, and occupational characteristics are controlled, the state sector provides nearly comparable earnings to similarly qualified black and white professionals. And third, the state sector may be less discriminatory than the monopoly and competitive sectors.303 Particularly, the process by which blacks attain job authority may be more similar to whites in the state sector than in the monopoly and competitive sectors.304 Some black government workers are at a disadvantage relative to comparable white government workers; however, the disparities are smaller in the state sector than in the private sector. Compared to whites, blacks on average earn more in the state sector than in the private sector; for whites, the opposite holds true.305 Robert Boyd306 examined the impact of local labor market characteristics on the earnings of black workers in the state and private sectors, based on an analysis of U.S. census data from 1980. Not surprisingly, educational attainment, experience, and hours worked were positively associated with earnings. However, residential segregation depressed the earnings of blacks in the private sector but had no impact (apparently) on earnings in the state sector. The state sector, then, appears to be a mechanism that shelters black workers from structural barriers to earnings attainment. Although racial disparities are smaller in the state sector, substantial differences in returns to blacks exist between the local, state, and federal levels. Differences are found also by region.307 At the state and local levels, racial disparities in earnings decreased between 1980 and 1990; at the federal level, racial disparities in earnings apparently increased. In 1980, onehalf of the black-white earnings gap in the state sector could be explained by human capital differences; in 1990, only one-third of the black-white earnings gap could be so explained. This finding implies, but does not prove, a declining federal commitment to racial equality. State and local governments combined employ a much larger proportion of minorities generally than does the federal government; no doubt, their methods of compensation reflect local labor markets and political processes such as the movement toward comparable worth.308 After addressing several methodological issues, John Zipp309 concluded that blacks have lost ground at the federal level since 1980. Nevertheless, the federal level generally pays bet-

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ter than the state and local levels. Therefore, blacks employed at the federal level may earn more than blacks employed at the state and local levels. The earnings advantage is due partly to the fact that wages paid to federal employees constitute a small fraction of the national budget and can be deficit-financed, whereas wages paid to state and local employees constitute a larger fraction of state and local budgets and cannot be deficitfinanced.310 Furthermore, at the state and local levels, growth in employment is vulnerable to taxpayer revolts and losses of revenue (e.g., the elimination of state-sanctioned lotteries or reductions in sales tax receipts). Economic penalties against jobs employing disproportionate numbers of blacks and women vary across organizational contexts and occupational types. An analysis of prescribed pay rates for work done in the California state civil service in 1985 concluded that work performed disproportionately by blacks and women is devalued most in positions that are older, not represented by activist unions, have ambiguous or vague performance criteria, or are “the most generic across organizational settings.”311 The relationship between demographic composition and prescribed pay rates cannot be attributed only to “inexorable market forces” confronting state agencies.312 Earnings may be affected by government participation in local labor and product markets. Generally, living in a slack labor market has a negative effect on the earnings of black men. Since black men are disproportionately concentrated in occupations with the weakest demand, the competition for jobs may drive down wages for those who succeed in becoming employed.313 However, government participation in local labor and product markets has a positive effect on the earnings of black women. For example, black women receive higher earnings in markets characterized by proportionately greater state employment as a percentage of all employment (in other words, in regions where the state sector is a major employer of the local labor force). Affirmative action initiatives increased the demand for clerical workers, thereby expanding the number of job opportunities for black women and increasing the earnings level of all black women. This result suggests that higher levels of government employment will raise the earnings of black women. Relative to whites generally, black men and women receive higher earnings in metropolitan regions where a large proportion of the industrial output is purchased by the state sector. Whereas the earnings of white men are predicted mainly by human capital characteristics, and the earnings of white women are predicted mainly by total hours worked,314 areas where the state is an active participant in local labor and product markets predict the earnings of black men and women. When the government purchases the output of local companies, black men and women have higher earnings; here, the government strengthens aggregate demand for goods, thereby tightening the labor market. Therefore, a reduction in government spending

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may ease tax burdens; however, it is likely to exacerbate earnings disparities by race.315 Recent research also suggests that as the proportion of federal employment in an industry increases, racial disparities in quality of employment decrease.316 Consequently, John Beggs317 believed that blacks are leaving areas that are less supportive of equality and locating in areas that are most supportive of equality. In the U.S. Postal Service, some evidence supports the claim of racial disparities in job dismissals, based on a study of a large northeastern city.318 Craig Zwerling and Hilary Silver319 argued that blacks were more than twice as likely to be fired compared to whites. The authors controlled for human capital characteristics, job tenure, detailed job title, union protections, absenteeism, and number of accidents, injuries, and disciplinary actions. Statistically, the racial disparity in job dismissals was not explained by differential rates of absenteeism or accidents, injuries, and disciplinary actions; neither could it be attributed to ease of firing in the probationary period before union protections took effect. Blacks were more likely to be dismissed during and after the probationary period, although most dismissals occurred during that period. The fact that black postal workers were more likely to be fired suggests that racial disparities in job dismissals are at least as great in the private sector. However, state-sector workers experience the effects of recession later than monopoly-sector workers.320 In contrast to the monopoly and competitive sectors, the state sector may be providing greater opportunities for upward mobility for blacks. Marshall Pomer321 examined the mobility experiences of black and white men initially employed in lower-paying occupations. In general, compared to whites, black upward mobility is less common and more restricted in a range of occupational and industrial destinations. As noted earlier, blacks seldom become managers, and few move from low-paying positions in peripheral industries to the low-skilled but moderately well paying positions in core industries. Blacks within the state sector fare better; however, the probability of becoming a manager remains low. The best prospects are limited largely to black professionals. Blacks are overrepresented in the U.S. military. They comprise 12 percent of the population; however, they comprise approximately one-fifth of all active forces and one-fourth of the U.S. Army. The greatest concentration of blacks is found in the enlisted ranks; for example, blacks comprise one-third of the army’s enlisted personnel. The percentage of active-duty, college-degreed officers who are black is much smaller; however, this percentage is similar to the ratio of black college graduates to all college graduates nationally.322 Black women comprise almost one-third of all military women, one-half of the enlisted women in the army, and one-fifth of its female officers. Black women in the military serve longer terms and do not

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separate from service before their terms have expired as often as other active-duty women do.323 The U.S. military has made a concerted effort to reduce racial inequities since President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 (1948) mandating equality of opportunity for all military persons regardless of race, religion, or national origin. In part, the disproportionate representation of blacks in the military reflects the attractiveness of standardized pay scales, a willingness on the part of the armed services to accept applicants without skills or experience, and higher rates of unemployment and underemployment among blacks compared to whites, which push blacks into the military as an alternative. 324 Generally, the military has made more progress toward racial integration than comparable institutions in the private sector; however, racial disparities are still evident. For example, blacks have greater promotion opportunities in the enlisted ranks than in the officer ranks; disproportionately, officers promoted, or considered for promotion, in the army are white men.325 Nevertheless, more than any other institution, the U.S. military has reduced overt discrimination and moved blacks into positions of leadership. It has been able to achieve structural integration primarily because of its coercive compliance structure, although covert discrimination may continue.326 Data on the military as a bridging environment for blacks are ambiguous at best. According to Harley Browning et al.,327 for those occupational categories that have “an observable career sequence”—that is, where one’s prior training and experience ensure a steadily increasing income over time—there is little or no advantage for blacks in being a veteran. However, in occupational categories that do not have this characteristic, veterans gain an advantage. Here, the military as a bridging environment provides additional education, acquisition of skills, and valuable experience in “managing large-scale bureaucratic environments.” However, Phillips Cutright328 disputed the claim that blacks and whites who would otherwise earn low incomes would benefit from a bridging environment. He argued that research does not support the claim that military service provides a bridging environment that leads to greater civilian earnings by black men (and some white men). Two years in the military, coupled with veterans’ benefits, do not result in clear-cut gains. Often, the military training received has no counterpart in the civilian world. Manpower programs that offer irrelevant job training or work experience do not fare any better. In follow-up research, Poston329 responded that black veterans are paid better than black nonveterans; however, the reverse is true for whites. He believed that this finding continued to support the claim that military service provides a bridging environment for blacks. Prior to 1976, racial discrimination in army promotions had not been examined in a systematic way. John Butler330 found no support for the

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argument that racial disparities in army “promotion times” can be explained by the failure of blacks to meet universalistic criteria. In this case, blacks who matched whites on universalistic criteria apparently were discriminated against on the basis of race. Butler claimed that being white in the army is more important than doing well on universalistic criteria. Thomas Daula et al.331 responded that Butler’s332 apparent evidence of racial discrimination in army promotion times is a statistical artifact resulting from the failure to adjust for problems in the data used. A more refined analysis333 of the same data discovered that blacks are promoted more rapidly in some specialties and grades, less rapidly or at the same rate in other specialties and grades. The exception was promotion to major; here, blacks were less likely to be promoted than other groups. Indirectly, the military complicates efforts to correctly identify the causes of racial disparities in earnings attainments. For example, according to Robert Mare and Christopher Winship,334 in comparison to white youth who are more likely to go to work full-time, black youth are more likely to prolong schooling or enlist in the military. This difference reduces the average number of years of civilian work experience for black youth. Because schools and the military retain (or try to retain) those who have better-thanaverage employment prospects, prolonged schooling and military enlistments among black youth have reduced the average attractiveness to employers of the relatively smaller out-of-school black youth population. In this context, the worsening labor force statistics for black youth disguise, rather than reveal, complex dynamics that may or may not be race-based. Analyzing the state sector apart from the monopoly and competitive sectors complicates claims that discrimination against blacks largely was eliminated during the 1960s and early 1970s.335 The fact that blacks have fared better in the state sector during the modern industrial period lends indirect support to structuralist claims that although the state is a structure constrained by the logic and contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, it is also a relatively autonomous structure with a logic and interests of its own not necessarily equivalent to, or fused with, the interests of other labor markets.

Race and Social-Psychological Distress Wilson336 argued that the positive consequences of the upward mobility of the black middle class in the economic sector offset the negative consequences (i.e., the psychological discomfort) of racial antagonism in the sociopolitical order. Race was not insignificant as a factor in psychological discomfort; the fundamental question was the role that it played in black life-chances. Wilson was criticized for making this claim, although his crit-

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ics337 did not explain how psychological discomfort has a major impact on black life-chances as defined by Wilson. During the 1970s, a body of research emerged claiming that socialclass standing and marital status in fact explained the statistical correlation between race and social-psychological distress.338 In this view, both blacks and whites are negatively affected by the consequences of inadequate education and separation or divorce. Blacks share much in common with whites and differ from whites only in their degree of exposure to distressing events. John Mirowsky and Catherine Ross339 provided some empirical support for the claim that being black may not be distressing per se; an association between race and social-psychological distress is due to the fact that blacks are disproportionately concentrated in the lower social classes. Lower social-class standing is associated with social-psychological distress as a consequence of lack of power, prestige, resources, or gratification from work, as well as disproportionate exposure to the consequences of social dislocations. Mirowsky and Ross were not able to demonstrate that being black has a consistent effect on one’s sense of social-psychological wellbeing; inadequate education, separation or divorce, and low income better predict a decreased sense of well-being. However, the strength of the associations varies by “ethnic culture.” 340 Low income appeared to be the strongest predictor variable. This view is controversial, however. The validity of any findings in this context depends, in part, on whether the effects of race and social class are statistically additive or interactive. If the latter is the case, the true effect of race is suppressed and the true effect of social class is magnified in a model that fails to take this interaction into account. In an analysis of eight relevant studies that were published, Ronald Kessler and Harold Neighbors341 claimed that the effects are interactive; in other words, racial differences in social-psychological distress are more pronounced among people with low incomes. Being black and having low income is more distressing than being white and having low income; however, this relationship does not necessarily hold among those in the middle and upper-middle classes. Based on thirty-seven in-depth interviews with black middle-class respondents in several cities, Feagin 342 argued in contradistinction to Wilson343 that discrimination against blacks in public accommodations continues. Feagin defined discrimination as avoidance behaviors, subtle or covert slights, verbal harassment, and physical attacks. Without a doubt, these behaviors continue. However, Feagin’s research did not answer two fundamental questions: first, to what extent do avoidance behaviors, subtle or covert slights, verbal harassment, and physical attacks (which, we may surmise, result in social-psychological distress) negatively affect the objective life-chances of blacks? Furthermore, these behaviors are not unique to

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race, which can be illustrated by contrasting hotel bars with working-class bars. They serve as a metaphor for social-class differences—expressed, for example, in cosmopolitan versus parochial orientations, open versus closed boundaries, and friendliness toward strangers versus suspicion of, and hostility toward, outsiders. Second, to what extent is social-psychological distress a function of the fact that black socioeconomic progress has not kept pace with black expectations?344 According to Melvin Thomas and Michael Hughes,345 if race is declining in significance for the life-chances of blacks, this should be reflected in measures of social-psychological well-being, including happiness and life satisfaction. On all measures of well-being in Thomas and Hughes’s study, blacks had significantly lower scores than whites after controls had been introduced for social-class background, age, and marital status. Furthermore, the differences between blacks and whites remained constant between 1972 and 1985; in other words, the social-psychological wellbeing of blacks neither improved nor deteriorated between 1972 and 1985. If life-chances are defined to include quality-of-life experiences as reflected in social-psychological and physical well-being, then it appears that blacks are less satisfied with their lives, less happy both generally and maritally, less likely to trust others, more likely to experience anomie, and more likely to report poorer physical health regardless of social class, marital status, age, or year.346 Thomas and Hughes347 believed that the significance of race as a determinant of social-psychological well-being and quality of life continues in spite of the legislative, judicial, and social changes that improved the status of blacks in the transition to the modern industrial period. They challenged the conclusion that race has declined in importance in determining lifechances for blacks insofar as the concept of life-chances is interpreted to include “reality of life experience” as reflected in social-psychological and physical well-being. Although being black does not lead to psychopathology, it is associated with a less positive life experience than being white. However, the authors noted that these findings do not refute Wilson’s348 claims on black educational, occupational, and income attainments in the modern industrial period. In a follow-up study, Hughes and Thomas 349 argued that blacks experienced a consistently lower quality of life (as measured by life satisfaction, general happiness, marital happiness, and anomie scales) and that there is little evidence that blacks’ quality of life is improving to the level experienced by whites. It appears that this observation characterizes blacks across the black social-class structure, not just the lower classes. However, it is difficult to establish whether or not racial discrimination is responsible for blacks’ perceived lower quality of life. A complicating factor in any of these claims is the necessity to draw conceptual distinctions between personal self-esteem, personal efficacy,

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and racial self-esteem.350 Blacks’ personal self-esteem may be insulated to some extent from racial inequities, such as those described by Feagin,351 because it is embedded in microsocial systems that include family and friends. However, personal efficacy, which Wilson352 referred to as “selfefficacy,” is not insulated from racial inequities. Personal efficacy is a function of experiences that result from one’s position in macrosocial systems, including labor markets. Racial self-esteem is a product of specific educational practices and broader ideological processes, as well as interracial contacts.353 Michael Hughes and David Demo354 suggested that, in understanding the black experience, it might be more important to focus on personal efficacy than on personal self-esteem. Personal efficacy may be the social-psychological characteristic most affected by racial inequities. In When Work Disappears, Wilson deracialized this issue by citing “perceived environmental restrictions” as the reason for lowered personal efficacy among certain segments of the black population. Another complicating factor is that the higher personal self-esteem scores often reported among blacks may be attributable, at least in part, to black-white differences in response styles; this refers to the tendency to favor response categories independent of item content—for example, agreeing with questions regardless of content or using the extreme ends of response scales such as “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree.” Jerald Bachman and Patrick O’Malley355 showed that blacks are more likely than whites to use the extreme response categories on a wide variety of questionnaire items, particularly the positive end of agree-disagree scales. This finding appeared consistently in several large-scale, nationally representative surveys of youth. Response styles differed little by sex and were not correlated appreciably with indicators of family background or educational aspirations and accomplishments. When the response style differences were excluded from self-esteem scores by using a truncated scoring method, the average black-white differences disappeared. These findings suggest caution in interpreting the significance of racial differences in social-psychological measures. *

*

*

In summary, Wilson was broadly correct in arguing that social class has become more important, and race has become less important, in determining black life-chances in the modern industrial period. However, statements such as these are problematic because the reality of black life-chances is much more complicated than the simple relationship suggested by the title of Wilson’s book. For example, the demarcation of periods was problematic; evidence for the thesis of the declining significance of race is modest; generalizations are risky; deracialization in the labor market may or may

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not have occurred; and at least in part, politics mediated the emergence of the new black middle class. Studies examining racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainment outcomes do not agree on the nature of the differences observed, or the reasons why; and inconsistencies persist even when major differences in the samples, models, and methods are held constant. Chapter 4 summarizes and evaluates the empirical debates with The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears.

Notes 1. Moskowitz, “Race, Class, and Politics,” 259. 2. Cf. Burris, “Introduction: The Structuralist Influence in Marxist Theory and Research,” 13. 3. R. Thomas, “A Review [of The Declining Significance of Race],” 9–10, 12; Marable, “A Review [of The Declining Significance of Race],” 23; cf. Billingsley, “The Sociology of Knowledge of William J. Wilson.” 4. Cf. Gould, “Race and Theory”; L. Harris, “Agency and the Concept of the Underclass”; A. Young, “The (Non)Accumulation of Capital.” 5. Skotnes, “Structural Determination of the Proletariat and the Petty Bourgeoisie,” 35, 40. 6. Ibid., 36. 7. H. Baron, “Racism Transformed,” 12, 14–15. 8. Ibid., 12, 15. 9. Cf. Frehill-Rowe, “Postbellum Race Relations and Rural Land Tenure.” Frehill-Rowe provides some support for Edna Bonacich’s split labor market theory. 10. J. Elliott, “Social Isolation and Labor Market Insulation,” 213; G. Wilson, “Payoffs to Power Among Males in the Middle Class,” 609. 11. Moskowitz, “Race, Class, and Politics,” 249. 12. Aronoff, “A Review [of The Declining Significance of Race],” 18; C. Payne, “On the Declining—and Increasing—Significance of Race”; Pettigrew, “The Changing—Not Declining—Significance of Race”; Willie, Caste and Class Controversy on Race and Poverty. 13. Moskowitz, “Race, Class, and Politics,” 253–257, 262. 14. Ibid., 262; Oliver, “Review Essay,” 89. 15. Charles W. Mills, “Race and Class: Conflicting or Reconcilable Paradigms?” 91–92. 16. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 17. Niemonen, “The Role of the State in the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations.” 18. Tomaskovic-Devey and Roscigno, “Uneven Development and Local Inequality in the U.S. South,” 575, 591–593. 19. Roscigno and Tomaskovic-Devey, “Racial Politics in the Contemporary South,” 603. 20. Tomaskovic-Devey and Roscigno, “Uneven Development and Local Inequality in the U.S. South,” 592. 21. Tomaskovic-Devey and Roscigno, “Racial Economic Subordination and White Gain in the U.S. South,” 565–566, 584. 22. Ibid., 583–584.

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23. Wilson, “Class Conflict and Jim Crow Segregation in the Postbellum South”; Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 24. Frehill-Rowe, “Postbellum Race Relations and Rural Land Tenure,” 91. 25. Bonacich, “The Past, Present, and Future of Split Labor Market Theory,” 17–18; Marks, “Split Labor Markets and Black-White Relations, 1865–1920”; C. Brown, “The Role of Employers in Split Labor Markets.” 26. Boswell, “A Split Labor Market Analysis of Discrimination Against Chinese Immigrants, 1850–1882,” 352. 27. Bonacich, “Abolition, the Extension of Slavery, and the Position of Free Blacks,” 601–602; Bonacich, “The Past, Present, and Future of Split Labor Market Theory,” 18, 34; Bonacich, “Capitalism and Race Relations in South Africa,” 242–243; cf. Bonacich, “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market”; Bonacich, “Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Race Relations in the United States”; Marks, “Split Labor Markets and Black-White Relations, 1865–1920,” 294–295, 308. 28. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 29. Turner, Singleton, and Musick, Oppression: A Socio-History of BlackWhite Relations in America, 169, 178. 30. Turner and Singleton, “A Theory of Ethnic Oppression,” 1015. 31. Offe, “Structural Problems of the Capitalist State,” 33. 32. Wilson, “Class Conflict and Jim Crow Segregation in the Postbellum South”; Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 33. D. James, “The Transformation of the Southern Racial State.” 34. Ibid., 193. 35. C. Brown, “The Role of Employers in Split Labor Markets.” 36. Wilson, “Class Conflict and Jim Crow Segregation in the Postbellum South”; Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 37. Szymanski, “Racial Discrimination and White Gain.” 38. Dowdall, “White Gains From Black Subordination in 1960 and 1970,” 182; Frisbie and Neidert, “Inequality and the Relative Size of Minority Populations,” 1025. 39. Dowdall, “White Gains From Black Subordination in 1960 and 1970,” 181; cf. Szymanski, “Racial Discrimination and White Gain.” 40. Olzak, “Labor Unrest, Immigration, and Ethnic Conflict in Urban America, 1880–1914,” 1303–1305, 1309. 41. Ibid., 1308–1310. 42. Ibid., 1328–1329. 43. Bonacich, “The Past, Present, and Future of Split Labor Market Theory,” 21; cf. Skocpol, “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis”; Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In.” 44. Shulman, “Controversies in the Marxian Analysis of Racial Discrimination,” 74. 45. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 46. Esping-Andersen, “The Three Political Economies of the Welfare State,” 99–100. 47. Boswell, “A Split Labor Market Analysis of Discrimination Against Chinese Immigrants, 1850–1882,” 355, 367; cf. Fichtenbaum, “A Critique of the

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Segmentation Theory of Racial Discrimination”; Olzak, “Labor Unrest, Immigration, and Ethnic Conflict in Urban America, 1880–1914.” 48. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 49. Cf. Bonilla-Silva, “The Essential Social Fact of Race”; Jiobu, “Racial Inequality in a Public Arena”; Loveman, “Is ‘Race’ Essential?” 50. G. Wilson, “Payoffs to Power Among Males in the Middle Class,” 610. 51. Killian, “Black Power and White Reactions,” 45. 52. McElroy and Andrews, “The Black Male and the U.S. Economy,” 162–164, 168; Szymanski, “Race, Sex, and the U.S. Working Class,” 721. For a more pessimistic view, see Cotton, “On the Permanence or Impermanence of BlackWhite Economic Inequality”; J. Johnson, Farrell, and Stoloff, “The Declining Social and Economic Fortunes of African American Males.” 53. Szymanski, “Race, Sex, and the U.S. Working Class,” 722–723. 54. D. Hogan and Featherman, “Racial Stratification and Socioeconomic Change in the American North and South,” 122–124. 55. Palmore and Whittington, “Differential Trends Toward Equality Between Whites and Nonwhites,” 108–116; Farley, “Trends in Racial Inequalities,” 206; L. Hogan and Harris, “The Occupational-Industrial Structure of Black Employment in the United States”; Mindiola, “Age and Income Discrimination Against Mexican Americans and Blacks in Texas, 1960 and 1970,” 205–206; Villemez and Rowe, “Black Economic Gains in the Sixties,” 190–191. 56. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 57. Farley, “Trends in Racial Inequalities,” 206; Mare and Winship, “The Paradox of Lessening Racial Inequality and Joblessness Among Black Youth,” 39. 58. Fossett, Galle, and Burr, “Racial Occupational Inequality, 1940–1980,” 423; Mare and Winship, “The Paradox of Lessening Racial Inequality and Joblessness Among Black Youth,” 39. 59. Kaufman and Daymont, “Racial Discrimination and the Social Organization of Industries”; Mindiola, “Age and Income Discrimination Against Mexican Americans and Blacks in Texas, 1960 and 1970,” 205–206. 60. Fossett, Galle, and Burr, “Racial Occupational Inequality, 1940–1980,” 423–424. 61. Zhou and Kamo, “An Analysis of Earnings Patterns for Chinese, Japanese, and Non-Hispanic White Males in the United States.” 62. Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, 15, 17–18, 22–23; Wilson, “The Political Economy and Urban Racial Tensions”; cf. Bobo and Smith, “From Jim Crow Racism to Laissez-Faire Racism.” 63. Wilson, When Work Disappears, 198–199. Here, Wilson backed away from the more restrictive statements of The Declining Significance of Race, acknowledging perhaps in response to critics a continuing significance of race. 64. G. Thomas, “Student and Institutional Characteristics as Determinants of the Prompt and Subsequent Four-Year College Graduation of Race and Sex Groups,” 343. Differences in findings on whether racial desegregation of schools has had its intended effects depend at least partially on the methodologies used in the studies; cf. Roscigno, “Family/School Inequality and African-American/ Hispanic Achievement,” 269. 65. Roscigno, “The Black-White-Achievement Gap, Family-School Links, and the Importance of Place,” 159. 66. Crain and Mahard, “The Effect of Research Methodology on Desegregation-Achievement Studies.”

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67. Roscigno, “The Black-White-Achievement Gap, Family-School Links, and the Importance of Place,” 180. 68. Bankston and Caldas, “The American School Dilemma,” 423–429; cf. Gould, “Race and Theory.” In a recent article, Bankston and Caldas argued that the test scores of black students drop in districts where white students withdraw from the public school system. See Bankston and Caldas, “White Enrollment in Nonpublic Schools, Public School Racial Composition, and Student Performance.” 69. Roscigno, “The Black-White-Achievement Gap, Family-School Links, and the Importance of Place,” 181; cf. Wilson, When Work Disappears. 70. Kerckhoff and Campbell, “Race and Social Status Differences in the Explanation of Educational Ambition,” 711–712; cf. Gould, “Race and Theory.” 71. Kerckhoff and Campbell, “Race and Social Status Differences in the Explanation of Educational Ambition,” 711–712. 72. Gurin, “Motivations and Aspirations of Southern Negro College Youth.” 73. This observation may be useful for explaining the increasingly conservative views of some segments of the black intellectual community; e.g., R. Payne, Getting Beyond Race. 74. Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey, “Assessing the Oppositional Culture Explanation of Racial/Ethnic Differences in School Performance,” 547. 75. Ibid., 550–551; cf. Roscigno, “Family/School Inequality and AfricanAmerican/Hispanic Achievement,” 281. 76. Hout and Morgan, “Race and Sex Variations in the Causes of the Expected Attainments of High School Seniors”; cf. Picou, “Race, Athletic Achievement, and Educational Aspiration,” 437. Picou noted that the impact of athletic achievement on educational aspirations is mediated primarily by social psychological variables, such as peers’ aspirations. 77. Cf. Qian and Blair, “Racial/Ethnic Differences in Educational Aspirations of High School Seniors”; Porter, “Race, Socialization and Mobility in Educational and Early Occupational Attainment,” 314–315. 78. Portes and Wilson, “Black-White Differences in Educational Attainment,” 428–429. 79. Ibid. 80. McCarthy and Hoge, “The Social Construction of School Punishment,” 1116–1117. 81. Farkas and Vicknair, “Appropriate Tests of Racial Wage Discrimination Require Controls for Cognitive Skill,” 558–559; cf. Jud and Walker, “Discrimination by Race and Class and the Impact of School Quality.” 82. Maume, Cancio, and Evans, “Cognitive Skills and Racial Wage Inequality,” 563–564. 83. M. Thomas, “Race, Class, and Personal Income,” 341. 84. Mitra, “The Allocation of Blacks in Large Firms and Establishments and Black-White Wage Inequality in the U.S. Economy”; cf. Wilson, When Work Disappears. 85. S. A. Smith, “Sources of Earnings Inequality in the Black and White Female Labor Forces,” 118; Tigges and Tootle, “Underemployment and Racial Competition in Local Labor Markets,” 279. 86. M. Johnson and Sell, “The Cost of Being Black: A 1970 Update”; Cook, “Benign Neglect: Minimum Feasible Understanding.” 87. R. A. Smith, “Race, Income, and Authority at Work,” 19. 88. Thurow, “Not Making It in America.”

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89. Fox and Faine, “Trends in White-Nonwhite Income Equality”; M. Thomas, “Race, Class, and Personal Income,” 339. 90. M. Thomas, “Race, Class, and Personal Income.” 91. M. Thomas and Horton, “Race, Class, and Family Structure.” 92. Albelda, “‘Nice Work If You Can Get It,’” 74. 93. S. A. Smith, “Sources of Earnings Inequality in the Black and White Female Labor Forces,” 118. 94. Tomaskovic-Devey and Roscigno, “Racial Economic Subordination and White Gain in the U.S. South,” 565. 95. Maume, Cancio, and Evans, “Cognitive Skills and Racial Wage Inequality.” 96. Tsang and Dietz, “The Unrelenting Significance of Minority Statuses,” 75. 97. M. Thomas, Herring, and Horton, “Discrimination Over the Life Course,” 611. 98. G. Wilson and Sakura-Lemessey, “Earnings Over the Early Work Career Among Males in the Middle Class.” 99. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, “Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race,” 554; M. Thomas, Herring, and Horton, “Discrimination Over the Life Course,” 625. 100. M. Thomas, Herring, and Horton, “Discrimination Over the Life Course,” 624–625. 101. Cf. Jud and Walker, “Discrimination by Race and Class and the Impact of School Quality.” 102. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 103. Mitra, “The Allocation of Blacks in Large Firms and Establishments and Black-White Wage Inequality in the U.S. Economy.” 104. Ibid. 105. D. Hogan and Pazul, “The Occupational and Earnings Returns to Education Among Black Men in the North,” 919–920; cf. D. Hogan and Pazul, “The Career Strategies of Black Men.” 106. Cho and Ogunwole, “Black Workers in Southern Rural Labor Markets.” 107. Boston, Race, Class, and Conservatism, 65. 108. Cf. Hanushek, “Sources of Black-White Earnings Differences.” 109. Lichter, “Racial Differences in Underemployment in American Cities,” 771. 110. Ibid., 789. 111. Ibid., 774–775. 112. F. Wilson, Tienda, and Wu, “Race and Unemployment.” 113. Lichter, “Racial Differences in Underemployment in American Cities,” 789–790. 114. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, “Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race,” 551. 115. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, When Work Disappears; cf. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, “Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race,” 551. 116. Cf. Bonacich, “Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Race Relations in the United States,” 49. 117. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, “Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race,” 551–553. 118. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race.

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119. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, “Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race,” 554. 120. S. A. Smith, “Sources of Earnings Inequality in the Black and White Female Labor Forces,” 118. 121. Albelda, “‘Nice Work If You Can Get It,’” 75–76. 122. Kilbourne, England, and Beron, “Effects of Individual, Occupational, and Industrial Characteristics on Earnings,” 1170; S. A. Smith, “Sources of Earnings Inequality in the Black and White Female Labor Forces,” 118. 123. Kilbourne, England, and Beron, “Effects of Individual, Occupational, and Industrial Characteristics on Earnings,” 1171. 124. Burstein, “Equal Employment Opportunity Legislation and the Income of Women and Nonwhites.” 125. Sorkin, “Occupational Status and Unemployment of Nonwhite Women,” 393–397. 126. Tienda, Donato, and Cordero-Guzman, “Schooling, Color, and the Labor Force Activity of Women.” 127. Cunningham and Zalokar, “The Economic Progress of Black Women, 1940–1980.” 128. Szymanski, “Racism and Sexism as Functional Substitutes in the Labor Market.” 129. Villemez, “The Functional Substitutability of Blacks and Females in the Labor Market,” 562. 130. Which, as Wilson argued in The Declining Significance of Race, reflect historical discrimination and contemporary social-class advantages or disadvantages. Cf. Holzer, “Black Employment Problems.” 131. Tomaskovic-Devey, “The Gender and Race Composition of Jobs and the Male/Female, White/Black Pay Gaps,” 60–64. 132. Skinner, “Urban Labor Markets and Young Black Men.” 133. Reimers, “Sources of Family Income Differentials Among Hispanics, Blacks, and White Non-Hispanics,” 901; Sandefur and Scott, “Minority Group Status and the Wages of Indian and Black Males.” 134. Cotton, “On the Permanence or Impermanence of Black-White Economic Inequality.” 135. Farkas et al., “Cognitive Skill, Skill Demands of Jobs, and Earnings Among Young European American, African American, and Mexican American Workers.” 136. P. Mason, “Race, Culture, and Skill,” 33. 137. Farkas et al., “Cognitive Skill, Skill Demands of Jobs, and Earnings Among Young European American, African American, and Mexican American Workers,” 934; cf. Wilson, When Work Disappears. 138. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 139. Baker and Levenson, “Job Opportunities of Black and White WorkingClass Women,” 530–531; Shaffer and Wilson, “Racial Discrimination in Occupational Choice,” 199–205. 140. Fossett and Swicegood, “Rediscovering City Differences in Racial Occupational Inequality,” 681–689; Parcel, “Race, Regional Labor Markets, and Earnings,” 277. 141. Tigges and Tootle, “Underemployment and Racial Competition in Local Labor Markets,” 293–294. 142. Ibid., 295. 143. Burr et al., “Racial Occupational Inequality in Southern Metropolitan

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Areas, 1940–1980”; cf. Becker, “Racial Segregation Among Places of Employment”; Stolzenberg, “Education, Occupation, and Wage Differences Between White and Black Men.” 144. Tigges and Tootle, “Underemployment and Racial Competition in Local Labor Markets,” 293. 145. Cf. O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State. 146. Grant and Parcel, “Revisiting Metropolitan Racial Inequality,” 1138–1139. 147. Tienda and Lii, “Minority Concentration and Earnings Inequality,” 141, 163. 148. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 149. Tienda and Lii, “Minority Concentration and Earnings Inequality,” 159–160. 150. V. Keith and Herring, “Skin Tone and Stratification in the Black Community,” 777. 151. Hughes and Hertel, “The Significance of Color Remains.” 152. M. Hunter, “Colorstruck: Skin Color Stratification in the Lives of African American Women,” 526, 528, 532. 153. J. Johnson, Farrell, and Stoloff, “The Declining Social and Economic Fortunes of African American Males.” 154. Ibid. 155. Ibid. 156. V. Keith and Herring, “Skin Tone and Stratification in the Black Community,” 760, 777. 157. Kaufman, “A Structural Decomposition of Black-White Earnings Differentials,” 604; cf. Niemi, “Occupational/Educational Discrimination Against Black Males,” 87–92. 158. Boston, Race, Class, and Conservatism, 127–129. 159. R. B. Hill, “The Illusion of Black Progress,” 21–22. 160. Gill, “The Role of Discrimination in Determining Occupational Structure.” 161. Kaufman, “A Structural Decomposition of Black-White Earnings Differentials,” 604. 162. Lyon et al., “The National Longitudinal Surveys Data for Labor Market Entry,” 532–536. 163. Collins, “Black Mobility in White Corporations,” 65. 164. R. Hogan, Kim, and Perucci, “Racial Inequality in Men’s Employment and Retirement Earnings,” 437. 165. Hout, “Occupational Mobility of Black Men: 1962–1973,” 308, 321. 166. Hirschman and Kraly, “Racial and Ethnic Inequality in the United States, 1940 and 1950”; Snyder and Hudis, “Occupational Income and the Effects of Minority Competition and Segregation,” 232. 167. M. Johnson and Sell, “The Cost of Being Black: A 1970 Update.” 168. Featherman and Hauser, “Changes in the Socioeconomic Stratification of the Races, 1962–1973,” 646–647. 169. Ibid. 170. Ibid., 621–651. 171. Ibid., 648–649. 172. Simkus, “Residential Segregation by Occupation and Race in Ten Urbanized Areas, 1950–1970,” 81, 92. 173. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race.

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174. Hout, “Occupational Mobility of Black Men,” 320–321. 175. Ibid., 310, 320–321. 176. Oliver and Glick, “An Analysis of the New Orthodoxy on Black Mobility,” 520–522. 177. Davis, “The Occupational Mobility of Black Males Revisited,” 132–133; cf. Neidert and Farley, “Assimilation in the United States,” 848. According to Sakamoto and Tzeng (“A Fifty-Year Perspective on the Declining Significance of Race in the Occupational Attainment of White and Black Men”), and consistent with Wilson, “the net disadvantage of being black” was greater in the industrial period than in the modern industrial period. By 1990, the effects of education were much larger than the effects of being black; that is, class status had become more important than racial status in determining occupational attainment. 178. Pomer, “Labor Market Structure, Intragenerational Mobility, and Discrimination.” 179. Ibid., 657; Featherman and Hauser, “Changes in the Socioeconomic Stratification of the Races, 1962–1973”; cf. Roof, “Residential Segregation of Blacks and Racial Inequality in Southern Cities.” 180. Sandefur, “Black/White Differences in Job Shift Behavior,” 577; Szafran, “What Kinds of Firms Hire and Promote Women and Blacks?” 173. 181. M. Thomas, “Race, Class, and Personal Income,” 340. 182. Cf. S. A. Smith, “Sources of Earnings Inequality in the Black and White Female Labor Forces,” 121. 183. Pomer, “Labor Market Structure, Intragenerational Mobility, and Discrimination,” 650–651; cf. Sandefur, “Black/White Differences in Job Shift Behavior,” 577. 184. R. Payne, Getting Beyond Race. 185. Cummings, “Vulnerability to the Effects of Recession,” 852–855. 186. Zwerling and Silver, “Race and Job Dismissals in a Federal Bureaucracy,” 651–652; DiPrete, “Unemployment Over the Life Cycle.” 187. Field and Winfrey, “Job Displacement and Reemployment in North Carolina,” 58. 188. R. B. Hill, “The Illusion of Black Progress,” 16. 189. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 190. R. B. Hill, “The Illusion of Black Progress,” 20. 191. Cummings, “Vulnerability to the Effects of Recession,” 852–855. 192. Petterson, “Are Young Black Men Really Less Willing to Work?” 612. 193. R. B. Hill, “The Illusion of Black Progress,” 15. 194. Cf. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 195. Galle, Wiswell, and Burr, “Racial Mix and Industrial Productivity,” 20, 24, 29. 196. Collins, “Blacks on the Bubble,” 443. 197. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 198. Collins, “Blacks on the Bubble,” 443–444. 199. Ibid., 444. 200. Durr and Logan, “Racial Submarkets in Government Employment,” 355. 201. Collins, “Black Mobility in White Corporations,” 64–65. 202. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, “Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race,” 553.

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203. Patterson, The Ordeal of Integration, 23. 204. Tomaskovic-Devey, “The Gender and Race Composition of Jobs and the Male/Female, White/Black Pay Gaps,” 45–48. 205. Scott, “1984: The Public and Private Governance of Race Relations,” 184. 206. Shelton, “Racial Discrimination at Initial Labor Market Access.” 207. D. Boyd, “The Historical Materialist-Symbolist Theory of Race Discrimination,” 124; cf. Tomaskovic-Devey, “The Gender and Race Composition of Jobs and the Male/Female, White/Black Pay Gaps,” 45–48; Loewenstein, “The New Underclass.” 208. Tomaskovic-Devey, “The Gender and Race Composition of Jobs and the Male/Female, White/Black Pay Gaps,” 46. 209. Ibid., 46, 61. 210. Ibid., 60–64. 211. Ibid. 212. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 213. Daymont and Kaufman, “Measuring Industrial Variation in Racial Discrimination Using Log-Linear Models.” 214. Exum, “Climbing the Crystal Stair,” 387–388. 215. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 216. Szafran, “What Kinds of Firms Hire and Promote Women and Blacks?” 175–176. 217. Ibid., 180; Cancio, Evans, and Maume, “Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race,” 553–554. 218. Szafran, “What Kinds of Firms Hire and Promote Women and Blacks?” 176–177, 184, 186. 219. Ibid., 177–178, 183, 186. 220. Ibid., 180. 221. Wilson, “The Plight of the Inner-City Black Male.” 222. Aponte, “Urban Employment and the Mismatch Dilemma,” 280. 223. Neckerman and Kirschenman, “Hiring Strategies, Racial Bias, and InnerCity Workers.” 224. Aponte, “Urban Employment and the Mismatch Dilemma,” 280. 225. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, “Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race,” 553–554. 226. Wilson, “Studying Inner-City Dislocations,” 8. 227. Ibid. 228. Wilson, When Work Disappears, 111, 116, 118, 126, 142. 229. Ibid., 127–130, 136. 230. Ibid., 133–135. 231. Ibid., 136–137. Italics in original. So, at one point (When Work Disappears, 144), Wilson argued that “the issue of race in the labor market cannot be reduced simply to the presence of discrimination.” Black unemployment is the consequence of a complex combination of interrelated factors, including those that are race-neutral. However, at another point (The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, 45, 64), he argued that “racial bias continues to be an important factor that aggravates black employment problems.” Cf. D. J. Harris, “The Black Ghetto as Colony,” 26.

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232. Neckerman and Kirschenman, “Hiring Strategies, Racial Bias, and InnerCity Workers.” 233. Wilson, When Work Disappears, 31–33, 37. 234. Tienda and Stier, “Generating Labor Market Inequality,” 162–163. 235. Ibid., 163. 236. Lewin-Epstein, “Effects of Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Opportunity Structure on the Employment of Black and White Youth,” 567–568; cf. Wilson, When Work Disappears. 237. Wilson, When Work Disappears, 42. 238. J. Elliott, “Social Isolation and Labor Market Insulation,” 207–208. 239. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 240. J. Elliott, “Social Isolation and Labor Market Insulation,” 208, 210. 241. Ibid., 210, 212. 242. Semyonov, “Bi-Ethnic Labor Markets, Mono-Ethnic Labor Markets, and Socioeconomic Inequality,” 265. 243. Kluegel, “The Causes and Cost of Racial Exclusion From Job Authority,” 287. 244. Ibid., 285–286. 245. G. Wilson, “Payoffs to Power Among Males in the Middle Class,” 608. 246. For exceptions, see R. A. Smith, “Race, Income, and Authority at Work”; R. A. Smith, “Racial Differences in Access to Hierarchical Authority”; G. Wilson, “Payoffs to Power Among Males in the Middle Class.” 247. G. Wilson, “Payoffs to Power Among Males in the Middle Class,” 609. 248. Ibid., 610. 249. R. A. Smith, “Racial Differences in Access to Hierarchical Authority,” 379. 250. Kluegel, “The Causes and Cost of Racial Exclusion From Job Authority”; R. A. Smith, “Racial Differences in Access to Hierarchical Authority.” 251. Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation. 252. Kluegel, “The Causes and Cost of Racial Exclusion From Job Authority.” 253. Ibid.; G. Wilson, “Pathways to Power,” 39–40. 254. Tomaskovic-Devey, “The Gender and Race Composition of Jobs and the Male/Female, White/Black Pay Gaps.” 255. G. Wilson, “Pathways to Power,” 48. 256. McGuire and Reskin, “Authority Hierarchies at Work,” 487–506; R. A. Smith, “Race, Income, and Authority at Work”; R. A. Smith, “Racial Differences in Access to Hierarchical Authority.” 257. Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation. 258. R. A. Smith, “Racial Differences in Access to Hierarchical Authority,” 369–370. 259. Kluegel, “The Causes and Cost of Racial Exclusion From Job Authority,” 286; Szafran, “What Kinds of Firms Hire and Promote Women and Blacks?” 260. Kluegel, “The Causes and Cost of Racial Exclusion From Job Authority,” 285–286, 299. 261. Ibid., 297. 262. R. A. Smith, “Race, Income, and Authority at Work,” 19, 33. 263. Ibid.; cf. R. A. Smith, “Racial Differences in Access to Hierarchical Authority.” G. Wilson (“Payoffs to Power Among Males in the Middle Class,” 618; “Pathways to Power”) suggested that the cumulative effects of racial discrimination are pronounced particularly between the early- and mid-career stages.

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264. R. A. Smith, “Racial Differences in Access to Hierarchical Authority,” 367. 265. Ibid., 387. 266. Ibid., 387–388. 267. Mitra, “The Allocation of Blacks in Large Firms and Establishments and Black-White Wage Inequality in the U.S. Economy”; R. A. Smith, “Racial Differences in Access to Hierarchical Authority”; Szafran, “What Kinds of Firms Hire and Promote Women and Blacks?” 268. Collins, “Blacks on the Bubble.” 269. R. A. Smith, “Racial Differences in Access to Hierarchical Authority,” 388. 270. R. C. Hill, “Unionization and Racial Income Inequality in the Metropolis,” 508. 271. Beck, “Labor Unionism and Racial Income Inequality,” 792. 272. R. C. Hill, “Unionization and Racial Income Inequality in the Metropolis,” 512. 273. Kaufman, “The Impact of Industrial and Occupational Structure on Black-White Employment Allocation,” 320. 274. Waldinger and Bailey, “The Continuing Significance of Race,” 293. 275. Ibid., 315–316. 276. Schutt, “Craft Unions and Minorities,” 398. 277. Waldinger and Bailey, “The Continuing Significance of Race,” 317. 278. Ibid., 305–306. 279. Ibid., 301, 307. 280. Feagin and Imani, “Racial Barriers to African American Entrepreneurship.” 281. Ibid., 581. 282. Szafran, “What Kinds of Firms Hire and Promote Women and Blacks?” 181. 283. R. C. Hill, “Unionization and Racial Income Inequality in the Metropolis,” 507, 520. 284. Beck, “Labor Unionism and Racial Income Inequality,” 796; cf. Beck, “Discrimination and White Economic Loss.” 285. Bonacich, “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism”; Bonacich, “Abolition, the Extension of Slavery, and the Position of Free Blacks”; Bonacich, “Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Race Relations in the United States”; Bonacich, “The Past, Present, and Future of Split Labor Market Theory”; Bonacich, “Class Approaches to Ethnicity and Race.” 286. Beck, “Labor Unionism and Racial Income Inequality,” 792, 809–810. 287. Ibid., 791. 288. Leigh, “Unions and Nonwage Racial Discrimination.” 289. Cohn and Fossett, “Why Racial Employment Inequality Is Greater in Northern Labor Markets,” 534; cf. R. C. Hill, “Unionization and Racial Income Inequality in the Metropolis,” 508. 290. Beck, “Labor Unionism and Racial Income Inequality, ” 812. 291. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 292. R. Boyd, “Black and Asian Self-Employment in Large Metropolitan Areas.” 293. Kaufman, “The Impact of Industrial and Occupational Structure on Black-White Employment Allocation,” 321; Zwerling and Silver, “Race and Job Dismissals in a Federal Bureaucracy,” 651–660.

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294. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 295. Aronoff, “A Review [of The Declining Significance of Race],” 18. 296. Burr et al., “Racial Occupational Inequality in Southern Metropolitan Areas, 1940–1980.” 297. G. Wilson, “Pathways to Power,” 41. 298. E.g., Collins, “The Marginalization of Black Executives”; Zipp, “Government Employment and Black-White Earnings Inequality, 1980–1990,” 363–364. 299. Zipp, “Government Employment and Black-White Earnings Inequality, 1980–1990,” 365. 300. Collins, “The Making of the Black Middle Class,” 376; Flaming et al., “Black Powerlessness in Policy-Making Positions,” 132. 301. Collins, “The Making of the Black Middle Class,” 377. 302. Oliver and Glick, “An Analysis of the New Orthodoxy on Black Mobility,” 521–522. 303. Greene and Rogers, “Education and the Earnings Disparities Between Black and White Men”; Greene and Hoffnar, “The Effect of Public Sector Employment on the Earnings of White and African American Males”; Hoffnar and Greene, “Residential Location and the Earnings of African American Women”; M. Thomas, “Race, Class, and Personal Income,” 340; Zipp, “Government Employment and Black-White Earnings Inequality, 1980–1990”; Zwerling and Silver, “Race and Job Dismissals in a Federal Bureaucracy,” 653. 304. G. Wilson, “Pathways to Power,” 49. Ironically, black personnel service and management consulting firms spend much of their time providing black manpower to, and conducting executive searches for, white corporations. They play an important role in the political negotiations of corporations attempting to sell services to the black community. In this context, black advertising firms also help white corporations to penetrate black consumer markets. See Collins, “The Making of the Black Middle Class,” 378. 305. Zipp, “Government Employment and Black-White Earnings Inequality, 1980–1990,” 366. 306. R. Boyd, “Differences in the Earnings of Black Workers in the Private and Public Sectors.” 307. Zipp, “Government Employment and Black-White Earnings Inequality, 1980–1990,” 378. 308. Ibid. 309. Ibid., 380. 310. S. A. Smith, “Sources of Earnings Inequality in the Black and White Female Labor Forces,” 121. 311. J. Baron and Newman, “For What It’s Worth,” 155. 312. Ibid., 174; cf. Tomaskovic-Devey, “The Gender and Race Composition of Jobs and the Male/Female, White/Black Pay Gaps.” 313. Maume, “Government Participation in the Local Economy and Race- and Sex-Based Earnings Inequality,” 295. 314. Ibid. 315. Ibid., 295–296; cf. R. Hogan and Perrucci, “Producing and Reproducing Class and Status Differences,” 528. 316. Beggs, “The Institutional Environment: Implications for Race and Gender Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market,” 628. 317. Ibid., 629.

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318. Zwerling and Silver, “Race and Job Dismissals in a Federal Bureaucracy.” 319. Ibid., 651, 658. 320. Cummings, “Vulnerability to the Effects of Recession,” 852–855. 321. Pomer, “Labor Market Structure, Intragenerational Mobility, and Discrimination.” 322. B. Moore and Webb, “Perceptions of Equal Opportunity Among Women and Minority Army Personnel,” 217. 323. Ibid., 220. 324. Ibid., 217–218. 325. Ibid., 229, 232. 326. Ibid., 233. 327. Browning, Lopreato, and Poston, “Income and Veteran Status,” 83. 328. Cutright, “The Civilian Earnings of White and Black Draftees and Nonveterans.” 329. Poston, “The Influence of Military Service on the Civilian Earnings Patterns of Blacks, Mexican Americans and Anglos.” 330. Butler, “Inequality in the Military,” 817; cf. R. Payne, Getting Beyond Race. 331. Daula, Smith, and Nors, “Inequality in the Military: Fact or Fiction?” 714–718. 332. Butler, “Inequality in the Military.” 333. Firestone and Stewart, “Trends in Gender and Racial Equity in Retention and Promotion of Military Officers,” 134. 334. Mare and Winship, “The Paradox of Lessening Racial Inequality and Joblessness Among Black Youth,” 40, 54. 335. Pomer, “Labor Market Structure, Intragenerational Mobility, and Discrimination,” 650, 657. 336. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race Revisited but Not Revised,” 26, 34–35. 337. Willie, Race, Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Status, 39. 338. Mirowsky and Ross, “Minority Status, Ethnic Culture, and Distress,” 492. 339. Ibid. 340. Ibid. 341. Kessler and Neighbors, “A New Perspective on the Relationships Among Race, Social Class, and Psychological Distress.” 342. Feagin, “The Continuing Significance of Race”; cf. Hein, “Interpersonal Discrimination Against Hmong Americans.” For an empirically sympathetic assessment and extension of Feagin’s work, see Byng, “Mediating Discrimination.” 343. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 344. Austin and Stack, “Race, Class, and Opportunity,” 357. 345. M. Thomas and Hughes, “The Continuing Significance of Race,” 830, 839. 346. Ibid., 839. 347. Ibid., 830, 839. 348. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 349. Hughes and Thomas, “The Continuing Significance of Race Revisited,” 792. 350. Cf. Wilson, When Work Disappears. 351. Feagin, “The Continuing Significance of Race.”

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352. Wilson, When Work Disappears. 353. Hughes and Demo, “Self-Perceptions of Black Americans,” 132; cf. Miles, Racism; Miles, Racism After ‘Race Relations.’ 354. Hughes and Demo, “Self-Perceptions of Black Americans,” 154. 355. Bachman and O’Malley, “Black-White Differences in Self-Esteem,” 636; cf. Bachman and O’Malley, “Yea-Saying, Nay-Saying, and Going to Extremes.”

4 The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears: Critiques

Wilson on the Black Underclass The Truly Disadvantaged extended, but did not change in significant respects, the analysis of The Declining Significance of Race.1 In this work, the concepts that have captured research interest in sociology (e.g., the male marriageable pool index) take up very little space. In part, The Truly Disadvantaged was an attempt to encourage sociologists to return to the study of the inner-city poor population and its epidemic of social problems. According to Wilson,2 the controversies generated by Moynihan’s government report3 had discouraged research by sociologists, allowing conservatives to “grab the spotlight and define the terms of the debate.” In addition, a preoccupation with race on the part of liberals shifted attention away from structural changes in the U.S. economy and made it difficult to see how the fate of poor blacks is connected to these changes. Challenging “liberal orthodoxy,” Wilson 4 argued that racism alone couldn’t explain the sharp increase in inner-city social dislocations since 1970. The conceptual problems associated with the concept of racism “[signify] worn-out themes” and make “conservative writers more interesting in comparison because they seem, on the surface at least, to have some fresh ideas.” This phenomenon occurs despite the fact that conservative arguments are plagued with serious analytical problems and compelling but empirically false statements. Contrary to the claims of conservatives, rigorous research does not support the view that the moral fabric of individuals is at the root of inner-city social dislocations. Conservative approaches to explaining underclass behavior are tautological, particularly when a subcultural value system is inferred from the behaviors observed, then the behaviors observed are explained by the subcultural value system. Neither does

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rigorous research support the view that increases in social dislocations are reducible to “the easy explanations of racism and racial discrimination advanced by those on the left or of the welfare state promoted by those on the right.”5 According to Wilson,6 The Truly Disadvantaged was not written to account for the historical emergence of the black ghetto (the formation of which, he recognized in passing, owes much to racial segregation). Rather, it was written to explain why poverty, and its attendant social problems, grew exponentially following the active intervention of the state in fostering racial equality. More specifically, it explained black poverty as a consequence of the decline of basic manufacturing, the suburbanization of employment, the transition to a low-paying service-based economy, and the out-migration of middle-class blacks who left the unskilled inner-city black poor socially isolated and jobless to a much greater extent. Structural changes in the economy since 1970 included the shift from goods-producing to service-producing industries, relocation of manufacturing industries out of the central city, increasing polarization of the labor market into high-wage and low-wage sectors, innovations in technology, periodic recessions, and wage stagnation. These changes accelerated the rate of joblessness among inner-city blacks despite the passage of antidiscrimination legislation and the creation of affirmative action programs. Blacks suffered disproportionately from these trends because, owing to past discrimination, they were concentrated in the locations and occupations affected the worst by industrial restructuring. Housing markets, geographic segregation, skills mismatches, and inadequate public transportation combined with job discrimination to create high levels of black unemployment. The problem was exacerbated by government policies of industrial and urban laissez-faire that channeled a disproportionate share of federal, state, and municipal resources to the more affluent. The urban underclass thus emerged from a complex interplay of past discrimination, industrial restructuring, and current policies.7 Stated differently, the problems of the truly disadvantaged cannot be accounted for simply in terms of racial discrimination or in terms of a culture of poverty; they have complex sociological antecedents. Those who cite racial discrimination as the root cause of poverty often fail to make a distinction between the effects of historical discrimination (i.e., discrimination prior to the mid–twentieth century) and the effects of contemporary discrimination. Historical discrimination is more important than contemporary discrimination in understanding the plight of the ghetto poor. To “suggest contemporary discrimination as the main factor is to obscure the impact of economic and demographic changes and to leave unexplained the question of why black unemployment was lower not after but before 1950.”8 Wilson9 discounted the growth of social welfare, operationalized

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mainly as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and food stamps programs, as a significant factor in the rise of female-headed families in the black community. An extensive review of the research literature shows that welfare benefits levels have no effect on illegitimacy rates. Apparently, AFDC payments have a substantial effect on the living arrangements of single mothers; however, they have only a modest impact on separation and divorce.10 However, an overemphasis on structural causation encourages sociologists to ignore the significance of culture as a collective adaptation to social dislocations. Wilson11 argued that it is possible to recognize the importance of macrostructural constraints, avoid the extreme interpretations derived from an uncritical acceptance of the socalled culture of poverty, and still see the merits of cultural analysis. An out-migration of nonpoor blacks to the suburbs results in a concentration effect that creates a social milieu distinct from the neighborhoods of several decades ago and conducive to an epidemic of social problems. Absent are positive role models, availability of marriageable partners, and the network of associations that lead to job contacts.12 The significant factor is not a culture of poverty; rather, it is the spatial concentration of a relatively young poor population and the attendant social isolation from working- and middle-class black families. Prior to this out-migration, the black working and middle classes were confined by restrictive covenants to communities also inhabited by the lower class. Their presence provided stability to inner-city neighborhoods and upheld mainstream values, attitudes, and behaviors.13 Spatial isolation encourages social isolation, which in turn is related to other negative outcomes (or concentration effects). For example, the attachment of poor blacks to the labor force is undermined because of limited access to role models and job information networks. A social context that includes mediocre schools, inadequate job information networks, and a lack of legitimate employment opportunities encourages weak labor-force attachment and increases the probability that individuals will be constrained to seek income from illegal activities. Informal contacts are crucial to the job-matching process at the bottom of the urban labor market. Access to such contacts decreases as neighborhood poverty rates increase. In addition, in neighborhoods with high poverty rates, informal job contacts are more likely to lead to low-paying jobs that do not promote prolonged laborforce attachment.14 Alternative value structures emerge, expressed in linguistic patterns, pressures not to succeed in school, overt sexuality, street demeanors, and gang activities. Therefore, poverty is a consequence not only of differential distribution of economic and political resources but also of differential access to culture as well.15 Disinvestments in, and the decline of, public services, an inability to procure government aid and assistance, and a lack of participation in com-

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munity-based initiatives accelerate neighborhood decay. In this context, the term “social buffer” refers to the presence of a sufficient number of stable working- and middle-class black families to absorb the shock, or cushion the effect, of uneven economic growth and periodic recessions on innercity neighborhoods. The removal of these families makes it more difficult to sustain basic institutions in the inner city in the face of prolonged joblessness. As basic institutions decline, the social organization of inner-city ghetto neighborhoods disintegrates, further depleting the resources and limiting the life-chances of those who remain. Contacts between different social-class and racial groups become intermittent, thereby “enhancing” the effects of living in a highly concentrated poverty area. 16 Joblessness becomes a way of life; the connection between schooling and future lifechances is lost. Wilson17 argued that “a person’s patterns and norms of behavior tend to be shaped by those with which he or she has had the most frequent or sustained contact and interaction.” Exposure to nonconventional role models increases the risk of deviance. Cultural traits are not irrelevant; however, they reflect social structural constraints and opportunities. In these neighborhoods, social interaction among residents is confined to those who do not promote positive social outcomes; and informal social control is low. Social isolation deprives residents of conventional role models and of social resources that facilitate social and economic advancement. In turn, social isolation encourages the formation of ghetto-related cultural traits and behaviors. This phenomenon occurs despite the fact that black residents in inner-city neighborhoods “verbally reinforce, rather than undermine, the basic American values pertaining to individual initiative” such as “plain hard work.”18 In contradistinction to Wilson, however, while social isolation occurs, it is the isolation from the working class (as opposed to the middle class) that apparently has the most profound negative impact on the black poor.19 Circumstantial constraints force many ghetto residents to act in ways that contradict mainstream judgments of acceptable behavior. Among these constraints are limited access to organizational channels such as job networks, as well as limited access to the information necessary to make responsible decisions. An excess of deviant over nondeviant definitions and behaviors legitimizes ghetto-related behavior in the form of “transmission by precept”: a person’s exposure to certain values, attitudes, and behaviors is so frequent that they become part of his or her own repertoire.20 These behaviors represent specific cultural adaptations to the systematic denial of opportunities and may be reinforced by low self-efficacy.21 Wilson22 hypothesized that self-efficacy declines the longer the neighborhood is plagued by high unemployment and joblessness. In such neighborhoods, problems of self-efficacy probably result from perceived environmental restrictions; in neighborhoods characterized by high employment and low joblessness, such problems probably result from per-

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ceived low individual capability. Low self-efficacy that is a consequence of environmental restrictions may be reinforced by the similar perceptions and views of others, creating low collective efficacy in the inner-city ghetto. Therefore, the structural problem of weak labor-force attachment is exacerbated by the cultural problem of low collective efficacy. Although residents attempt to make rational decisions based on what is available to them,23 these decisions are affected by the frequency with which others make similar decisions—for example, choosing public assistance over other alternatives. In one of the initial attempts to test this argument, Jason Boardman and Stephanie Robert24 determined that individuals with similar socioeconomic status characteristics reported different levels of self-efficacy, depending on the characteristics of the neighborhoods in which they live. The estimated effects of neighborhood characteristics on self-efficacy were small but important. In the absence of certain neighborhood measures, the relationship between the dummy variable “black” and self-efficacy was both negative and significant statistically. In the presence of neighborhood measures, the relationship disappeared. Neighborhood characteristics, then, explain in part the lower levels of self-efficacy among blacks, who are represented disproportionately in areas of concentrated poverty.25 In short, Wilson claimed that structural disadvantages precede, rather than follow from, a particular set of values, attitudes, and behaviors. 26 Wilson viewed the behavioral characteristics, which neoconservatives such as Charles Murray and Ken Auletta used to define the underclass, as secondary to structural factors. Objective conditions produce modes of adaptation and create subcultural contexts that take the form of a self-perpetuating pathology. In inner-city neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty, a ghetto-related culture emerges that is incompatible with steady work and that intensifies economic marginality. Many people in the underclass internalize normative expectations that inhibit their ability to take advantage of changed opportunity structures; and they lack, apparently, the personal resources to succeed when given the opportunity.27 Reducing structural inequality would decrease the frequency of “ghetto-specific practices” and make their transmission by precept less efficient.28 In contradistinction to neoconservatives, Wilson emphasized that changing the values, norms, and behaviors of the underclass requires changing the opportunity structures the underclass confronts.29

Concentrated Poverty The growth of concentrated poverty in certain urban areas is indisputable. Ten metropolitan areas subsume a large proportion of the concentrated poor in the United States, that is, people living in neighborhoods where the

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poverty rate exceeds 40 percent. These areas include New York City; Chicago; Newark; Philadelphia; Detroit; Columbus; Atlanta; Baltimore; Buffalo; and Patterson, New Jersey. Cleveland and Washington, D.C., also apply as “impacted areas”—racially isolated neighborhoods with multiple economic and social problems.30 However, Wilson’s emphasis on the outmigration of nonpoor blacks is insufficient to account for the rising concentration of urban black poverty (a point that Wilson himself recognized).31 Although the levels of black inter-class segregation increased during the 1970s, this fact alone does not account for the rising concentration of poverty among blacks because middle- and upper-class blacks are less able to separate themselves from the poor than middle- and upper-class whites. According to Massey and his colleagues,32 in contradistinction to Wilson,33 racial segregation is much more crucial than black middle-class out-migration for explaining the creation and perpetuation of neighborhoods characterized by spatially concentrated poverty during the 1970s. 34 A simple increase in the black poverty rate leads to a dramatic increase in the concentration of poverty when it occurs in highly segregated areas. Socialclass composition is important; however, its effects depend on the level of racial segregation that prevails in the metropolitan area. Whatever the effect of social-class composition in generating spatially concentrated poverty, it is amplified when racial segregation is high.35 Stated differently, a strong interaction between high levels of residential segregation and rising rates of poverty explain where, why, and in which groups the underclass arose. Racial segregation concentrates poverty in black neighborhoods. However, the addition of social-class segregation concentrates poverty primarily in poor black neighborhoods. Social-class segregation exacerbates the degree of poverty concentration that is imposed on poor blacks because of racial segregation.36 Thus, according to Douglas Massey and Mitchell Eggers,37 Wilson’s model was “seriously incomplete.” Data tend to support the arguments of Massey and his colleagues. When a variety of macrostructural conditions are controlled, higher levels of racial segregation are associated with a greater concentration of disadvantages for blacks but generally have a negligible or opposite effect for whites. That is, in some cases higher levels of racial segregation may benefit whites by geographically buffering them from the concentration of disadvantages among blacks. Therefore, racial segregation has different effects on the level of black disadvantages contrasted with white disadvantages. In contradistinction to Wilson’s38 argument that the concentration of jobless men is increasing as the black middle class disappears from black inner-city neighborhoods, it appears that the concentration of jobless men (albeit high) and their contact with professionals are remaining relatively constant. In other words, the black middle class also is trapped in segregat-

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ed neighborhoods not far removed from the black lower class and underclass.39 Segregation’s role in concentrating poverty explains why the urban underclass is confined primarily to the Northeast and Midwest and to a small number of large metropolitan areas. During the 1970s, these cities experienced the sharpest economic reversals and exhibited the highest levels of racial segregation in the United States. Industrial restructuring drove minority poverty rates upward most sharply in cities where blacks and Hispanics were most segregated. 40 Although economic downturns and industrial restructuring may have exacerbated poverty concentration, neither was necessary for its creation. In the absence of racial segregation, the economic dislocations of the 1970s would not have produced concentrated poverty or led to the emergence of a spatially and socially isolated underclass.41 The fact that concentrated poverty is associated with multiple social, economic, and political consequences is indisputable as well. For example, Mare and Winship42 pointed out that an important exception to improvements in the socioeconomic status attainment outcomes of blacks during recent decades is increased levels of joblessness among young blacks relative to young whites. Consistent with Wilson’s43 observations, underemployment and unemployment among blacks increased during the 1970–1982 period, particularly among the young and poorly educated.44 However, Lichter’s45 analysis revealed a more complicated picture: the statistical effects of age, education, and race on the probability of “employment adequacy” increased between 1970 and 1982. Particularly, lack of education had greater implications during the 1980s for the quality of employment than during the early 1970s. As the employment base shifted from manufacturing jobs to service jobs and white-collar jobs, the least educated and least skilled among blacks and whites suffered the most in terms of employment prospects and resulting labor-force marginality. Nevertheless, Lichter46 argued that race had a greater bearing on the likelihood of being underemployed or unemployed in 1982 than it did in 1970. Racial differentials in employment hardship would persist even if blacks acquired more education and greater skills or found more desirable jobs than those offered by the service sector.

The Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis and Urban Labor Markets The spatial mismatch hypothesis refers to the geographic disparity between where blacks reside and where jobs are located; the skills mismatch

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hypothesis refers to the phenomenon where the job skills of the local population do not match the demands of the labor market, creating marginality, underemployment, or unemployment and resulting in insufficient earnings to sustain a family. The spatial mismatch hypothesis specifies that the tendency for jobs in urban areas to shift to locations distant from black neighborhoods adversely affects blacks’ access to employment; access is restricted by the high cost of private transportation and the inefficiencies of public transportation, as well as by residential segregation.47 Competition for the remaining jobs in the inner city lowers wages. If commuting to the suburbs is not offset by higher wages, low-skilled inner-city residents have no incentive to seek work outside their neighborhoods.48 The U.S. government’s recent efforts to create a deregulated business environment to increase the international competitiveness of U.S. companies may have exacerbated this problem. The growing concentration of large vertically and horizontally integrated companies in key sectors of the economy enabled them to rapidly move their capital to take advantage of cheaper labor overseas. This shift is partially responsible for the exodus of unionized, high-paying, heavy manufacturing jobs from major metropolitan centers in the industrial Northeast and Midwest, where large numbers of blacks are concentrated, to suburbs, the South, and Third World countries— places where comparatively few blacks are found in the local labor market or within a reasonable commuting distance. Emerging employment opportunities in the growth sectors have not offset black job losses resulting from deindustrialization. Blacks are disadvantaged in their attempts to secure employment in these growth sectors, partly because employers have changed the ways in which they fulfill labor needs. Employers are shifting to flexible modes of production in an effort to remain competitive. To improve efficiency and keep labor costs down, work is either farmed out to contractors and subcontractors, or labor demand is met through informal hiring practices.49 Despite gains, the black urban labor force remains concentrated in the category that offers the fewest prospects for long-term stability in the job market.50 After the mid-1970s, progress toward closing the earnings gap between blacks and whites slowed. For younger blacks the trend reversed; that is, the earnings gap between younger blacks and their white counterparts increased.51 According to Ronald Ferguson,52 the following observation is crucial for understanding this phenomenon: on average, the basic skills of young black male adults (compared to nearby white counterparts) are not matched as well to shifting patterns in market demand for labor. The most important disparities may occur before young adults even enter the labor market, that is, in the provision of schooling and other resources that affect the acquisition of skills.53 In other words, many blacks lack the appropriate capital to participate in the growth sectors of the urban economy.54

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Whether or not spatial mismatches exacerbate the black unemployment rate is open to debate, however.55 The concentration of blacks in areas that have experienced a substantial drop in blue-collar jobs, combined with limited automobile ownership (the latter being increasingly necessary to obtain employment in a geographically dispersing metropolitan economy), would appear to contribute to their employment problems. Indeed, Ted Mouw56 concluded that a decrease in “spatial proximity to employment” is associated, at least partly, with an increase in the black unemployment rate in cities such as Detroit and Chicago. Apparently, this variable has had little effect on the white unemployment rate, possibly because whites are less constrained in their ability to be residentially mobile. According to Mouw, if residential segregation were not so persistent, the effect of spatial mismatch on the black unemployment rate would moderate. In contrast, Samuel Cohn and Mark Fossett57 argued that blacks in Boston and Houston are not disadvantaged relative to their white counterparts if “allowances” are made for black disadvantages in job search capabilities. Racial differences in access to transportation are “not especially dramatic,” according to these authors. In fact, blacks in both cities had superior rather than inferior spatial access to jobs even when the analysis was restricted to entry-level jobs. Ronald D’Amico and Nan Maxwell58 questioned whether the spatial mismatch hypothesis has much explanatory value at all. Racial disparities in joblessness apparently do not vary greatly across regions of the country, or between central cities and suburbs or rural areas. Simply locating blacks and jobs in closer proximity to each other will not eliminate these disparities. Differential residential proximity to jobs does little to explain local unemployment rates (although methodological problems in sufficiently differentiating neighborhoods qualify this claim). Rather, employer decisions on whom to hire play the key role in determining access to jobs. John Kasarda 59 also cautioned against accepting spatial mismatch claims at face value given methodological problems in the studies. He argued that research should examine the interactive effects of race and space, because both variables probably affect the employment prospects of inner-city blacks. Furthermore, although low-skilled jobs have moved to the suburbs faster than low-skilled workers, it does not necessarily follow that young inner-city blacks are failing to find jobs outside their neighborhoods. Studies that include women are scarcer, and the results are inconsistent.60 In a controversial book, Patterson61 claimed that Wilson overestimated the effects on the black community of the disappearance of jobs. The evidence is weak that spatial mismatch is the major source of the more severe social problems found among the black lower class and underclass, mainly because jobs have increased in the nation’s cities at both the skilled and

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unskilled levels. Patterson attributed the higher unemployment rate among blacks partly to human capital deficits (particularly, the education required for public sector jobs), and partly to immigrants who “quickly filled” unskilled jobs, then set up employment networks that effectively excluded blacks from reentering those jobs. This argument suggests that immigrant workers displace domestic workers by working for lower wages—particularly in secondary labor markets. However, other arguments claim that immigrant workers take the jobs that domestic workers will not accept; consequently, they have little impact on black employment levels. Comparatively few studies have examined the consequences that immigration has had on unskilled black and white workers in the United States. The evidence that is available is contradictory.62 For example, Lonnie Stevans63 claimed that occupational “crowding” by immigrants adversely affected the wages of blacks, particularly in states with proportionately large immigrant populations. However, compared to those in unskilled occupations, blacks in skilled occupations are insulated from the wage consequences associated with the occupational crowding created by immigration. Nevertheless, a substantial part of the literature on the effects of immigration apparently agrees that the impact of immigration is relatively minor. Particularly, Robert Reischauer’s64 review of various studies did not produce compelling evidence that immigration has significantly reduced the labor-market prospects for black workers. This conclusion appears to be fairly robust; it is based on studies that use a variety of analytical approaches and a number of data sources. Therefore, it is unlikely that recent immigration has played an appreciable role in the emergence of the underclass, as some have claimed. However, this conclusion should be viewed as tentative given the corrigibility of the data,65 as well as other methodological problems. The evidence for the effects of industrial restructuring on young black female household heads is mixed.66 As predicted by the spatial mismatch hypothesis, through the 1980s young black female household heads that resided in the central city experienced falling employment levels as the suburbanization of low-skilled jobs increased; and they worked for pay that was significantly lower than their white counterparts.67 Still, young black female household heads were more likely than their white counterparts to be high school dropouts and, therefore, to earn wages at or below the poverty line. They were more likely to have children under the age of six, who place greater constraints on employment. Both components increase the need for welfare and expose young black women to the risk of welfare dependency. The high costs of day care and the lack of health care benefits that characterize low-wage jobs increase the attractiveness of welfare; therefore, it may function as a disincentive system regardless of individual values or ethics.68

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In the Los Angeles labor market, young black women who have at least a high school diploma apparently have been able to take advantage of an expansion in demand to acquire more rewarding jobs. However, the opposite is true for black women with less than a high school diploma: they are more likely to be single and living in areas with high rates of concentrated poverty. Their job prospects have decreased, bifurcating their demographic cohort. Black women with less than a high school diploma are less likely to participate in the labor market today than was the case in 1970; and the gap between black women with high levels of education and those with low levels grew during the same period.69 Wilson’s70 claim that the concentration of poor blacks in spatially isolated neighborhoods exacerbates their disadvantages embraces both humancapital and ecological arguments. Social isolation hinders poor blacks from acquiring skills and gaining access to mentors, sponsors, and jobs. Wilson focused solely on urban labor markets. However, “employment hardship” in rural labor markets may rival its urban counterpart. 71 “Employment hardship” may be defined as any of the following: chronic unemployment, marginal employment, or involuntary part-time employment resulting in insufficient earnings.72 Black employment hardship characterizes rural as well as urban areas. In rural areas, two out of every five blacks are unemployed, cannot find full-time jobs, or cannot earn enough to raise themselves significantly above poverty thresholds. Employment hardship among rural blacks exceeds that of blacks elsewhere, despite the comparatively rapid deterioration in employment conditions for central-city blacks. Racial inequality in rural employment prospects was substantial in the 1980s and cannot be statistically explained by black deficits in human capital or by the disproportionate concentration of blacks in declining blue-collar occupations.73 In other words, the employment problems confronting blacks must be attributed, at least in part, to “intergroup relations” (i.e., overt and subtle discriminatory processes).74

Disarticulation as a Contributing Factor to Employment Hardship “Disarticulation” refers to separation from the social networks necessary to find employment. Wilson75 apparently assumed that poor neighborhoods have significantly fewer job contacts, resulting in less success in the labor market. This assumption is problematic on several grounds. First, despite high levels of joblessness within neighborhoods characterized by concentrated poverty, the majority of working-age residents are either employed or looking for work. Therefore, fewer job contacts in these neighborhoods do not mean that no job contacts exist. Second, the meaning and significance

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of job contacts vary widely, which suggests that their quality as well as quantity are likely to play an important role in the job matching process. And third, job networks may extend beyond neighborhood boundaries.76 Elliott77 noted that research is needed to identify who the contacts are and how they influence the job-search process. Crucial to an adequate understanding is comparative research that contrasts the black experience with the Cuban, Chinese, and Korean experiences in informal support networks.78 A recent study79 suggested that white men are much more likely than white women or blacks generally to use personal contacts in job searches; however, greater use of personal contacts does not necessarily advantage them in the labor market. The rate of return on the use of personal contacts is contingent on the social structural location of those mobilizing them. For example, the use of less influential (or weak) contacts does not provide the same benefit to individuals of low socioeconomic status that it does for those of high socioeconomic status. The use of weak contacts is beneficial for high-status black men and white women; however, it is inconsequential for low-status black and Latino women. Whereas those of high socioeconomic status benefit from the use of weak over influential (or strong) contacts, those of low to middle socioeconomic status do not. In addition, although both status groups benefit from the use of strong contacts, the relative returns to high-status individuals far exceed those of their more disadvantaged counterparts. Tigges et al.80 concluded that neighborhoods characterized by concentrated poverty increase blacks’ social isolation and decrease their access to social resources, reflected, for example, in a significantly lower probability of having a “close tie.” Specifically, living in a concentrated poverty neighborhood decreases by nearly 60 percent the likelihood of having an “employed close tie” or a “college-educated discussion partner.” Nonpoor blacks also are less likely to have close ties compared to their white counterparts. Disparities in social resources such as having a close tie apparently have important consequences for access to other forms of support, employment opportunities, and housing. For example, social isolation depresses earnings in that job seekers in black neighborhoods who rely on neighbors obtain lower-paying jobs than those who rely on contacts outside the neighborhood. In addition, social isolation depresses the already low probability of homeownership, which represents a source of wealth.81 Critics have pointed out that much of the evidence in support of the link between neighborhood poverty and social isolation is based on inferences drawn from census measures of the class composition of neighborhoods, not on existing social networks among the urban poor. Current research does not unequivocally support the neighborhood poverty–social isolation relationship. At best, neighborhoods have a modest effect on

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social isolation; the effects are not “especially robust” and depend on the types of measures and analyses employed.82 According to Bruce Rankin and James Quane, 83 individual life circumstances are apparently more important than residential location. Furthermore, neighborhoods today may be less relevant as a site of adult social integration. A more complete understanding of the factors affecting social isolation outcomes would require incorporating into research social contexts that are more dispersed than geographic boundaries. Formalized job-search strategies increase the representation of blacks and women in the labor market. However, an increased understanding of the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and job contacts by itself will not alter the racial and sexual composition of labor-market divisions generally or occupations specifically.84 Research suggests that young black men in concentrated poverty neighborhoods face “negative perceptions and strained race relations.”85 Employers characterize young black men as being deficient in values, attitudes, skills, and work ethic. Therefore, they direct recruitment to white neighborhoods. This practice disproportionately excludes young black men from the applicant pool. In addition, job interviews may not counter negative stereotypes, particularly if the applicants are not familiar with the white middle-class world. This problem appears more often with entry-level jobs than with professional, managerial, and technical positions, however.86

Marital Disintegration In The Truly Disadvantaged, Wilson87 claimed that the major reasons for the rising rate of marital disintegration among black women have little to do with cultural trends, such as the influence of feminism or increasingly liberal attitudes toward premarital sex and single parenthood. In When Work Disappears, Wilson88 reviewed the evidence for and against the conservative claim that the expansion of social welfare programs is responsible. Discounting this argument, he attributed the rising rate of marital disintegration among black women primarily to joblessness. In other words, employment status predicts whether a young man will, or will not, marry after the birth of his child. Wilson also suggested an interaction effect between social structural and cultural constraints. A belief system representing “a linkage between new structural realities, changing norms, and evolving cultural patterns” discourages marriage among inner-city ghetto blacks. 89 As employment prospects recede, the foundation for stable relationships becomes weaker over time. More permanent relationships such as marriage give way to temporary liaisons that result in broken relationships,

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out-of-wedlock pregnancies and births, and, to a lesser extent, separation and divorce. The changing norms concerning marriage in the larger society reinforce the movement toward temporary liaisons in the inner city, and therefore economic considerations in marital decisions take on even greater weight.90 In short, attitudes toward, and expectations concerning, marriage and parenthood are inextricably linked with social-structural factors. In The Truly Disadvantaged, Wilson argued that a couple with or expecting a child will likely view marriage as financially viable if the father has steady employment. 91 Black male unemployment, combined with increasing rates of social isolation and incarceration, constrain black women’s marital opportunities and thereby promote single family headship. This trend is reflected in the so-called male marriageable pool index, defined here as the ratio of marriageable employed black males to marriageable black females of the appropriate age group.92 The male marriageable pool index is similar to the idea of a marriage squeeze, revealing a long-term decline in the proportion of young black men who are in a position to support a family. Evidence suggests that the marriage decisions of inner-city couples are shaped by current realities and long-term economic prospects. The rising rate of illegitimacy, the increasing delay of first marriage, the decline in the percentage of intact marriages, and the low rate of remarriage among black women are associated with the increased joblessness of black men in the northeastern and north-central regions of the country. The decline in the pool of marriageable men is greatest in the inner city and accounts in large measure for the sharp increase in poor, female-headed families.93 Increasing age and socioeconomic status are associated with higher values on the male marriageable pool index; however, this relationship is weaker among black men than among white men.94 Higher values on the index are associated with proportionately fewer female-headed families, whereas lower values on the index are associated with proportionately more female-headed families.95 Consistent with Wilson,96 the association between high black male unemployment and black female-headed families persists in the presence of other possible causal variables; in other words, spurious associations have been ruled out.97 Analyses subsequent to The Truly Disadvantaged provided direct evidence that employed men are more likely than jobless men to marry after the conception of their first child—an effect that is particularly strong in the inner city. These results are consistent with Wilson’s interpretation of changes in family structure.98 Lichter et al.99 showed that the mate-selection process operates largely at the local level and that female marriage rates vary in response to local economic and demographic opportunities, including welfare benefits and spouse availability. Their study provided strong support for Wilson in that marriage market conditions, especially deficits in the supply of economi-

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cally attractive men, affect the marital prospects of black women (an observation that also is true of white women). The apparent retreat from traditional family structures may be located in black men’s deteriorating employment circumstances. However, it is important to note that blackwhite differences in marriage market conditions accentuate, but do not explain completely, black-white differences in marriage rates. Three major differences exist between the first-marriage patterns of black women compared to white women: proportionately fewer black women than white women marry (reflecting low values on the male marriageable pool index); the proportion of women who ever marry has declined substantially across cohorts for blacks but modestly across cohorts for whites; and while increased education among white women is negatively associated with the probability of ever marrying, among black women it is positively associated with the probability of ever marrying. Having an out-of-wedlock child at an early age is negatively associated with the likelihood that a woman ever will marry, regardless of race.100 In another test of the male marriageable pool index, Lichter and other colleagues101 concluded that: (1) A shortage in the quantity and quality of available men in local areas reduces the probability that a woman will marry; (2) racial differences in the quantity and quality of available men in local areas account for a relatively small share statistically of existing differences in marriage rates between blacks and whites; (3) indicators of the quantity and quality of available men in local areas nevertheless account for a larger proportion of observed racial differences in the probability that a woman will marry than factors such as family background, welfare status, or living arrangements; and (4) the effects of marriage market characteristics are contingent on whether women are searching in the marriage market for a spouse, as well as on other factors. How neighborhood characteristics interact with other variables, including race, in predicting age at first marriage and nonmarital fertility is not understood well. Inconsistent findings have emerged from studies. Black women and white women in less advantaged neighborhoods marry earlier than their counterparts in more advantaged neighborhoods. However, in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, black women are not likely to marry at all, reflecting in part the pronounced deficit of suitable marriage partners.102 As Wilson’s103 concept of concentration effects implied, in theory the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and nonmarital fertility should be statistically significant and nonlinear; that is, increasing rates of premarital childbearing will occur in especially disadvantaged neighborhoods.104 However, in practice this effect appears to be limited to white women. Among black women, rates of premarital childbearing are relatively constant across levels of neighborhood disadvantage. Explaining the higher nonmarital fertility rate of black women compared to white women

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is a complex and controversial matter. 105 (Roughly, 63.5 percent of all births to black women are out of wedlock, whereas 20 percent of all births to white women are out of wedlock.) Dennis Hogan and Evelyn Kitagawa106 confirmed that a relatively large percentage of black females becomes pregnant before reaching the age of twenty. However, the probability of becoming pregnant before reaching the age of twenty differs by family factors (such as parental control over early dating behaviors), socioeconomic status, educational experiences, career aspirations, and neighborhood characteristics. These effects accumulate over the early life course—to the extent that by age nineteen a higher percentage of girls with unfavorable values on these variables will have become pregnant. The combination of factors that create high risk for teenage pregnancy includes lower class status, nonintact family with five or more siblings, a sister who became a teenage mother, lax parental control over early dating behaviors, and residence in a disadvantaged neighborhood.107 In sum, the male marriageable pool index has empirical support; that is, black women face a declining number of suitable partners on account of rising unemployment and incarceration rates, resulting in lost earnings.108 However, Kathryn Edin109 claimed that the male marriageable pool index does not sufficiently explain the increasing percentage of female-headed households today. Most low-income single mothers prefer marriage to remaining single; however, they believe that in the short term marriage entails more risks than rewards. By foregoing marriage until they can contribute substantially to the household economy (primarily through a stable job), they increase the probability that decisionmaking within the marriage will be equitable, gain control over a prospective husband’s behavior, and insure against destitution should the marriage fail. Very important for single mothers is the prospective husband’s income, including source, amount, regularity, and stability. Single mothers cannot afford to keep an economically unproductive man around the house, which also represents a detriment to their ability to control the household and discipline the children. In addition, they would like to be “respectable” (even among the very poor, there are social-class fractions represented by degrees of respectability). Respectability may be gained by marriage to a steadily employed man earning decent wages. Although the institution of marriage is held in high esteem, single mothers are reluctant to marry into situations that will not improve their social-class standing or that will guarantee failure.110 As Wilson111 noted, sex-role expectations among women at the low end of income distribution have changed, and the gap in sex-role expectations between low-income women and low-income men is wide. Women who have proven their competencies are no longer willing to enter subservient roles; they equate marital power with economic power.112 Marital

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power is crucial because of their low trust of men—a problem made worse by domestic violence and substance abuse. (Labor-market conditions and regional variations in marriage attitudes may affect the degree of trust of men as well.113) Wilson’s argument that nonmarriage among blacks results partly from low levels of trust has empirical support. However, Edin’s114 analysis revealed that this issue is even more important for whites. Therefore, most low-income women, regardless of race, regard job availability as a necessary but not a sufficient condition for marriage. Given (1) a widespread view that men cannot be trusted, (2) changing sex-role expectations among women but not among men, (3) the potential loss of control over household and parental decisions, and (4) men’s risky and sometimes violent behavior, marriage is not desirable. As Edin noted, substantially improved labor-market opportunities will help; however, they do not address the stalled sexual revolution, the pervasive mistrust of men, or the high probability of domestic abuse.

A Tangle of Pathology? Are the adaptations developed within the underclass self-perpetuating? In other words, are values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors direct adaptations to social deprivation, reducible to the situational constraints in which people live, or do they have some independent explanatory power? If the latter is the case, then it is necessary to conceptualize them autonomously and to explain when and which types of values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors will be readily modified in light of changes in opportunity structures, as well as when and which types will remain resilient in the face of those changes.115 Neither The Truly Disadvantaged nor When Work Disappears answered these questions adequately. Mark Gould116 contended that Wilson failed to resolve these issues generally and that he failed to differentiate between normative expectations, which are stable in the face of situational change, and cognitive expectations, which are modified in the face of situational change. For example, education may be viewed as desirable even while it is recognized as unobtainable. In this case, even though the normative (middle class) expectation persists, it is the cognitive expectation that is acted upon. In the inner city, legitimate opportunity structures may be closed. Cognitive expectations signal this closure and lead to low effort, expressed as failure in school or as a lack of planning for the future, for example.117 These expectations express an objective future. Therefore, ghetto-specific behaviors are cognitive adaptations to restricted opportunities. Nevertheless, the normative expectations that the majority of residents maintains are congruent with middle-class values. If legitimate opportunity

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structures were made available, it is reasonable to predict, as Wilson118 did, that most underclass blacks would commit themselves to doing better. According to Gould,119 this expectation requires that the following propositions are true: (1) Members of the underclass evidence the same cognitive capacities as members of the middle class; and (2) members of the underclass share the same values as members of the middle class, that is, their normative expectations are congruent with dominant values. However, if underclass blacks share the same cognitive capacities and normative expectations as members of the middle class, then why don’t they perform as well when given the opportunity? Challenging Wilson to broaden his argument, Gould120 answered this question by citing what he called the “new racism,” expressed in employers’ hostility to poor inner-city blacks. This new racism, Gould contended, is an important factor limiting the educational and occupational opportunities of inner-city blacks. Employers’ beliefs, and the employment barriers that derive from them, are partially responsible for the poverty found in the inner city. If blacks do not succeed, even when it appears they had a fair chance, this may be due to the fact that organizations that appear to be neutral often have an adverse impact on blacks. Such organizations implicitly privilege the cultural attributes and performances of whites and devalue those of blacks.121 Black failure in such organizations is overdetermined by those whites who (1) are committed to the dominant value of equal opportunity, (2) believe that blacks have equal opportunity, and (3) conclude from the fact that black performances fall short of white performances that blacks are lazy or dumb. This conclusion, which its adherents see as facing facts, reinforces a belief that blacks are deficient in some respect, thus strengthening the barriers that blacks confront. Only a few employers express explicitly racist attitudes or a categorical loathing of blacks. Many more employers don’t see themselves as obligated to hire inferior workers, and they view blacks as inferior workers.122 If whites believe that blacks have equal opportunity, as the majority does,123 the failure of blacks to succeed in employment is interpreted as evidence that there is something wrong with blacks. The underrepresentation of blacks in the more desirable jobs is explained as a consequence of individual or collective faults. Those who succeed despite the odds are praised as being talented, ambitious, industrious, persevering, and imaginative; those who fail are presumed to lack these qualities. In this context, people who do not view themselves as racists nevertheless may discriminate against blacks.124 For example, mistaken beliefs on the part of employers may lead to perceived or actual productivity differences between whites and blacks, creating a justification for statistical discrimination. Social-psychological research suggests that expectations about group differences in productivity

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may bias job training, placement, and mobility, as well as evaluations of job performance. In addition, productivity is not an individual characteristic; rather, the social relations of the workplace shape it. If these relations are strained because of tastes for discrimination on the part of employers, supervisors, coworkers, or consumers, then lower productivity may result. Lower productivity is interpreted as a profitability issue and becomes a justification to hire fewer blacks.125 Discrimination may appear in a variety of ways. Of interest to Gould126 were organizations that “structurally discriminate” even though they are “facially neutral” toward black workers and white workers. These organizations treat both groups of workers the same; however, the black workers who are “economically homogeneous to their white counterparts function deficiently because the standard of neutrality institutionalized in the organization presumes the life-world, the tacit common-sense culture, of whites.”127 Whites may find expressions of black culture inappropriate and distasteful. Because the cultural standards of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants dominate, these judgments may have profound consequences. Blacks must suspend their cultural identities to succeed in white organizations. For example, the styles of interaction characteristic of poor inner-city blacks are viewed as out of place in the business world. Mastering the capacities that comparable whites demonstrate is not enough, because the assessment of capacities is biased by a preference for certain cultural attributes. Many of the criteria used to screen or evaluate workers are not skills such as the ability to read and comprehend; rather, they are skills that enable the applicant and the organization to “fit.” Implementing universalistic standards privileges white Anglo-Saxon Protestant cultural attributes and devalues the alternative cultural attributes that some blacks bring to the organization. As a consequence, economically homogeneous blacks may perform less well than their white counterparts due to a form of discrimination embedded in the organizational structure.128 According to Gould,129 black culture is “oppositional.” Cultural differences are viewed as markers of identity to be maintained, not as barriers to be overcome. This identity is partly a product of adaptive strategies required to survive in conditions of severe poverty. Oppositional culture marks blacks as different, however, and it becomes a justification for the discrimination they encounter. In other words, differences are interpreted as deficiencies. However, oppositional culture does not reject the normative expectation to achieve; neither does it preclude the revision of cognitive expectations as opportunities improve. If poor inner-city blacks adopt a view that encourages them to perform less well than comparable whites, then this process is a consequence of a cognitive adaptation to the opportunity structures they confront in the present. Gould130 suggested that educational and employment practices should be restructured to accommodate

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cultural differences, that is, to create organizations that don’t translate such differences into deficiencies. The life circumstances of the underclass are more complex than a collective lack of capital exacerbated by ghetto-specific behaviors. What the general public may regard as maladaptive can reflect capital accumulation for objectives relevant to specific situations. The truly disadvantaged have accumulated throughout their lives “alternative capital” that has helped them to survive their immediate life circumstances; yet it threatens their socioeconomic mobility prospects.131 Alfred Young132 identified four types of capital. Social capital is the ability to secure benefits through membership in networks and other social structures; it increases opportunities to acquire the information necessary to ensure long-term socioeconomic mobility prospects. Cultural capital is “the adoption of social practices as well as the acquisition of understandings that help one to navigate social life” in ways that increase personal efficacy. Human capital includes educational credentials, specific skills such as English-language fluency, and job experience. Financial capital represents material resources that provide the means to acquire other forms of capital. The possession of one form can increase both the power of another and the capacity to acquire another. Although distinguishing one form from another is empirically difficult, doing so is important. The acquisition of various forms of capital may both support, and detract from, black men’s ability to navigate life experiences.133 For example, friendship ties in threatening and unstable public contexts were difficult to maintain because of the risks involved. Where they could be maintained, these ties enhanced the men’s ability to survive their environments, reflected in the fact that fellow gang members would risk their lives to protect them during periods of gang conflict. Forming ties with individuals involved in illicit or gang-related activities created important social capital for maneuvering in the local neighborhood but worked against accruing the capital necessary for navigating broader contexts. Especially important was the overall inability of peer networks to uncover and make available information that could enhance members’ socioeconomic mobility prospects.134 Neoconservative and liberal views of the black poor as culturally deficient are, at best, misleading. Alternative forms of social and cultural capital matter greatly in the lives of poor blacks. As Young135 observed, these forms of capital—which constitute knowledge that provides a degree of predictability and security in everyday life—have an importance in impoverished neighborhoods that may not be apparent to those in more affluent neighborhoods. Members of the black underclass form so-called schemata of interpretations about their life experiences that are important to survival at the local level. A significant difference between the members of the

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black underclass and the members of other social classes who follow more traditional mobility patterns is that the latter possess the capital necessary to these mobility patterns. Young136 wanted to make clear that the capacity for individual action is grounded in factors other than personal values. In other words, poor inner-city blacks are not culturally deficient in that they deviate from mainstream expectations. Instead, they are capital deficient in that they lack certain resources, networks, and schemata of interpretations necessary for upward mobility. Research on poverty should not underestimate the importance of the external constraints that shape the lives of low-income blacks—a point emphasized repeatedly by Wilson in The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears. Ameliorative policies based on voluntaristic nominalism are, at best, incomplete. The life circumstances of poor inner-city blacks will not change simply by adjusting their thought processes, values, expectations, and behaviors. Social change requires “a reconstitution of the structural contexts” that shape their lives.137

Violence, Delinquency, and Crime Various analyses show major disparities by race in exposure to stressing events. These disparities are explained in part by the concentration of blacks in deteriorating neighborhoods, which are characterized by much higher rates of violence, delinquency, and crime.138 However, disagreement exists on the extent to which these are explained by structural factors such as concentrated joblessness, by social factors such as the isolation that allegedly contributes to a culture of violence, or by a complex combination of structural, social, and other factors, including demographic.139 Any postulated relationship between race and violence, delinquency, and crime is thus bound to be controversial.140 The causes of high rates of black violence—that is, the extent to which these rates are a matter of racial discrimination, structural and social dislocations, spatial concentration, or a historically rooted culture of violence—are not understood very well. 141 Wilson142 claimed that it is the complex interaction between the economic and social positions of blacks, on the one hand, and their cultural or familial modes of adaptation, on the other hand, that has produced social problems such as high rates of violence, delinquency, and crime.143 (In contrast, some critics have argued that comparisons between the races do not provide an empirically valid basis for generalizations on the role of culture in criminological behaviors. Comparisons of races in the “development of cultural and economic configurations” are interminable by virtue of the analytical emptiness of the racial classification systems themselves.144) It appears, based on available evidence, that the high rates of violence,

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delinquency, and crime found among blacks are a function of blacks’ disproportionate representation in neighborhoods characterized by concentrated disadvantages.145 Whether or not these effects are more pronounced in black neighborhoods contrasted with racially mixed or white neighborhoods is open to debate. Regardless, explanations that rely on a black subculture of violence to explain high rates of violence, delinquency, and crime appear to have little support.146 Migration studies of blacks from the South to the North demonstrate by inference that the emergence of the black underclass in northern cities cannot be attributed to cultural characteristics historically unique to the South.147 Based on these observations, if the conditions described by Wilson in The Truly Disadvantaged exist in white neighborhoods, then they, too, should exhibit high rates of violence, delinquency, and crime.148 However, this thesis has not been adequately tested because it is difficult to find white neighborhoods that meet the extreme conditions that characterize the lifecircumstances of the black inner-city poor. On the one hand, Wilson149 appeared to be correct on the following point: to the degree that whites are more likely to live in areas with lower levels of disadvantage and blacks are more likely to live in areas with the highest levels of disadvantage, racial differences in rates of violence, delinquency, and crime can be attributed to structural differences in the neighborhoods in which they live. On the other hand, whether disadvantage levels are low or high, rates of violence for black areas somewhat exceed those for white areas. Where disadvantage levels are extreme (i.e., in concentrated poverty neighborhoods), rates of violence for black areas are “exceedingly high.”150 Mediating factors may include any of the following: (1) rates of poverty, unemployment, and female headship; (2) differences in institutional support mechanisms, such as crime-tip hotlines, neighborhood crime watches, volunteer patrol organizations, and home security assistance; (3) concentration of public housing that may create structuration effects; (4) how poverty tracts are distributed; (5) crime reporting peculiarities; (6) discretionary police actions; or (7) the perverse dynamics of “autodestruction” and “horizontal violence.”151 It is clear that both the absence of positive influences and the presence of negative influences contribute to violence, delinquency, and crime.152 Generally, and lending support to Wilson’s 153 argument, Lauren Krivo and Ruth Peterson154 argued that the sources of crime are invariant across race and are largely rooted in the structural differences between neighborhoods. The major causes of violent crime do not differ much between blacks and whites when the two racial groups are similarly situated. In other words, if blacks and whites held comparable positions in relation to structures of advantage or disadvantage, criminogenic factors would operate similarly for the two groups.155 However, in most U.S. cities, the structural positions of blacks and whites are not mirror images. In a recent study that

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included more than 100 cities, comparable levels of advantage or disadvantage appeared in less than one-fifth of the cities. Where comparable levels exist, blacks are more likely to experience the same conditions and processes that affect whites; however, in these cities, they also are a substantially smaller proportion of the population.156 Stated differently, the spatial isolation in most cities of poor residents from their working- and middle-class counterparts is a strong and consistent predictor of homicide levels. The strength of this relationship does not vary by race. According to Matthew Lee,157 this fact supports the view that the spatial concentration of poverty is an important determinant of variations in urban homicide rates. Consequently, attempts to specify separate explanatory models by race are unnecessary. Several studies have suggested that black-white residential segregation contributes to high rates of violent crime, particularly among blacks. However, an understanding of the theoretical and causal nature of this relationship remains limited.158 The effects of suburbanization are selective. Although suburbanization benefits many whites, it isolates central-city blacks from the mainstream by creating wells of structural disadvantage and social dislocation and thereby generating high rates of violent crime. Indeed, when Edward Shihadeh and Graham Ousey159 controlled for several of the negative outcomes for central-city blacks of suburbanization patterns, the argument for a black subculture of violence was weakened. Robert Sampson160 examined 1980 race-specific rates of robberies and homicides by juveniles and adults in more than 150 U.S. cities. He discovered that rates of black violent offenses are influenced by variations in family structure independent of other variables. In other words, black family disruption (defined as nonintact, female-headed, or “broken”) has a reciprocal effect on black violent offenses. The major structural determinant of black family disruption is black male joblessness. Sampson’s results showed that a scarcity of employed black men (i.e., low values on the male marriageable pool index) increases the prevalence of families headed by black women. An increase in the prevalence of families headed by black women statistically predicts rising rates of robbery and murder, especially by juveniles. These effects are independent of variables such as region, city size, population density, and welfare benefits levels. They cannot be attributed to unique cultural factors in the black community because a similar process occurs among whites. In other words, there is nothing inherent in black culture that is conducive to violence, delinquency, or crime. Rather, persistently high rates appear to result from the structural linkages between joblessness, poverty, and family disruption. Similarly, in a study that included 121 U.S. cities Ousey161 determined that a decline in the availability of stable, well-paying jobs in the manufacturing sector indirectly increased black juvenile homicide rates. Worsening

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black economic deprivation elevated the percentage of female-headed families, which was associated in turn with the rise in black juvenile homicide rates. However, the effect of economic deprivation on white juvenile homicide rates was not mediated by family structure. In other words, worsening white economic deprivation was directly related to the rise in white juvenile homicide rates. Among blacks and whites, family disruption influences delinquency by reducing parental supervision, which in turn increases the probability of contact with delinquent peers, definitions, and behaviors.162 However, nonintact, female-headed, or broken homes have a larger impact on delinquency among blacks than whites because of a disproportionate representation of blacks in socially isolated and severely troubled neighborhoods. Juveniles from nonintact, female-headed, or broken homes who also live in these neighborhoods are more likely than those residing in trouble-free neighborhoods to associate with delinquents, learn an excess of definitions favorable to delinquency, and consequently violate the law.163 Summarizing and evaluating the substantial criminological literature examining racial disparities in the criminal justice system is beyond the scope of this chapter. Rather, a selective review may suffice to illustrate how difficult it is to draw valid conclusions on the thesis of the declining significance of race. For example, one literature review164 made clear substantial disagreement about the relationship between race and criminal court decisions. Much research has been criticized for failure to use multivariate designs to control for a variety of background or contaminating variables. As applied to Wilson’s thesis of the declining significance of race, the results of a number of sentencing studies in recent years would appear to offer support. These studies concluded that social class indicators are a more consequential predictor of sentencing outcomes than is race. Consistent with Wilson’s thesis, few racial differences were observed when additive models were estimated. However, when interactive models were estimated, race in conjunction with other factors affected sentencing outcomes. According to Terance Miethe and Charles Moore,165 race may no longer operate in a fashion similar to caste; however, the significance of race continues in more subtle and complex ways. Yet its effects are not uniform across dispositional stages. In other words, particular configurations of characteristics (e.g., low risk profiles) may not be detrimental to blacks. Martha Myers and Susette Talarico166 found little evidence that empirically shows disproportionately harsh punishment of blacks in different contexts. Race was a meaningful predictor only when considered in conjunction with the criminal act the offender committed and the racial composition of the community where sentencing occurred. In areas where blacks are a substantial minority (25–49 percent of the population), black

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offenders and white offenders were equally likely to receive harsh sentences. Discrimination against blacks was documented for a subset of felonies—mainly death-penalty cases where the race of the victim had a bearing on the treatment black defendants received. Apparently, the punishment blacks receive depends, in part, on whom they chose to victimize. In areas where blacks are a numerical majority, white offenders were at a disadvantage. That is, they were more likely than blacks to be incarcerated. In this context, evidence suggests some leniency toward blacks for the initial decision to incarcerate, as well as length of sentence, although political, fiscal, or cultural constraints may play a role.167 Based on federal court data collected by the U.S. Sentencing Commission for the years 1993–1996, regression analysis of sentencing decisions revealed considerable judicial consistency. Whether they were white, black, or Hispanic, defendants who had extensive criminal histories and who had committed serious crimes were more likely to be incarcerated and receive longer prison sentences. Sentencing outcomes favored to some extent white defendants and penalized Hispanic defendants; black defendants were in the middle.168 Why this was the case is controversial and difficult to substantiate. Darrell Steffensmeier and Stephen Demuth169 speculated that court officials may have been influenced by the widespread belief that Hispanic men are disproportionately involved in the drug-trafficking trade and its associated violence. On the basis of this belief, court officials may have projected behavioral expectations about the defendant’s rehabilitative prospects or potential danger to the community. Reevaluation of published research on death-sentencing rates by race from 1967 to 1978 and execution rates by race from 1930 to 1967 indicated that, except in the South, black homicide offenders were less likely than white homicide offenders to receive a death sentence or to be executed. For the 11 percent of executions imposed for rape, discrimination against black defendants who had raped white victims was substantial, but only in the South.170 Evidence on other sentencing rates also contradicted claims that black defendants were systematically discriminated against. Although black offender–white victim crimes generally are punished more severely than crimes involving other racial combinations, this phenomenon appears to be due to legally relevant factors related to such offenses. However, crimes with black victims are less likely than those with white victims to result in imposition of the death penalty. According to Gary Kleck,171 the devalued status of black crime victims is one of several possible explanations for the more lenient sentencing of black defendants compared to white defendants. In a Florida sample, those accused of murdering whites had a significantly higher probability of being placed in jeopardy of receiving the death penalty by being indicted for first-degree murder than those accused of murdering blacks. Similarly, those accused of murdering whites were more likely

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to receive the death penalty than those accused of murdering blacks. However, once indicted for first-degree murder, neither the race of the defendant nor the race of the victim—nor the interaction between these variables—were significantly related to the probability of receiving the death penalty.172 Which variables are included, how variables are operationalized, and how models are specified may yield different conclusions about the nature and magnitude of racial disparities. For example, an additive model assumes that race functions much like caste. Race, in and of itself, is assumed to be the primary determinant of dispositional decisions involving individuals of different racial backgrounds. Other status characteristics are assumed to be inconsequential as determinants of dispositional decisions. In contrast, an interactive model allows one to evaluate whether, and to what extent, race covaries with other status characteristics. A configuration of characteristics, not necessarily race per se, may be the primary determinant of dispositional decisions involving individuals of different racial backgrounds.173 Using an interactive model, Miethe and Moore174 showed both differential treatments within, and between, racial groups. Specifically, in comparison to other blacks and their white counterparts, those blacks who receive the most severe sanctions are single, live in urban areas, have a prior felony record, and commit multiple and serious offenses. James Unnever et al.175 claimed that their findings are inconsistent with conclusions that racial disparities in court dispositions are explained by a lack of methodological rigor. When controlling for important legal variables (e.g., number of arrests and severity of the crime) and extralegal variables, they found a direct race effect: whites have a significantly greater probability of receiving probation than blacks when all other factors are held constant. Racial biases may appear early in the criminal justice process and be passed on in the form of sentencing recommendations on the presentence report. (This study was based on one court in Florida, however.) Allen Liska and Mark Tausig 176 concurred. Their view was that research provides clear and consistent evidence of racial disparities operating at each decision level in the criminal justice system. Moreover, these disparities cumulate through each decision level to transform a racially heterogeneous arrest population into a disproportionately black prison population. Controlling for other factors, it appears that race does not have a direct effect on length of sentence. However, black defendants are more likely than white defendants to be incarcerated—a pattern that holds across a broad range of offenses. The practical limitations of research make it impossible to account for all of the selection processes that operate in the criminal justice system. In this sense, some degree of “uncorrected sampling bias” is common to every study.177 Racial biases in sentencing out-

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comes may have decreased with the introduction of sentencing guidelines in states such as Pennsylvania and Minnesota; as a consequential predictor, here race may be weak or intermittent. However, the introduction of sentencing guidelines apparently has increased, rather than decreased, the percentage of a state’s prison population that is black. Sentencing guidelines provide no latitude for the crimes blacks are disproportionately likely to commit as a function of the structural characteristics of the neighborhoods in which they live.178 When measured as a ratio of black incarceration rates to white incarceration rates, racial disparities are lowest in southern states and highest in north-central states. If racial segregation and disparities in employment prospects gave no advantage to whites, then black and white rates of incarceration should equalize. Currently, it appears that high values on these variables increase the chances of blacks being imprisoned and decrease the chances of whites being imprisoned, despite controls for contaminating factors such as differential arrest rates.179 Racial disparities may be influenced by many variables. However, the disproportionate representation of blacks in the unemployment ranks in disadvantaged neighborhoods apparently makes them particularly susceptible to any other inequities in the criminal justice system.180 In summary, recent research refutes the neoconservative views on poverty that have dominated public discourse in recent years. Contrary to the claims of neoconservatives, this research does not support the view that the moral fabric of individuals is at the root of the social dislocations observed in the inner city. Contributing factors may be as diverse as structural transformations in the U.S. economy; the suburbanization patterns of the black middle class; spatial mismatches; concentration effects; the emergence of a subculture that questions traditional expectations for educational attainment, employment, and marriage; and racial discrimination in housing. Although Wilson’s arguments in The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears were substantially correct, the mechanisms are in doubt. For example, Wilson did not provide the epistemological foundation on which the claim can be made that historical discrimination is more important than contemporary discrimination in accounting for the worsening plight of the inner-city black poor; neither did he explain how the effects of one can be distinguished from the effects of the other. This appears to ride on the belief that discriminatory barriers were effectively removed by the state—a claim that will be challenged in Chapter 5. Wilson implied that segregation is an artifact of historical discrimination and, in so doing, downplayed the significance of residential segregation and the structural processes that maintain it. I will continue the argument that this problem derived, in large part, from the problematic separation of the economic sector from the sociopolitical order—the fundamental epistemological under-

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pinning of The Declining Significance of Race. Essentially, Wilson’s failure to examine patterns of private investment decisions and state actions in the process of hyperghettoization limited an understanding of the underclass.

Notes 1. Lowi, “The Theory of the Under-Class,” 135. 2. Wilson, “Cycles of Deprivation and the Underclass Debate,” 543, 547; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, Ch. 1. 3. Moynihan, The Negro Family; cf. Ginsburg, Race and Media. 4. Wilson, “Cycles of Deprivation and the Underclass Debate,” 548–550; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, viii; cf. Wilson, “Race, Class, and Public Policy,” 129; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 149–150; Wilson, “The Underclass: Issues, Perspectives, and Public Policy,” 191. 5. Wilson, “A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged,” 135, 146; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 15. 6. Wilson, “A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged,” 146. 7. Wilson, “Studying Inner-City Dislocations,” 4, 6; Wacquant and Wilson, “The Cost of Racial and Class Exclusion in the Inner City,” 10; Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality,” 1155, 1186–1187; Fong, “A Comparative Perspective on Racial Residential Segregation,” 221; Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 6–7; Shihadeh and Ousey, “Metropolitan Expansion and Black Social Dislocation,” 663. 8. Wilson, “American Social Policy and the Ghetto Underclass,” 57; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 30, 32–33. 9. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 22, 77–81, 85. 10. Cf. Block et al., The Mean Season. 11. Wilson, “The Underclass: Issues, Perspectives, and Public Policy,” 184–185. 12. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 50, 56–57, 60; Wilson, “American Social Policy and the Ghetto Underclass,” 58–59; Wilson, “Studying Inner-City Dislocations,” 9. 13. Wilson, “Cycles of Deprivation and the Underclass Debate,” 546. 14. J. Elliott, “Social Isolation and Labor Market Insulation,” 199–200; Wilson, “The Underclass: Issues, Perspectives, and Public Policy,” 186; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 29; Wilson, “Studying Inner-City Dislocations,” 9–10, 12; Massey, “American Apartheid,” 329–330; Shihadeh and Flynn, “Segregation and Crime,” 1331–1333. 15. Wilson, “Studying Inner-City Dislocations,” 1. 16. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 55; Wilson, “American Social Policy and the Ghetto Underclass,” 58–59; Wilson, “A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged,” 134. 17. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 61. 18. Wilson, When Work Disappears, 63, 66–67. 19. Sanchez-Jankowski, “The Concentration of African-American Poverty and the Dispersal of the Working Class”; cf. H. Horton et al., “Lost in the Storm.” 20. Wilson, When Work Disappears, 69–72. 21. Ibid., 75–76. 22. Ibid., 76–77.

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23. Ibid., 78–80, 84. 24. Boardman and Robert, “Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Perceptions of Self-Efficacy.” 25. Other research on neighborhood effects has demonstrated inverse relationships between the spatial concentration of poverty and adolescent development, the likelihood of marriage, occupational expectations, and political efficacy. See Boardman and Robert, “Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Perceptions of Self-Efficacy.” 26. Morris, Dangerous Classes. 27. Gould, “Race and Theory,” 174–175. 28. Wilson, “The Underclass,” 186; cf. Anderson, “Sex Codes and Family Life Among Poor Inner-City Youths.” 29. Gould, “Race and Theory,” 173. 30. Massey, Gross, and Shibuya, “Migration, Segregation, and the Geographic Concentration of Poverty,” 425–426. 31. Wilson, “Studying Inner-City Dislocations,” 9; Wilson, “A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged,” 137; cf. Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality.” 32. Massey, “American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass”; Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 118; Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality.” 33. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 34. In part, the emphasis on black middle-class out-migration results from a misspecification of social-class boundaries. See Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; cf. H. Horton et al., “Lost in the Storm.” 35. Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality,” 1183. 36. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 124. 37. Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality.” 38. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 39. Krivo et al., “Race, Segregation, and the Concentration of Disadvantage: 1980–1990,” 76–77. 40. Massey, “American Apartheid,” 352. 41. Ibid., 330. 42. Mare and Winship, “The Paradox of Lessening Racial Inequality and Joblessness Among Black Youth.” 43. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 44. Lichter, “Racial Differences in Underemployment in American Cities,” 788. 45. Ibid., 771, 789–790. 46. Lichter, “Race, Employment Hardship, and Inequality in the American Nonmetropolitan South,” 444. 47. S. Cohn and Fossett, “Why Racial Employment Inequality Is Greater in Northern Labor Markets,” 557. 48. Lichter, “Racial Differences in Underemployment in American Cities,” 774; Zax and Kain, “Moving to the Suburbs”; Browne, “Opportunities Lost?” 49. J. Johnson, Farrell, and Stoloff, “The Declining Social and Economic Fortunes of African American Males.” Pinkney (The Myth of Black Progress, 120–121) attributed the formation of the black underclass to the following: (1) racial discrimination, (2) illegal aliens who deprived black teenagers of menial jobs in the inner city (a widely held belief for which supporting evidence is weak), and (3) the movement of white women into the labor market. Cf. Lichter, “Racial

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Differences in Underemployment in American Cities,” 774–775; Eggers and Massey, “The Structural Determinants of Urban Poverty,” 253. 50. Kasarda, “Urban Industrial Transition and the Underclass,” 33. 51. Ferguson, “Shifting Challenges,” 66. 52. Ibid., 38. 53. Ibid., 67; cf. Allen and Jewell, “African American Education Since An American Dilemma.” 54. Kasarda, “Urban Industrial Transition and the Underclass,” 35. 55. Ibid., 36. For a literature review on the spatial mismatch hypothesis, see Mouw, “Job Relocation and the Racial Gap in Unemployment in Detroit and Chicago, 1980–1990.” 56. Mouw, “Job Relocation and the Racial Gap in Unemployment in Detroit and Chicago, 1980–1990.” 57. S. Cohn and Fossett, “What Spatial Mismatch?” 447, 571. 58. D’Amico and Maxwell, “The Continuing Significance of Race in Minority Male Joblessness,” 982–983. 59. Kasarda, “Urban Industrial Transition and the Underclass,” 39–40. 60. Browne, “Opportunities Lost?” 61. Patterson, The Ordeal of Integration, 32, 35. 62. Stevans, “Assessing the Effect of the Occupational Crowding of Immigrants on the Real Wages of African American Workers.” 63. Ibid. 64. Reischauer, “Immigration and the Underclass,” 126, 130. 65. Ibid., 130. 66. Browne, “Opportunities Lost?” 67. Ibid. 68. Browne, “Explaining the Black-White Gap in Labor Force Participation Among Women Heading Households,” 238, 248–250; cf. Wilson, When Work Disappears. 69. A. James et al., “Moving Up, but How Far?” 70. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged. 71. Tigges and Tootle, “Underemployment and Racial Competition in Local Labor Markets,” 295. 72. Lichter, “Race, Employment Hardship, and Inequality in the American Nonmetropolitan South.” 73. Ibid., 436. 74. Tigges and Tootle, “Underemployment and Racial Competition in Local Labor Markets,” 295. 75. Wilson, When Work Disappears. 76. J. Elliott, “Social Isolation and Labor Market Insulation,” 201. 77. Ibid., 199–216. 78. R. Boyd, “Black and Asian Self-Employment in Large Metropolitan Areas.” 79. S. S. Smith, “Mobilizing Social Resources.” 80. Tigges, Browne, and Green, “Social Isolation of the Urban Poor,” 69–72; cf. Rankin and Quane, “Neighborhood Poverty and the Social Isolation of InnerCity African American Families.” 81. Tigges, Browne, and Green, “Social Isolation of the Urban Poor,” 73; cf. H. Horton, “Race and Wealth”; Conley, “Decomposing the Black-White Wealth Gap.” 82. Rankin and Quane, “Neighborhood Poverty and the Social Isolation of Inner-City African American Families.”

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83. Ibid. 84. Marx and Leicht, “Formality of Recruitment to 229 Jobs”; cf. J. Baron and Newman, “For What It’s Worth.” 85. Neckerman and Kirschenman, “Hiring Strategies, Racial Bias, and InnerCity Workers,” 445. 86. Ibid. 87. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 77. 88. Wilson, When Work Disappears, 94 ff. 89. Ibid., 98–105. 90. Ibid., 105–106. 91. Testa et al., “Employment and Marriage Among Inner-City Fathers,” 81. 92. Rolison, “Black, Single Female-Headed Family Formation in Large U.S. Cities,” 474. 93. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 75, 83–84, 91, 96, 104–105; Wilson, “American Social Policy and the Ghetto Underclass,” 59–60; Wilson, “The Underclass,” 187; Wilson, “A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged,” 138. 94. Testa et al., “Employment and Marriage Among Inner-City Fathers,” 82; H. Horton and Burgess, “Where Are the Black Men?” 95. Eggers and Massey, “The Structural Determinants of Urban Poverty,” 234–235. 96. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged. 97. Rolison, “Black, Single Female-Headed Family Formation in Large U.S. Cities,” 475. 98. Testa et al., “Employment and Marriage Among Inner-City Fathers,” 90. 99. Lichter, LeClere, and McLaughlin, “Local Marriage Markets and the Marital Behavior of Black and White Women,” 843, 863–865. 100. Bennett, Bloom, and Craig, “The Divergence of Black and White Marriage Patterns,” 692; cf. Lichter, Anderson, and Hayward, “Marriage Markets and Marital Choice.” 101. Lichter et al., “Race and the Retreat From Marriage,” 781; cf. Heaton and Jacobson, “Intergroup Marriage,” 39; Lichter and Landry, “Labor Force Transitions and Underemployment.” 102. South and Crowder, “Neighborhood Effects on Family Formation,” 113–114, 128–129. 103. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged. 104. South and Crowder, “Neighborhood Effects on Family Formation.” 105. Ritchey, “The Effect of Minority Group Status on Fertility”; Stokes, Crader, and Smith, “Race, Education, and Fertility”; cf. Anderson, “Sex Codes and Family Life Among Poor Inner-City Youths”; Marcum and Bean, “Minority Group Status as a Factor in the Relationship Between Mobility and Fertility”; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 106. D. Hogan and Kitagawa, “The Impact of Social Status, Family Structure, and Neighborhood on the Fertility of Black Adolescents.” 107. Ibid., 852; cf. Crane, “The Epidemic Theory of Ghettos and Neighborhood Effects on Dropping Out and Teenage Childbearing”; Kraly and Hirschman, “Racial and Ethnic Inequality Among Children in the United States,” 47–48; Krivo and Mutchler, “Housing Constraint and Household Complexity in Metropolitan America.” Recently, South and Baumer (“Deciphering Community and Race Effects on Adolescent Premarital Childbearing”) concluded that educational aspirations and attainment, and parental supervision, do not moderate the impact of economically disadvantaged neighborhoods on the probability of adoles-

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cent childbearing. Blacks are located disproportionately in these neighborhoods. Here, peers provide normative support for adolescent childbearing; their influence may explain a substantial part of the black-white disparity in the risk of premarital childbearing. 108. Edin, “What Do Low-Income Single Mothers Say About Marriage?” 114. 109. Ibid., 113–114. 110. Ibid., 117–118, 120–121. 111. Wilson, When Work Disappears. 112. Edin, “What Do Low-Income Single Mothers Say About Marriage?” 127–128. 113. Ibid., 128–129. 114. Ibid., 129–130. 115. Gould, “Race and Theory,” 174–175. 116. Ibid., 179. 117. Ibid., 180–181. 118. Wilson, When Work Disappears. 119. Gould, “Race and Theory,” 171. 120. Ibid., 188–190. 121. Ibid., 170–173. 122. Ibid., 170–173, 189. 123. Kluegel and Smith, Beliefs About Inequality. 124. Gould, “Race and Theory,” 190–191. 125. Ibid., 192. 126. Ibid., 171–200. 127. Ibid., 192. 128. Ibid., 195–196. 129. Ibid., 171–200. 130. Ibid., 193–195. 131. A. Young, “The (Non)Accumulation of Capital,” 224–225. 132. Ibid., 204. 133. Ibid., 201–204. 134. Ibid., 220–221; cf. L. Harris, “Agency and the Concept of the Underclass”; D. Elliott et al., “The Effects of Neighborhood Disadvantage on Adolescent Development.” 135. A. Young, “The (Non)Accumulation of Capital.” 136. Ibid., 223–225. 137. Ibid. 138. McNulty, “The Residential Process and the Ecological Concentration of Race, Poverty, and Violent Crime in New York City.” 139. Almgren et al., “Joblessness, Family Disruption, and Violent Death in Chicago, 1970–1990,” 1466. 140. Cf. Jensen, “Race, Achievement, and Delinquency.” 141. Cf. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth; Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks; Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. These works represent modes of explanation that are comparatively rare in American discourse. 142. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged. 143. Harer and Steffensmeier, “The Differing Effects of Economic Inequality on Black and White Rates of Violence,” 1049. 144. Webster, The Racialization of America, 189–190. 145. McNulty, “The Residential Process and the Ecological Concentration of Race, Poverty, and Violent Crime in New York City,” 26, 28, 35–36; cf. Blau and Blau, “The Cost of Inequality.”

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146. Cf. Almgren et al., “Joblessness, Family Disruption, and Violent Death in Chicago, 1970–1990,” 1489. 147. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 55. 148. Krivo and Peterson, “Extremely Disadvantaged Neighborhoods and Urban Crime,” 623. 149. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged. 150. Krivo and Peterson, “Extremely Disadvantaged Neighborhoods and Urban Crime,” 635–636; Shihadeh and Flynn, “Segregation and Crime,” 1345. 151. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth; Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks; Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 152. Krivo and Peterson, “Extremely Disadvantaged Neighborhoods and Urban Crime,” 641. 153. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 154. Krivo and Peterson, “Extremely Disadvantaged Neighborhoods and Urban Crime,” 642. 155. Krivo and Peterson, “The Structural Context of Homicide,” 557. 156. Ibid., 558. 157. M. Lee, “Concentrated Poverty, Race, and Homicide,” 201–202. 158. Shihadeh and Flynn, “Segregation and Crime,” 1329. 159. Shihadeh and Ousey, “Metropolitan Expansion and Black Social Dislocation,” 662. Apparently, the factors that contribute to homicide rates differ by region. For example, residential segregation is associated strongly with the black homicide rate in the West but not in the South. See Parker and Pruitt, “Explaining the Similarities in Race-Specific Homicide Rates in the West and South.” 160. Sampson, “Urban Black Violence,” 348, 352, 376–377. 161. Ousey, “Deindustrialization, Female-Headed Families, and Black and White Juvenile Homicide Rates, 1970–1990.” 162. Matsueda and Heimer, “Race, Family Structure, and Delinquency,” 826, 836. 163. Ibid., 836. 164. Unnever, Frazier, and Henretta, “Race Differences in Criminal Sentencing,” 197–205. 165. Miethe and Moore, “Racial Differences in Criminal Sentencing,” 231–232; cf. Green, “Race, Social Status, and Criminal Arrest.” 166. Myers and Talarico, “The Social Context of Racial Discrimination in Sentencing.” 167. Ibid., 245–248. 168. Steffensmeier and Demuth, “Ethnicity and Sentencing Outcomes in U.S. Federal Courts.” 169. Ibid. 170. Kleck, “Racial Discrimination in Criminal Sentencing,” 783. 171. Ibid. 172. Radelet, “Racial Characteristics and the Imposition of the Death Penalty,” 925. 173. Miethe and Moore, “Racial Differences in Criminal Sentencing,” 230. 174. Ibid., 231. 175. Unnever, Frazier, and Henretta, “Race Differences in Criminal Sentencing,” 204–205. 176. Liska and Tausig, “Theoretical Interpretations of Social Class and Racial Differentials in Legal Decision-Making for Juveniles,” 205; cf. M. Thomas, Herring, and Horton, “Discrimination Over the Life Course.” 177. Kramer and Steffensmeier, “Race and Imprisonment Decisions,” 370, 372.

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178. Ibid., 373–374. 179. G. Bridges and Crutchfield, “Law, Social Standing and Racial Disparities in Imprisonment,” 718–719; cf. Frazier, Bishop, and Henretta, “The Social Context of Race Differentials in Juvenile Justice Dispositions,” 456; Radelet, “Racial Characteristics and the Imposition of the Death Penalty,” 926. 180. Unnever, Frazier, and Henretta, “Race Differences in Criminal Sentencing,” 205.

5 Wilson’s Achilles’ Heel: The Continuing Significance of Racially Based Segregation

Race and Place The book When Work Disappears appeared to be in part an implicit debate with Douglas Massey and his colleagues. Wilson1 observed that concentrated poverty might result when a highly segregated group experiences a rise in its poverty rate. Nevertheless, segregation does not explain why concentrated poverty grows faster than observable increases in the poverty rate would predict. To focus on segregation to account for the growth of concentrated poverty is to overlook certain demographic and social changes occurring—in this case—in Chicago. The out-migration of working- and middle-class blacks from inner-city neighborhoods, the in-migration of lower-class blacks, changes in the age structure of the neighborhoods, and increased joblessness interact with segregation to produce the social transformations and dislocations evidenced since the late 1960s.2 These neighborhoods are characterized by severe losses of opportunities and resources and by inadequate social controls. A race-specific argument (which Wilson associated with liberals) is not sufficient to explain these changes. The practices of racial steering and redlining, the use of exclusionary zoning ordinances and restrictive covenants, and the politics of locating public housing projects in low-income areas matter to the extent that they created the ghetto in the first place.3 Segregation exacerbates the problem of joblessness because it contributes to social isolation and weakens employment networks, reducing residents’ chances of acquiring the human capital necessary to compete.4 Wilson extended the arguments of The Truly Disadvantaged; however, he implied again that segregation is an artifact of historical discrimination. The out-migration of working- and middle-class blacks, and increases

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in the proportion of the unemployed, make it difficult to sustain basic neighborhood institutions, from banks to community organizations. As these institutions decline or disappear, formal and informal mechanisms of social control become increasingly difficult to maintain, accelerating disinvestments and neighborhood decline. Property values drop, encouraging landlords to abandon buildings, which in turn become havens for criminal activities such as drug-dealing. In part, Wilson5 attributed this problem to redlining by banks and other financial institutions. However, he implied that redlining follows from, rather than precedes, neighborhood decline—a causal claim that runs contrary to a substantial body of evidence. Wilson6 then argued for a tight labor market as a way to redress this problem, supported by job information databanks, training and apprenticeship programs, subsidized car pools, and city-suburban cooperation. Wilson has been criticized by a number of scholars for underestimating the significance of racially based patterns of residential segregation in creating and perpetuating the underclass.7 I have suggested that this problem derives, in large part, from the problematic separation of the economic sector from the sociopolitical order. Racial segregation is a complex phenomenon. Conclusions may be affected by (1) the choice of segregation indices; (2) criteria used to delineate neighborhoods (census tracts have been used as proxies for neighborhoods even though census tracts are not necessarily neighborhoods and their boundaries reflect technical imperatives, as Wilson observed in When Work Disappears); (3) variables included or excluded in complex models; (4) demographic and political-economic characteristics of the metropolitan areas in question; (5) the rate at which the black population is growing relative to the white population; (6) the presence or absence of other populations, particularly Hispanics and Asian Americans; and (7) the region of the country.8 Massey and his colleagues argued that racial segregation is crucial to understanding changes in the black community today, at least in the ten major metropolitan areas characterized by concentrated or extreme poverty.9 Racial segregation is the structural condition imposed on blacks that makes extremely deprived neighborhoods possible, characterized by high rates of family disruption; educational underachievement; welfare dependency; property abandonment; violence, delinquency, and crime; and “excess mortality.”10 Wilson did not adequately explain why blacks are represented disproportionately in the underclass, or why geographical mobility by the working and middle classes should concentrate poverty among blacks but not among other groups.11 Industrial restructuring in and of itself, and the exodus of working- and middle-class blacks from poor neighborhoods, are insufficient to explain the concentrated (and extreme) poverty left in their wake. In response to Wilson,12 Massey and Eggers13 examined trends in the geographic concentration of poverty among whites, blacks, Hispanics, and

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Asian Americans in sixty U.S. metropolitan areas from 1970 to 1980. They confirmed Wilson’s conclusion that the concentration of poverty has increased in U.S. cities; however, region and group must qualify this conclusion. Concentrated urban poverty is mainly confined to blacks outside the West and to Hispanics outside the Northeast. The concentration of poverty among these groups cannot be explained by the exodus of middleclass residents from the ghetto or by industrial restructuring; these may be necessary but not sufficient conditions for concentrating poverty. Rather, the underclass is disproportionately composed of blacks and Hispanics because in the nation’s largest urban areas they are also the only ones that have experienced high levels of residential segregation. In other words, the occurrence of rising poverty under conditions of high racial or ethnic segregation explains the growing spatial isolation of poor blacks and Hispanics.14 It may be that neighborhoods become poorer because they attract more poor in-movers, not because they expel nonpoor out-movers. In conjunction with this observation, Massey and his colleagues15 stressed complex interaction effects: racial segmentation in housing (which subsumes a series of practices in the banking, insurance, and real estate industries; see below) interacts with high and rising rates of black poverty to spatially concentrate poverty. In other words, concentrated poverty results from the net in-migration of lower-class blacks into poor black neighborhoods, given limited options for low-income housing in a racially discriminatory housing market, as well as the rapid deterioration of life-circumstances, including employment opportunities, brought about by the structural transformation of the U.S. economy. These arguments are not mutually exclusive, contradictory, or inconsistent necessarily. However, the validity of Wilson’s16 class-selective out-migration claim becomes problematic in the context of the persistence of high levels of racial residential segregation.17 Patterns observed across major metropolitan areas contradict those that would be expected if increasing interclass segregation among blacks were in fact behind the increase in poverty concentrations. The highest levels of interclass segregation among blacks are found in metropolitan areas characterized by a lack of concentrated black poverty, whereas low to moderate levels of interclass segregation are found in metropolitan areas characterized by highly concentrated black poverty.18 Therefore, concentrated poverty is not a general condition of urban society; rather, it is isolated within specific regions and groups. Stated simply, levels and trends in interclass segregation are not sufficient to explain current patterns of poverty concentration.19 Geographically concentrated poverty stems from racially segregated U.S. housing markets. Class-selective patterns of out-migration seem to have relatively little to do with the accumulation of poverty in black neigh-

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borhoods per se.20 To the extent that concentrated poverty is linked to the geographic moves of nonpoor blacks, it reflects a reluctance on the part of those living outside of poor neighborhoods to move back in. Efforts to escape the poor do not distinguish middle-class blacks from middle-class members of other racial and ethnic groups. Nonpoor blacks are less able to escape living in poor neighborhoods than are nonpoor members of other groups; and poor blacks have few housing options outside of the poorest and most disadvantaged neighborhoods.21 Massey and Eggers’s22 research confirmed Wilson’s23 hypothesis that black segregation by income has grown. Black interclass segregation (or the movement of working- and middle-class blacks from poor areas) increased during the 1970s. Increasingly, working- and middle-class blacks have separated themselves from poor blacks. However, these trends do not explain the unusually high and growing concentration of poverty among blacks. The level of black interclass segregation is low compared to other minority groups, especially Hispanics and Asian Americans, and levels are not high in an absolute sense. The indices fall almost exclusively in the low and moderate ranges.24 As noted above, the highest levels are observed in metropolitan areas that lack concentrated black poverty (e.g., Anaheim and San Jose, California), whereas low to moderate levels are observed in metropolitan areas with very high concentrations of black poverty (e.g., New York City, Philadelphia, and Detroit). Blacks in the West experience lower levels of racial segregation, earn higher incomes, and evidence lower concentrations of poverty than do blacks in other regions of the United States.25 Levels of racial segregation outside the West are high and show few signs of decreasing; in other words, as educational, occupational, and earnings attainments among blacks increase, the degree of racial segregation between blacks and whites does not fall. Although the degree of class segregation between rich and poor blacks increased slightly during the 1970s, it is lower than that observed between the rich and poor of other minority groups. Recent changes in the propensity for rich blacks and poor blacks to live in different neighborhoods are unrelated to levels and trends in black poverty concentration.26 Massey27 agreed with central tenets of Wilson’s argument. However, he disagreed with Wilson’s hypothesis that this transformation was brought about by the exodus of middle-class blacks from the ghetto and with his argument that industrial restructuring, in and of itself, was responsible for concentrating urban poverty. Poverty concentration is not caused by the departure of middle-class blacks from the ghetto; rather, it is caused by strong interaction between the level of racial segregation and changes in the structure of income distribution. Groups that experience both a high degree of racial segregation and a high poverty rate evidence the highest levels of

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poverty concentration. More specifically, the degree of poverty concentration rose most dramatically in urban areas where major shifts in the income distribution brought about by industrial restructuring occurred in a highly segregated environment—for example, Chicago and New York City.28 Generally, ecological approaches examine how race affects the process of spatial assimilation by computing segregation indices for blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and other groups in selected metropolitan areas.29 According to these approaches, residential succession begins with the entry of a minority group into an area occupied by the majority group. A period of consolidation follows invasion, and eventually the minority group entirely displaces the majority group to form an established neighborhood. Each interracial area can be classified according to its stage in the succession process. This model has worked well in depicting the dynamics of black-white segregation in U.S. cities. However, ecological approaches were originally formulated with ethnic immigrants in mind.30 Ecological approaches predict that the educational, occupational, and income gains by minority groups should lead to integration. Thus, these approaches posit an inverse relationship between socioeconomic status and racial or ethnic segregation.31 Individuals in the upper socioeconomic strata are progressively more likely to move out of areas of racial or ethnic concentration. Generally, the absolute advance of racial and ethnic groups up the socioeconomic ladder affects underlying processes of residential mobility, which in turn give rise to reduced levels of residential segregation.32 Massey and Denton’s33 research confirmed that as the socioeconomic status of a minority rises, so does the probability of residential contact with whites; at the same time, rising socioeconomic status leads to a lower probability of contact with other minorities. Between 1950 and 1970, differential rates of suburbanization resulted in the overrepresentation of whites in the highest educational, occupational, and income categories on the peripheries of U.S. metropolitan areas. 34 After 1970, black suburbanization increased in many of the metropolitan areas whose central cities experienced the greatest black in-migration from the South prior to 1970, as well as in southern SMSAs with traditionally large black populations.35 For the most part, black suburbanization has followed segregated patterns (although regional variations exist). The large increases between 1950 and 1970 in the geographical and population sizes of ten major metropolitan areas studied by Albert Simkus36 did not result in substantial and consistent changes in the degree of racial segregation in housing that characterized these areas; neither has suburbanization of blacks had much effect more recently. Black suburban residence is not inevitably linked to substantially greater proximity to whites.37 Racial changes between 1970 and 1980 in suburbs in the North and West followed a pattern consistent with the model of invasion, transition,

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and succession.38 However, in the North, racial changes occurred mainly in high-density inner suburbs. Blacks gained access to suburbs that had weak tax bases and high tax rates and that had the most difficulty providing municipal services at acceptable tax rates. Black movement into the suburbs occurred where the proportion of rental housing to homeownership was high. In rental housing, blacks have not incurred the institutional discrimination they face in buying a home.39 The conventional view of racial segregation in the suburbs as a natural process that results from the growth and aging of the metropolis appears to have little empirical support in this context. Discriminatory practices in the banking, insurance, and real estate industries steered blacks to the weaker suburbs.40 Between 1970 and 1980, segregation between blacks and whites decreased in some smaller SMSAs in the South and West; however, little change occurred in the large metropolitan areas in the northeastern and north-central states. In these areas, blacks remained segregated and spatially isolated. Where blacks could suburbanize, this process had no consequential effect on segregation. 41 Despite increases in suburbanization between 1970 and 1980, blacks remained less suburbanized than other minority groups, including Hispanics and Asian Americans. On average, blacks are less segregated in suburbs than in central cities; however, even in suburbs black segregation remains high. Hispanics and Asian Americans are considerably more suburbanized than blacks. The segregation levels of Hispanics and Asian Americans in central cities are moderate, and in suburbs they vary from low to moderate. Given the same objective characteristics and “metropolitan context,” blacks are much more segregated than Hispanics or Asian Americans.42 Hispanics evidence a complex profile, reflecting the diversity within the Hispanic population itself. For example, Mexicans are most likely to reside in proximity to whites and Cubans are least likely to reside in proximity to whites.43 Hispanic segregation from whites is not as severe as black segregation from whites. However, Hispanic segregation increased in some metropolitan areas that experienced Hispanic immigration and population growth between 1970 and 1980. The degree of Hispanic segregation from whites is strongly related to indicators of socioeconomic status and acculturation. Asian American segregation from whites is low everywhere. During the 1970s, the spatial isolation of Asian Americans increased somewhat, even as dissimilarity from whites decreased, reflecting the formation of Asian American enclaves in a number of metropolitan areas.44 Between 1960 and 1970 in the Southwest, residential succession was much less common in Hispanic areas than in black areas, and established Hispanic areas were rare. The main difference between Hispanic areas and black areas was that black invasion was followed by succession in almost all of the cases, whereas Hispanic invasion was followed by succession in

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less than 50 percent of the cases. Whether tracts lost or gained whites following invasion by Hispanics depended on the objective characteristics of the invaders and the location of the tract relative to established minority areas.45 Unlike black movement up the socioeconomic ladder, Hispanic movement is positively related to distance from an established minority area and to probability of contact with whites. Overall, blacks are much less able to translate socioeconomic status attainments into mobility out of established minority areas and into contact with whites. Given the same “socioeconomic inputs,” the ultimate probability of residential contact with whites is much lower for blacks than for Hispanics.46 Patterns of Hispanicwhite segregation are strongly related to social class. As the general socioeconomic status of Hispanics increases, within-class segregation between Hispanics and whites decreases. Moreover, variations between cities in the degree of Hispanic-white segregation are strongly related to variations in the socioeconomic status of the cities’ Hispanic populations.47 These relationships imply that residential segregation is largely a function of group socioeconomic status differentials and that changes in relative socioeconomic status levels among racial and ethnic groups should affect the degree of segregation between them. Using 1970 and 1980 census-tract data, Denton and Massey48 showed that Caribbean Hispanics display a low degree of segregation from white Hispanics and a high degree from both black Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks. However, they also display a high degree from non-Hispanic whites, suggesting that people of mixed racial ancestry are accepted by white Hispanics on the basis of shared ethnicity but are rejected by nonHispanic whites on the basis of race. Black Hispanics are highly segregated from all groups. These findings have changed little over time and persist despite socioeconomic controls. Caribbean Hispanics are drawn together on the basis of an emerging ethnic identity forged in the United States and bifurcated on the basis of race, revealed in the discrepant residential situations of black Hispanics compared to white Hispanics. Black Hispanics remain highly segregated from non-Hispanic whites but only moderately segregated from U.S. blacks, whereas for white Hispanics it is the opposite: a high degree of segregation from blacks but a moderate level of segregation from whites. Black Hispanics and white Hispanics are relatively segregated from each other.49 These observations suggest that race remains a fundamental basis for separation and that it is more important than other variables, such as ethnicity, for explaining patterns of residential segregation.50 In contrast to Hispanics, blacks face strong barriers to spatial assimilation. Compared with those in other neighborhoods, blacks within invasion areas possess relatively high levels of education, occupational status, and income. Although black socioeconomic status should be positively related

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to distance from an established black area and to probability of contact with whites, increasing black socioeconomic status apparently does not reduce the social distance that whites perceive between themselves and blacks. Areas of potential black settlement are restricted to tracts adjacent to existing black neighborhoods; and entry of blacks into these neighborhoods is almost always followed by residential succession, no matter what the objective socioeconomic characteristics of the entering blacks. Put more bluntly, the ghetto follows upwardly mobile blacks as they attempt to leave. They are less able than Hispanics to convert socioeconomic status attainments into spatial assimilation with whites. 51 Compared to Hispanics, upwardly mobile blacks begin the assimilation process at a lower level if measured by contact with whites, are less efficient at converting socioeconomic status into contact with whites, and achieve less contact with whites per unit of socioeconomic status. Essentially, blacks are channeled into highly segregated residential distributions.52 Generally, Puerto Ricans are highly segregated from non-Hispanic whites and moderately from blacks. However, these findings contradict those observed for other Hispanic groups. The Puerto Rican anomaly results because this population possesses low socioeconomic status and black ancestry. Low socioeconomic status leads directly to high segregation, whereas black ancestry encourages residence near non-Hispanic blacks. Because whites avoid living near blacks, Puerto Ricans become secondary victims of whites’ preferences.53 Subsequent research into the relationship among blacks, whites, and Puerto Ricans revealed considerable variation in levels of segregation, depending on region, size of the metropolitan area, and size of the Puerto Rican population. On average, in 1980 approximately 60 percent of all Puerto Ricans would have had to move from their place of residence to achieve residential integration with whites; the average level of segregation between Puerto Ricans and blacks was almost as high. The low socioeconomic status of Puerto Ricans relative to whites was the most significant factor affecting the level of segregation.54 In summary, although blacks have suburbanized, this movement has had little effect on the integration of neighborhoods. According to Massey,55 the high degree of segregation between blacks and whites cannot be explained by blacks’ objective socioeconomic characteristics (which serve as a proxy for social class), their housing preferences, or their limited knowledge of white housing markets. Blacks in large cities are segregated no matter how much they learn, earn, or achieve. Rather, the high degree of segregation between blacks and whites is empirically linked to the persistence of discrimination in housing markets and to continuing antiblack prejudice. According to Massey and Denton,56

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when socioeconomic status, population composition, metropolitan context, and sample selectivity are controlled for, blacks are systematically less segregated in suburbs than in central cities. This effect, however, reflects the extremely high segregation of blacks in cities instead of their low segregation in suburbs. For blacks with upper-blue-collar occupational statuses and middle-class family incomes, multivariate models predict relatively high levels of segregation in the suburbs, an outcome that is consistent with actual patterns of dissimilarity and spatial interaction.

Blacks’ spatial assimilation is blocked at three successive junctures: First, they are not integrated within central cities; second, they find it difficult to move to the suburbs; third, if they make it to the suburbs, they will experience only modest levels of integration.57 In all regions of the country, blacks receive less residential return than whites on their individual resources. Because blacks do not have the same spatial mobility as other groups, they are unable to take full advantage of other social and economic resources. Race acts as a channeling device, confining blacks within black neighborhoods. This phenomenon inhibits interclass segregation among blacks and has a “depressing effect” on neighborhood quality.58 For blacks, residential proximity to whites is substantially determined by race and is not affected much by other individual characteristics.59 Therefore, Wilson’s60 argument—that the spatial assimilation of blacks will be facilitated by the acquisition of human capital—is incomplete. The acquisition of human capital is necessary but insufficient to bring black and white residential mobility patterns closer together—particularly in areas that have large black populations, large suburban populations, and older housing stocks. Differences in residential segregation among racial and ethnic groups are highly related to differences in socioeconomic status; however, residential segregation would continue for blacks even if socioeconomic status differentials between them and other groups disappeared.61 Blacks seek spatial assimilation; however, only some are successful. In addition, working- and middle-class blacks face a residential environment that, quality-wise, only the poorest of whites face. Compared to their white counterparts, working- and middle-class blacks are subjected to less healthy environments, more dilapidated surroundings, and higher rates of violence, delinquency, and crime. They must live with people below their station and send their children to substandard schools disproportionately populated by students who have comparatively limited cognitive, linguistic, and social skills. Here, their children are susceptible to the strong effect of peers on aspirations, motivation, and achievement.62 Residential segregation by race seems to be tenacious. Despite the advent of fair housing legislation, increasingly tolerant white racial atti-

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tudes, and a growing black middle class with incomes sufficient to promote residential mobility, the segregation of blacks in large cities such as Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia has not changed much.63 Given differing patterns for Hispanics and Asian Americans, it is not race per se that matters but black race.64 Apparently, blacks are viewed as qualitatively different. Where residential integration has occurred, it is in small and midsized metropolitan areas that currently contain proportionately few black residents. In southern states, residential integration has partly resulted from the encroachment of white suburbs into rural black areas rather than from the movement of central-city blacks into white suburbs.65 The primary organizing principle of housing patterns in major metropolitan areas is race, not social class.66 Future improvements in the socioeconomic status attainment level of the black population as a whole will have little effect on existing patterns of segregation.67 These observations are consistent with Scott South and Kyle Crowder,68 who determined that (1) among both blacks and whites, those who move to the comparatively “whiter neighborhoods” are the more advantaged socioeconomically. (2) Even after adjusting for racial differences in socioeconomic status attainment levels and numerous other characteristics, race remains an important predictor of migration patterns. That is, blacks are substantially less likely than whites to move out of racially mixed tracts and into predominantly white tracts and substantially more likely than whites to leave racially mixed tracts for predominantly black tracts. (3) Increasing age and homeownership deter mobility out of and into all tracts, regardless of racial composition. (4) Mobility rates between black, white, and racially mixed tracts vary significantly across metropolitan areas. This variation is linked partially to the distinctive characteristics of SMSAs—for example, western SMSAs and SMSAs with substantial new housing stocks show higher rates of black mobility into whiter areas. These areas have comparatively smaller black and suburban populations and newer housing stocks. Much new housing is built and marketed under antidiscrimination legislation, thereby reducing the number of neighborhoods that are exclusively black or white. A high percentage of new housing relative to total housing promotes integration in these SMSAs. Consequently, integrated suburbs are more likely to be found in the rapidly growing areas of the West and New South and in small to midsized cities that at this time have comparatively few black residents. Among people with similar socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, blacks are less likely to move than whites and Hispanics—a finding that is consistent with evidence showing racial discrimination in the banking, finance, insurance, and real estate industries. High levels of segregation reflect limited housing opportunities for blacks, constraining their choices to few neighborhoods of low status; thus, many choose not to

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move.69 Lack of adequate public transportation and high rent also inhibit mobility. If segregation levels increase, then it is likely that black-white occupational disparities will also increase; occupational disparities exacerbate income disparities. As black socioeconomic status attainment levels fall, discrimination in the housing market increases, strengthening segregation in a vicious circle.70 Whites benefit from segregation because it isolates higher rates of black poverty within black neighborhoods. Concentrated black poverty encourages a belief among whites that race (specifically, black race) causes the behaviors associated with poverty, such as family disruption, welfare dependency, and crime. Segregation reinforces this belief by concentrating people who seem to confirm it in a small number of highly visible black neighborhoods—thereby strengthening prejudice, maintaining the motivation for segregation, and making discrimination more likely.71 The research of Massey and his colleagues provides evidence that the significance of race continues and that it is more important than other factors in explaining patterns of residential segregation. In contradistinction to Wilson,72 industrial restructuring and the out-migration of middle-class blacks are not sufficient conditions, considered alone or together, to explain the plight of urban blacks today.73

The Separation of the Economic Sector from the Sociopolitical Order Revisited Suburbs are ordered hierarchically; they are associated with more, or less, favorable life-chances for the people who reside in them. The hierarchy of suburbs is a means by which more advantaged groups seek to preserve social distance from less advantaged groups.74 One of the mechanisms that make this possible is housing policies.75 In this context, black suburbanization patterns are little more than an extension of the urban ghettoization process that concentrates blacks in a small number of residential areas that are avoided by whites.76 These residential areas share many characteristics with their central-city counterparts, including aging infrastructures, strained municipal finances, lack of diversity in employment opportunities, poor quality or deteriorated housing, and impoverished neighbors.77 Apparently, upwardly mobile blacks migrate to older suburbs already containing a relatively large percentage of blacks. Migration to older suburbs can be explained by a selection process among blacks (e.g., a relatively large percentage of blacks is necessary to support the activities and services unique to a black community) but, more important, by the functioning of the suburban real estate market.78 In contrast, comparable whites avoid older suburbs. Generally, real estate agents do not show housing units to

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blacks in an all-white area until white demand for housing in that area declines. Evidence suggests that blacks are relegated to neighborhoods with declining infrastructures or to neighborhoods where the racial composition is changing sufficiently to decrease white demand for housing. Because where one lives has a strong effect on one’s future life-chances, inequalities in acquiring housing in desirable neighborhoods may perpetuate racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainment outcomes.79 Upwardly mobile whites who have sufficient socioeconomic resources are not restricted by discrimination in their residential choices or by the need for a supportive community. More often than not, they choose newer housing units on the periphery of the metropolitan area rather than older housing units near the core.80 The functioning of the suburban real estate market determines the types of neighborhoods and housing units that are available to blacks. As a consequence, blacks are less able than whites to convert educational, occupational, and income attainments into improved quality of housing, homeownership, and safer neighborhoods. Blacks and whites encounter different levels of access to housing, even after controls for socioeconomic status attainment and household composition levels are introduced. Evidence points to continuing racial discrimination in the housing market as the crucial factor maintaining segregation at the aggregate level. Available vacancies are controlled through the use of informal contacts, selective recruitment tactics such as targeted advertising, and the withholding of information.81 The current level of residential segregation must be attributed largely to attitudes and actions, past and present, that have restricted the entry of blacks into predominantly white neighborhoods,82 from a climate of opinion to mortgage-lending and insurance practices. In particular, racial prejudice and discrimination structure housing markets and constrain the ability of black renters and homebuyers to convert their socioeconomic status attainments into desirable spatial outcomes.83 Therefore, the “web of discrimination”—the combination of banking, finance, insurance, real estate, and government practices that structure life-chances—must be analyzed.84 Through a variety of discriminatory mechanisms, these institutions play an active role in structuring housing markets to create a hierarchy of place that affects the life-chances of blacks and whites alike.85 A critical component in this process is the role of the state. For example, the infrastructure that enables urban growth must be planned, organized, and constructed by public authorities. Suburban governments make zoning and other land-use decisions. The power to do so gives suburban governments substantial influence in the local land market. They appear to have the ability to accelerate or retard the invasion-succession process by changing local growth and development policies as dictated by larger socie-

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tal trends.86 Often, they restrict blacks’ access to housing through exclusionary zoning laws (which may be, and often are, challenged in court).87 Here Wilson’s88 relatively benign view of the state in the industrial and modern industrial periods stands in marked contrast to the historical record. In other words, Wilson underestimated the importance of judicial and other governmental administrative decisions in the interpretation and enforcement of antidiscriminatory laws such as fair housing—decisions that structure life-chances in the economic order.89 When Wilson claimed that state intervention in the modern industrial period promoted racial equality, his analysis was limited to federal legislation and excluded many decisions made locally on urban development plans, transportation systems, low-income housing policies, social welfare programs, and prison construction. Wilson’s case would have been much harder to make if state and local governments were included.90 Through the recent past, the state has played an active role in creating and legitimizing residential segregation in the United States.91 The Federal Housing Administration mortgage-loan guarantees established by the National Housing Act of 1934, and the Veterans Administration loan guarantees of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (the G.I. Bill), had a profound impact on the spatial development of urban areas. By loosening the credit market, these programs encouraged the rapid growth in suburban housing construction that followed World War II. Between 1935 and 1974, the FHA insured 11.4 million home mortgages. Most of the mortgage insurance backed the construction of new housing units in suburbs. FHA administrators promoted the idea that neighborhoods should be racially segregated. They shared the real estate industry’s view that racial segregation protected neighborhood stability and, therefore, housing values. In the 1930s and 1940s, FHA administrators advised, and sometimes required, housing developers to draw up restrictive covenants against blacks as a condition of obtaining FHA-insured financing. Restrictive covenants are contractual agreements among property owners stating that they would not permit a black family, for example, to own, occupy, or lease their property for a specified period of time. A typical covenant might last twenty years and require the assent of three-fourths of the property owners to become enforceable.92 In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Shelley v. Kramer, declared racially restrictive covenants unenforceable. 93 Nevertheless, homeownership represents a substantial investment for many families. Therefore, they have stakes in their own property and in the properties and characteristics of the people nearby, making collective action highly likely.94 During the 1940s and 1950s, the FHA invented redlining and effectively established it as standard practice within the banking industry. Neighborhoods adjacent to black areas were colored red on the agency’s

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Residential Security Maps and denied access to FHA-insured loans; private lenders took their cue from the FHA and followed suit.95 Redlining, then, is the practice of denying mortgages or home improvement loans in certain neighborhoods because of the presumed risks related to the influx of blacks.96 The FHA, the Veterans’ Administration, and the Federal National Mortgage Association endorsed redlining. The federal government institutionalized the practice of redlining and supported state and local governments in their use of urban renewal and public housing programs to attempt to segregate blacks.97 The discriminatory policies of the FHA and the banking industry constituted institutional forces that benefited whites and hindered blacks in the accumulation of equity.98 Significant changes did not occur until passage of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 (also known as the Omnibus Fair Housing Act), which was upheld and strengthened by federal court decisions outlawing segregation in all aspects of the sale or rental of housing units. In turn, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act required federally chartered financial institutions to report exactly where they made or denied loans; later it required information about the race and income of those granted or denied mortgages. 99 Executive Order 11063 (1962) prohibited discrimination in federally assisted housing.100 However, lack of enforcement and a complicated grievance process have undermined the effectiveness of antidiscriminatory housing initiatives. 101 For example, the Fair Housing Act was problematic, but not because of its coverage or the forms of discrimination that it banned specifically; rather, its enforcement provisions weren’t standardized, and it had a short statute of limitations. In addition, the Fair Housing Act relied on individual efforts to combat a social problem that was systemic and institutional in nature.102 The 1988 Fair Housing Amendments Act remedied in principle the flaws of the early act, including expanding the role of the U.S. Justice Department in enforcing fair housing.103 Paradoxically, the recent liberalization of FHA lending to blacks accelerated racial transition; FHA loans were used by blacks to buy homes from whites in racially mixed areas, who then fled to all-white neighborhoods using conventional loans denied to blacks.104 Most whites are willing to accept open housing in principle, but not in practice.105 Despite the passage of the Fair Housing Act, discrimination in housing continues, reflected in credit assistance and marketing practices.106 James Blackwell107 pointed out that the majority of implementation plans of local real estate boards in the 1970s had no declarations against redlining, had inadequate strategies for promoting integrated housing, did not provide for monitoring by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and did not gather adequate data for determining sales and rentals by race.108

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Scholarly disagreement exists over the effect on homeownership rates of discrimination in mortgage financing compared with the influence of other factors.109 Aggregate data on mortgage-lending practices disguise the number and characteristics of loan applicants from census tracts; thus, these data cannot be used to determine whether racial differences are due to lack of demand, legal supply constraints, or illegal supply constraints. Crucial variables such as credit histories, degree of indebtedness, assets, and characteristics of the properties are difficult to control in mathematical models.110 However, studies continue to document the persistence of racial discrimination. For example, after controlling for socioeconomic status attainment factors, a study of one midwestern city found that racial factors were related to the number and amount of mortgage loans made; black tracts received significantly less of each.111 Even when tracts appeared to be similar on all major mortgage-lending criteria except race, mortgage-lending outcomes remained unequal.112 Another study, which conducted a series of experiments, concluded that real estate agents were more likely to provide information about conventional loans to white testers and information about government-insured loans to minority testers.113 Other research suggested that racial factors play a significant role in the undervaluation of properties in integrated and predominantly black neighborhoods.114 The fact that blacks and whites have different levels of access to various types of housing and neighborhoods is incontrovertible. Whites have greater opportunities to move into the more desirable housing units that previously were occupied by blacks than vice versa; blacks have greater access to the less desirable housing units that previously were occupied by whites.115 How much of that difference can be accounted for by institutional practices, outright discrimination on the part of sellers and agents, or differences in market knowledge and housing preferences remains unclear.116 It is likely, though, that the practices of lending institutions, realtors, subdivision developers, and local governments interact with, and reinforce, individuals’ housing preferences, raising blacks’ cost of entry into white neighborhoods.117 Most real estate agents belong to local real estate boards, and many agents belong to the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB)—an organization that was instrumental in shaping real estate ethics, standards, and policies. Discriminatory “perceptions” were embedded in the training of real estate agents, who studied how residential transitions would affect property values and taxes.118 Although NAREB now supports open-housing laws, it continues to favor policies and practices that more often than not are discriminatory in effect. Realtors depend on professional and personal ties to the white community to succeed in a competitive business. They steer blacks to suburbs that whites no longer find desirable

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by using their monopoly over housing information. These practices tend to be informal and difficult to police. Whites’ tacit approval of these practices is an important factor in perpetuating segregation.119 The actions of realtors may reflect personal prejudices or the perceptions they have of what clients want. (Opposition to open-housing laws may not be entirely racially based. Although some opposition reflects prejudicial attitudes toward blacks, other objections appear to be based on social-class issues and a general antipathy to government coercion—particularly the requirement to enforce federal laws in contrast to laws based on local referenda.) Financial institutions may be reluctant to grant blacks mortgages in all-white neighborhoods for fear that their presence may change the economic life of the neighborhood. They may deny blacks mortgages in other neighborhoods because they are deemed risky investments.120 The failure to support integrated neighborhoods with credit re-creates segregation.121 Interestingly, when factors that influence the loan review process are controlled, the probability that a black applicant’s mortgage will be approved increases when the proportion of black professionals in the institution increases. This effect is “especially significant” at thrift institutions.122 Gregory Squires and Sunwoong Kim123 suggested that regulatory agencies should incorporate affirmative action initiatives into their enforcement activities; the mortgage-lending process may become more equitable if affirmative action initiatives increase the percentage of black professionals at the appropriate institutions. The redlining practices of insurance companies, as well as the decisions to locate or relocate insurance agencies, contribute to uneven development and neighborhood decay.124 Squires et al.125 analyzed the distribution of homeowners’ insurance policies by tract and found a strong bias in favor of suburban white neighborhoods and against inner-city black neighborhoods. The pattern that was observed resulted from a combination of variables, including minimum policy requirements that will not insure homes under a certain value, such as $50,000; how agents perceive risk; whether or not agents are accessible; agency location (agents want to maximize their premiums, minimize their losses, and reduce the work involved in selling policies); and racial discrimination. These authors126 argued that the racial composition of neighborhoods is associated with, and may affect, the location of insurance agencies themselves. This relationship persists even after controlling for a variety of background variables, including income levels and neighborhood characteristics that presumably influence decisions on where to locate. Some sociologists have argued that the consequences of segregation may worsen when it occurs in the public sector rather than in the private sector, as public housing adds social-class isolation to the racial isolation

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that black families already experience.127 For example, during the 1970s, a local business elite in Chicago adopted public housing provisions as an institutional mechanism to restrict the infringement of a growing black poor population on white business districts. Residential segregation thus plays an important role in social-class structuration, because it concentrates people from the lower reaches of the social-class structure in small spaces and encourages the reproduction of values, attitudes, and behaviors detrimental to success in the larger society.128 When Department of Housing and Urban Development data are disaggregated by unit ownership and design, they reveal that racial segregation is common in the nation’s public housing stock. Whereas whites are distributed fairly evenly among elderly, family, and mixed projects, as well as local authority–owned and multisubsidized projects, blacks are concentrated in family and local authority–owned projects. As a result, elderly projects are overwhelmingly white, whereas family projects are predominantly black. Black households concentrate in centralized, high-density projects that are owned and operated by local authorities, whereas white households concentrate in scattered-site, low-density projects that are developerowned.129 In short, within large metropolitan areas, blacks and whites are segregated across housing projects as well as across neighborhoods. The racial structuring of housing markets has important implications for life-chances. Housing markets distribute housing units; however, they also distribute educational resources, opportunities for employment, public services, tax burdens, insurance and health care options, and safety and security.130 For example, the tradition of funding public schools through local property taxes means that schools that are disproportionately black— located in economically stagnant areas with limited opportunities—are vulnerable given declining tax bases. These neighborhoods are not likely to have the material conditions that foster the values, study habits, and social skills that are rewarded by teachers and that lead to academic success. Student behaviors are strong predictors of educational performance and mediate the effects of race on grades. These material conditions permeate schools and create a climate that is not conducive to success.131 Contrasted with their white counterparts, the characteristics of the neighborhoods in which black middle-class families live differ in major metropolitan areas such as Chicago; black middle-class families live in closer proximity to the lower classes than do white middle-class families. This fact has relevance to probabilities of school achievement, victimization by crime, participation in community organizations, and other lifechances.132 For example, because black middle-class neighborhoods are not far removed from areas with high poverty and crime rates, they struggle to remain in the majority and to maintain the norms of public conduct and social order. Mainstream residents discover that certain values, attitudes, or

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beliefs, such as “their scorn for drug dealing and its violent enforcement,” must be compromised in order to maintain a quiet neighborhood. 133 Ironically, gang hierarchies may mirror the occupational status hierarchies that mainstream residents experience. With some “reminders” by community organizations, local gangs operate under similar rules of conduct and with similar goals.134 Wilson135 argued that the “most realistic approach” to the problem of concentrated poverty in the inner city is to provide underclass families with the resources that promote social mobility, understood as the capacity to take advantage of educational and occupational opportunities. Social mobility leads to spatial mobility. Spatial mobility would be enhanced if efforts to improve the resources of inner-city residents were accompanied by legal steps to eliminate certain practices by state and municipal authorities, including locating low-income housing in low-income neighborhoods, and preventing construction through zoning ordinances of lowincome housing in other neighborhoods. However, for blacks spatial mobility is difficult to achieve. 136 Rooted in racially discriminatory processes, barriers to spatial mobility exist because mechanisms such as segregation mediate the socioeconomic status attainment process among blacks.137 In contrast to some human capital arguments, ecological approaches do not assume freedom of movement in unconstrained markets. They maintain that housing markets are socially structured and are subject to constraints that are institutional and political in nature.138 The failure to recognize this point explains, in part, why the policies intended to redress racial disparities in housing opportunities have had little impact. Individual victims have challenged racial discrimination in housing opportunities mainly in the federal courts, with the assistance of fair housing groups.139 However, if residential segregation is maintained by a complex set of institutional and political practices, then case-by-case litigation is not likely to solve the problem. Massey140 argued that the federal government, particularly the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Justice Department, must increase its involvement in the enforcement of fair housing laws if residential desegregation is to occur, including (1) the investigation and prosecution of housing discrimination complaints; (2) where preliminary data suggest, the investigation of institutional mortgage-lending practices; and (3) mandated changes in real estate advertising and marketing practices. (These policy recommendations imply that the market cannot be trusted to fairly allocate opportunities to get ahead.) The validity of Wilson’s argument hinges on the acceptability of dividing the world into an economic sector and a sociopolitical order—a practice that critics141 argue is not justifiable. Bonacich142 suggested that this is a failing in liberal approaches to race relations generally, which “mistakenly”

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divide economic goals from sociopolitical goals. Dividing the world into an economic sector and a sociopolitical order on the matter of the declining significance of race is an arbitrary and difficult-to-justify exercise; race relations and their manifestations are too ubiquitous to be confined within spheres.143

The Complex Motivations Underlying the Racial Structuring of Housing Markets In The Declining Significance of Race, Wilson claimed that income was overtaking skin color as a determinant of where blacks lived and that blacks who had the requisite resources could move into the suburbs. It appears now that this statement oversimplified the complex dynamics that drive the racial structuring of housing markets. Wilson’s Achilles’ heel is persisting white opposition to black integration. This opposition may be rooted in a variety of factors, including (1) racial prejudice, perhaps reinforced by media accounts of the black underclass; (2) social-class prejudice, reflecting disparities in educational, occupational, and income attainments; (3) expected patterns of invasion and succession, which whites anticipate will have negative effects on property values; and (4) a “general resistance to government coercion,”144 particularly federally imposed initiatives as opposed to laws based on local referenda. Although prejudices and other aversive attitudes support discriminatory housing practices, so do non–racially specific beliefs such as ideologies of local autonomy and control. These ideologies embody democratic principles as well as hostility to redistributive initiatives expressed, for example, in public housing proposals. Therefore, white opposition to black integration may not be entirely, or even partly, a matter of racial affect. Determining whether racial factors, nonracial factors, or a complex combination of other factors that supersede social-psychological accounts best describe the complex motivations that drive the racial structuring of housing markets is important because the findings have different implications for policy formulation and implementation.145 Many accounts claim that the segregation of blacks from whites results from racial prejudice. (Indeed, when Japanese Americans are substituted for blacks in statements of preference, whites express fewer objections.) Real estate agents and mortgage lenders who share these prejudices market housing units accordingly. In other cases, real estate agents and mortgage lenders who do not share these prejudices nevertheless discriminate out of material self-interest. These phenomena imply that the overall aversion of whites toward living among blacks remains strong. A substantial minority of whites cite racial stereotypes as reasons to oppose integration, and fewer

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than half of whites say that they would move into neighborhoods with more than a small proportion of blacks.146 However, even though racial prejudice contributes to the origin of racial segregation in housing, it may be neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the persistence of segregation. In recent years, racial prejudice against blacks has declined, albeit more rapidly in the South than elsewhere. In addition, despite publicized exceptions, subgroups known to be very prejudiced have become more tolerant over time. Cohort replacement (the generational transition from older, more prejudiced birth cohorts to younger, less prejudiced ones) and attitudinal change contributed to the decline in racial prejudice during the 1970s and early 1980s, although the relative importance of cohort replacement and attitudinal change varies from item to item on questionnaires. For example, the increasing tolerance for interracial marriage results from cohort replacement and not from attitudinal change. 147 Current research does not substantiate any claims of decreasing tolerance among cohorts that reached adulthood in the 1980s. In other words, the sociopolitical conservatism of the Reagan presidency did not produce a post–civil rights generation that is distinctly illiberal in its racial attitudes.148 Whites increasingly reject racial injustice and endorse racial equality as a matter of principle. By 1990, a large majority of whites supported the principle of equal opportunity in the housing market, and a majority of whites reported a willingness to live in integrated neighborhoods. These observations do not mean that increasingly liberal attitudes translate into more equitable practices.149 Some observers view this trend as superficial and, therefore, of little consequence. Indeed, much contemporary research has implicitly discounted the significance of changing attitudes toward blacks since the 1960s.150 For example, policies intended to reduce racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainment outcomes, such as affirmative action, open housing, and busing, continue to face controversy and opposition. Although whites acknowledge the legitimacy of racial integration as a social goal, they remain uncomfortable about the implications of integration in practice and are reluctant to support the measures intended to bring it about.151 Research that is more detailed suggests that tolerance for racially integrated neighborhoods may be limited. Among homeowners, blacks are the “least preferred out-group neighbors” because they are perceived in unfavorable terms.152 Limited tolerance may result because homeowners prefer well-educated and relatively affluent neighbors; these socioeconomic status characteristics are more common among whites than among blacks. In this case, black neighbors are avoided for reasons that are related to social class. Limited tolerance may result from the belief that an increasing proportion of blacks relative to whites has negative consequences for neigh-

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borhoods.153 In principle, when blacks and whites have similar socioeconomic status characteristics, increasing levels of integration should have little effect on property values and white flight should not ensue. In practice, however, property values respond to racial composition, although research has not conclusively established why this is the case. For example, compared to their counterparts located in neighborhoods that are less than 10 percent black, housing units lose at least 16 percent of their value if they are located in neighborhoods that are more than 10 percent black. This finding corroborates other research showing that homeowners, regardless of race or ethnicity, avoid black neighbors out of material self-interest.154 However, estimates of the effects of the racial composition of neighborhoods on property values that do not control for nonracial factors are biased upward.155 Important submarket differences in the sensitivity of property values to the racial composition of neighborhoods are known to exist. The effects of the racial composition of neighborhoods on property values are strongest among concentrated homeowners and in certain regions outside the West. The extent to which property values drop, as the proportion of blacks relative to whites increases, depends on the percentage of current residents who are black; the percentage of housing units that are owner-occupied or rented; the region of the country; and the demographic, political economic, and sociohistorical characteristics of the city.156 Generally, the higher the educational and income levels of whites, the more likely they are to express social-class prejudices rather than racial prejudices. The lower the educational and income levels of whites, the more likely they are to express the opposite. The extent to which one or the other is expressed partly depends on the educational and income levels of the subgroup and is complicated by socioeconomic status inconsistency issues (e.g., some whites have high levels of education or income, but not both).157 The kinds of prejudice vary because different in-groups perceive different levels of threat, and experience different levels of competition, in their interactions with out-groups.158 For example, white ethnic groups that compete directly with blacks for jobs in secondary labor markets are less tolerant (or more prejudiced) than white ethnic groups employed in primary labor markets. 159 Apparently, racial tolerance and intolerance among white ethnic groups are, in part, social-psychological products of labor market conditions. Irish Protestants, Eastern Europeans, and Italians are less tolerant because they are disproportionately concentrated in secondary labor markets characterized by racially integrated industries; they compete directly with blacks for the more desirable jobs. Yet groups that are more tolerant are farther removed from blacks; they are employed within primary or secondary labor markets characterized by racially segregated industries. Generally, racial tolerance decreases as one moves from the upper reaches of the primary labor market

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to racially integrated industries in the secondary. Ethnicity per se does not appear to be an important factor affecting the degree of racial tolerance or intolerance shown by whites.160 Beliefs about the causes of racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainment outcomes help to explain white opposition to black integration. Prior to the early 1960s, a large percentage of whites viewed blacks as innately inferior in ways that would explain their relative disadvantage and justify segregation. The attribution of responsibility to whites by whites that emerged in the 1963 Gallup poll data may have been a brief anomaly. At that point, the U.S. Supreme Court and the general public were more inclined to believe that the subordination of blacks was rooted in discriminatory processes created and sustained by whites. After the late 1960s, attribution of blame to blacks increased again; however, racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainment outcomes were more likely to be attributed to motivational causes than to genetic causes.161 These attributions influence attitudes toward government policies intended to reduce disparities between whites and blacks. For example, support for federal intervention to desegregate schools dropped after the late 1960s as it became entangled in the volatile issue of court-ordered busing versus local control of, and choice over, schools.162 In school districts that allow choice, white families avoid black schools, even if they are located in neighborhoods more affluent than the disproportionately white schools they eventually select. Apparently, they equate racial composition with school quality and fear the consequences for college or university admissions if their children attend a predominantly black school. White families express more concern about the perceived reputation of the school among college and university admissions officers than about the quality of education that the school offers. The implication is that white families respond more strongly to the devalued status of being black than they do to the impact that the school may have on their children’s scholastic achievements. In this context, the objections of white parents in California to naming a high school after Martin Luther King Jr. are relevant. Some parents worried that the name-change would reduce their children’s chances of getting into the college or university of their choice.163 However, what race represents is not obvious or clear. In other words, school choice is not a simple matter of individual taste guided by prejudice or bigotry. The decisionmaking process itself is socially charged (i.e., racialized) as a consequence of how individuals and groups organize and evaluate their experiences.164 According to Michael Emerson et al.,165 individuals and groups organize and evaluate their experiences through a cultural repertoire that delimits perspectives and suggests appropriate actions. For example, faith-based values, assumptions, and beliefs (or schema) underpin the views of white

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conservative Protestants, which are transposed to new and diverse situations. Assumptions that shape explanations of inequality generally, and black-white racial inequality specifically, include accountable freewill individualism (the choices that individuals make are not constrained), antistructuralism (macrosociological factors are omitted, ignored, or rejected), and relationalism (family, friends, and significant others are crucial to making right or wrong choices). Although white conservative Protestants may have encountered macrosociological accounts, they rely heavily on their own subcultural accounts. In contrast, liberals (who also recognize the centrality of the individual) believe that individuals are shaped by social structures such as inadequate educational opportunities. People are viewed as essentially good, morality is the prerogative of the individual, and individual happiness is perhaps the greatest goal. White conservative Protestants believe that individuals are accountable for their own free choices—which may be right or wrong as determined by a divine lawgiver—to family, friends, and God. Rooted in conservative Protestant theology and based on a literalist interpretation of the Bible, as the result of original sin white conservative Protestants distrust human propensities. If individuals are not rooted in proper interpersonal contexts, they will make wrong choices—thus the emphasis on relationalism. Relationalism derives from the theological, and nonnegotiable, belief that human nature is fallen and that Christian maturity and salvation can come only through a personal relationship with Christ. Transposed to family and friends, healthy relationships encourage people to make the right choices. As such, white conservative Protestants tend to view social problems as rooted in dysfunctional or pathological relationships.166 White conservative Protestants reject as irrelevant macrosociological accounts that challenge the extent to which individuals can control their life-circumstances; more often than other whites, they rely on accountable freewill individualism and relationalism as modes of explanation. In other words, they explain racial disparities in educational, occupational, and income attainments primarily in individualistic, not structural, terms; and they highlight what they perceive as dysfunctional relationships among blacks. According to white conservative Protestant theology, individuals tend to absolve responsibility for personal sins by shifting blame elsewhere, such as “the system.” Therefore, white conservative Protestants are antistructural because, in their view, invoking macrosociological factors shifts responsibility from its root source—the accountable freewill individual.167 The differences between these and other whites are one of degree rather than kind. Whites as a whole are more individualistic than structural; however, because of a reliance on a theologically based cultural repertoire, white conservative Protestants are more individualistic and less structural.168

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A substantial majority of whites believes that educational, occupational, and income opportunities are available to all. The concept of equal opportunity derives from, and maintains, accountable freewill individualism. In fact, freewill individualism requires a belief in equality of opportunity, or the world would be unfair and God would be unjust. In this context, racial disparities are explained by a lack of motivation or individual initiative, as well as by cultural deficiencies such as family breakdown (i.e., dysfunctional relationalism). Blacks lack hope and the ability to envision what is possible.169 White conservative Protestants, then, are aggregationists or—in the language of the sociology of knowledge—voluntaristic nominalists. Culture, then, is the sum of the behaviors of aggregated accountable freewill individuals and the relations within which they are embedded. Social problems arise because individuals make more wrong choices than right choices—reflected in rising rates of illegitimacy, lack of commitment to family life, failure to stay in school and learn proper English, vandalism, and gang activity.170 People will make wrong choices if they are not in proper relational context with others. For most white conservative Protestants, blacks suffer from a lack of responsibility; an inability to envision or take advantage of opportunities for improvement; and dysfunctional relationalism (reflected in deteriorating family bonds and inappropriate significant others). By relying on programs rather than themselves, and by shifting blame to the system, they are rendered less competitive in the labor market. White conservative Protestants believe that blacks, despite being Christians, violate key tenets of Christianity; in other words, they are not good American Christians.171 Racial inequality would recede into history if blacks would “catch the vision,” change their habits, stop trying to shift blame, and apply themselves responsibly—in short, act more like Christians. As a Free Church member put it in Emerson et al.’s study,172 “‘The Christian life is one that is free, and we’re told that if we get into the Word and we meditate on the Word, what happens to us is that we become prosperous and successful. So if it’s a problem of poverty, people come to Christ and find out who they are, then they find ways to become successful.’” For some white conservative Protestants, AFDC, food stamps, and related programs for the poor undermine accountable freewill individualism and healthy relationalism. Welfare violates the Protestant work ethic, discourages motivation and responsibility, breaks down the family, and leads to laziness and sin. Blacks, because they are viewed as having less moral fortitude and initiative, are more likely to receive welfare and therefore to suffer its consequences. The state contributes to the problem by trying to solve individuallevel failings with societal-level programs. Because these programs obviate, allegedly, personal responsibility and do not change the hearts of

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individuals, they are viewed as destructive.173 In short, accountable freewill individualism, relationalism, and antistructuralism render structural factors secondary to the belief that obstacles, with individual drive, can be overcome.174 If school busing and affirmative action programs are proffered to redress racial inequities, then white conservative Protestants will oppose such initiatives. Obstruction occurs not because they oppose the principle of racial equality per se. Rather, they view government efforts to achieve racial equality as naive, misguided, wasteful, and counterproductive because they undermine accountable freewill individualism. The United States offers equal opportunity to its citizens; inequality results from problems of relationships; and the solution to social problems is changing individuals. By sustaining these views, white conservative Protestants explain black-white inequality by holding blacks accountable for their plight, contribute indirectly to the perpetuation of black-white (and likely other forms of) inequality, and provide rationales for the New Right generally. Nevertheless, they are uncomfortable with blacks because the black experience threatens to undermine their subcultural accounts, as well as their faith. In this context, opposition to government efforts to redress racial inequities is rooted deeply in how people understand and explain the social world.175 These observations might help to explain why a segment of the black middle class, rooted in a self-help approach, opposes school busing to promote integration; believes that minimum wage laws and welfare programs such as AFDC are counterproductive; and argues that progress should come through individual effort, not structural change.176 The self-help approach assumes it is necessary that individuals change before they can take advantage of the educational, occupational, and income opportunities available to them; therefore, intervention begins at the individual level. A recent version of the self-help approach repudiates the state’s role in creating, and thus its responsibility for remedying, racial inequality.177 For example, in a book titled (ironically) Getting Beyond Race, Richard Payne178 revived the claim that irrational misunderstandings, more than any other factor, impede black socioeconomic status gains today. He envisioned a society of liberally minded, inner-directed individuals who, united by the American creed and unfettered by racial categorization, are free to compete for the available rewards. He advised blacks that they should interpret obstacles as challenges rather than as barriers; and he advised whites and blacks that “putting oneself in another person’s shoes helps improve race relations, partly because it enhances communication and feelings of empathy.” For Payne, then, “race is [ultimately] a local and personal concern.”179 Payne defended the so-called contact hypothesis as a way to improve

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race relations and reduce racial inequities. In other words, opportunities for socioeconomic status attainments would improve if people of different races could interact in a positive context; racial prejudice and bigotry would give way to more realistic assessments and, presumably, more equitable life-chances.180 In a review of fifty-three articles examining the contact hypothesis published in six major journals (American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Problems, Journal of Social Issues, and Social Psychological Quarterly) from 1960 through 1984, W. Scott Ford 181 attempted to assess the validity of its claims. He found substantial difficulties in this body of research. For example, to varying degrees, the articles had questionable operationalizations; favored some interactional settings over others, such as schools over places of employment; used data from sources other than general population surveys; and failed to reveal sample sizes. Only three articles conducted controlled laboratory experiments. Ford concluded that the claims of the contact hypothesis are premature and that the hypothesis itself is not valid generally or very useful for understanding the dynamics of race relations. In other words, the link between attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors is highly complex and often contradictory.182

Conclusion Methodological debates aside, residential segregation apparently is the nexus that structures black life-chances. White avoidance of black neighbors is a complex phenomenon rooted in values, attitudes, and beliefs at the individual level; cultural repertoires at the group level; a “web of discrimination” at the regional level; and policies, procedures, and practices at the state level.183 Whites move outward in metropolitan areas as a consequence of (1) values, attitudes, and beliefs that may or may not be racially based; (2) disproportional increases in the black population (which, reflecting rising fertility rates and constricted housing opportunities, fuel the fear of declining property values); (3) the suburbanization of employment; (4) infrastructural decline; (5) relative tax and municipal service levels;184 and (6) the institutionalized practices of the real estate and mortgage-lending industries as well as local, state, and federal governments. Whites may shift to the suburbs of densely populated cities because of the lack of space for, and the high cost of, new housing in central cities; here population redistribution is a function of the redistribution of housing units.185 Blacks may be able to move into suburbs when they become too large to control by a few realtors, restrictions on land use decrease, and job opportunities increase.186 Middle-class blacks are more likely to live in

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integrated suburbs in the West and the New South as they follow job opportunities. Much new housing is built and marketed under antidiscrimination legislation, thereby reducing the number of neighborhoods that are exclusively white or black. Reynolds Farley and William Frey187 noted that a high percentage of new housing construction in a metropolitan area is a powerful force promoting integration. In addition, compared to metropolitan areas where segregation levels have remained relatively constant in recent years, metropolitan areas where segregation levels have decreased have substantially smaller—but growing—black populations, as well as the highest average annual growth rate in mean black household income. Massey and Denton188 agreed with Wilson’s189 view that the structural transformation of the U.S. economy was an important factor in the emergence of the urban underclass during the 1970s; however, the complex processes that both created and reproduce residential segregation made it disproportionately black. Wilson’s190 rejoinder to Massey and Denton did not constitute a convincing critique; and Wilson’s work as a whole on the black underclass remains a partial, albeit important, explanation fettered by conceptual, methodological, and epistemological problems that originated with The Declining Significance of Race.191 In downplaying the significance of residential segregation and the complex processes that maintain it, Wilson192 directed attention from racially discriminatory practices to the so-called cultural deficiencies of the urban black poor (which he attributed primarily to the out-migration of middle-class blacks and secondarily to other processes). It is a short step to assuming that the urban black poor possess integration-preventing characteristics that cause their problems.193 Research findings are generally consistent with Wilson’s194 claim that the acquisition of human capital assets will facilitate the spatial assimilation of blacks. However, as the observations above make clear, the acquisition of human capital assets is a necessary but insufficient condition to move blacks closer to equality with whites. In other words, residential segregation is the manifestation of a “coherent and uniquely effective system of racial subordination”; it is a primary structural factor perpetuating the black underclass. 195 As long as residential segregation is imposed on blacks, race cannot be ignored as “a salient dimension of stratification in American society.” 196 If it were not for segregation—embodied in the activities of the state—it is doubtful that debates about the underclass, characterized by concentration effects, would have the currency that they do today.197 Policies to redress the problems experienced by the urban black poor specifically, and to redress racial inequities generally, probably will fail if they do not include measures to overcome the disadvantages caused by discrimination in the housing market.198

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Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

Wilson, When Work Disappears, 16. Ibid., 42. Ibid., 23–24. Ibid., 24; Wilson, “The Political Economy and Urban Racial Tensions,”

308. 5. Wilson, When Work Disappears, 44–46. 6. Wilson, “The Political Economy and Urban Racial Tensions,” 309, 312–314; cf. Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, 73. 7. Cf. Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality,” 1155–1156; Schill, “Race, the Underclass, and Public Policy.” Yet Patterson (The Ordeal of Integration, 43–48) claimed that Massey and Denton exaggerated the significance of “hypersegregation” and that the use of the term “apartheid” was “grossly misleading and unfair.” 8. Marshall and Jiobu, “Residential Segregation in United States Cities,” 449; Morgan, “An Alternative Approach to the Development of a Distance-Based Measure of Racial Segregation”; Reed, “The Underclass as Myth and Symbol,” 30; Roof, “Southern Birth and Racial Residential Segregation,” 350, 357; Rose, “Are Non-Race-Specific Policies the Key to Resolving the Plight of the Inner-City Poor?” 160–161; Van Valey, Roof, and Wilcox, “Trends in Residential Segregation: 1960–1970”; White, “The Measurement of Spatial Segregation.” 9. Krivo et al., “Race, Segregation, and the Concentration of Disadvantage: 1980–1990,” 75. 10. Massey, “American Apartheid,” 350. 11. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears; Massey, “American Apartheid,” 352. 12. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged. 13. Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality”; cf. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 117–118. 14. Massey, “American Apartheid,” 330, 352; Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality,” 1153. 15. Massey, Gross, and Shibuya, “Migration, Segregation, and the Geographic Concentration of Poverty,” 427, 443. 16. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 17. Massey, Gross, and Shibuya, “Migration, Segregation, and the Geographic Concentration of Poverty,” 427. 18. Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality,” 1170–1171. 19. Ibid., 1180. 20. Massey, Gross, and Shibuya, “Migration, Segregation, and the Geographic Concentration of Poverty,” 443. 21. Ibid. 22. Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality,” 1170–1171; Alba, Logan, and Stults, “How Segregated Are Middle-Class African Americans?” 544, 554, 556. 23. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 24. Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality,” 1170. 25. Ibid., 1171, 1179.

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26. Massey, “American Apartheid,” 330. 27. Ibid., 329–357. 28. Ibid., 331. 29. Denton and Massey, “Racial Identity Among Caribbean Hispanics,” 791. 30. Massey, “A Research Note on Residential Succession.” 31. Massey, “Social Class and Ethnic Segregation,” 641–642, 649. 32. Massey, “Effects of Socioeconomic Factors on the Residential Segregation of Blacks and Spanish Americans in U.S. Urbanized Areas,” 1021. 33. Massey and Denton, “Spatial Assimilation as a Socioeconomic Outcome,” 104. 34. Simkus, “Residential Segregation by Occupation and Race in Ten Urbanized Areas, 1950–1970,” 91. 35. Logan and Schneider, “Racial Segregation and Racial Change in American Suburbs, 1970–1980,” 878. 36. Simkus, “Residential Segregation by Occupation and Race in Ten Urbanized Areas, 1950–1970,” 91. 37. Alba and Logan, “Minority Proximity to Whites in Suburbs,” 1389; cf. Farley, “The Changing Distribution of Negroes Within Metropolitan Areas”; Kantrowitz, “Ethnic and Racial Segregation in the New York Metropolis, 1960.” 38. Logan and Schneider, “Racial Segregation and Racial Change in American Suburbs, 1970–1980,” 884. 39. Ibid., 887; Stearns and Logan, “The Racial Structuring of the Housing Market and Segregation in Suburban Areas”; cf. Logan and Stearns, “Suburban Racial Segregation as a Nonecological Process.” 40. Logan and Schneider, “Racial Segregation and Racial Change in American Suburbs, 1970–1980,” 885–887. 41. Massey and Denton, “Trends in the Residential Segregation of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians,” 823. 42. Massey and Denton, “Suburbanization and Segregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas,” 592. 43. Alba and Logan, “Minority Proximity to Whites in Suburbs,” 1423. 44. Massey and Denton, “Trends in the Residential Segregation of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians,” 802. 45. Ibid.; Massey and Mullan, “Processes of Hispanic and Black Spatial Assimilation.” 46. Massey and Mullan, “Processes of Hispanic and Black Spatial Assimilation,” 836, 868. 47. Massey, “Effects of Socioeconomic Factors on the Residential Segregation of Blacks and Spanish Americans in U.S. Urbanized Areas,” 1020. 48. Denton and Massey, “Racial Identity Among Caribbean Hispanics,” 790. 49. Ibid., 806. 50. Massey and Mullan, “Processes of Hispanic and Black Spatial Assimilation.” 51. Ibid., 869. 52. Massey and Denton, “Spatial Assimilation as a Socioeconomic Outcome,” 94–106. 53. Massey and Bitterman, “Explaining the Paradox of Puerto Rican Segregation.” 54. Santiago, “Patterns of Puerto Rican Segregation and Mobility.” Also see Telles, “Residential Segregation by Skin Color in Brazil,” 186. Telles examined residential segregation by skin color in thirty-five of the largest metropolitan areas in

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Brazil. Residential dissimilarity between whites, mulattoes, and blacks is only moderate by U.S. standards. White-black dissimilarity is the highest, followed by brown-black dissimilarity, and then white-brown dissimilarity. Residential segregation by race within income groups is lowest for the bottom groups and increases with the middle- and upper-income groups. For most of the white middle class, residential segregation is ensured by the concentration of blacks and mulattoes in the lower classes and in distinct regions. Racial segregation is significantly greater in metropolitan areas characterized by high levels of occupational inequality, low levels of mean income, and concentrated home ownership. 55. Massey, “Effects of Socioeconomic Factors on the Residential Segregation of Blacks and Spanish Americans in U.S. Urbanized Areas”; Massey, “American Apartheid,” 354; Massey, “America’s Apartheid and the Urban Underclass,” 474; cf. Darroch and Marston, “The Social Class Basis of Ethnic Residential Segregation.” 56. Massey and Denton, “Suburbanization and Segregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas,” 621–622. 57. Massey and Denton, “Spatial Assimilation as a Socioeconomic Outcome,” 104; Massey and Denton, “Suburbanization and Segregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas,” 622. 58. Massey and Denton, “Spatial Assimilation as a Socioeconomic Outcome,” 104; Villemez, “Race, Class, and Neighborhood,” 427–428. 59. Alba and Logan, “Minority Proximity to Whites in Suburbs,” 1422. 60. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged. 61. Guest and Weed, “Ethnic Residential Segregation,” 1088; Jargowsky, “Take the Money and Run,” 986; Rosenberg and Lake, “Toward a Revised Model of Residential Segregation and Succession,” 1147–1148. According to Rosenberg and Lake, within the private housing market in New York City, white preferences for Puerto Rican tenants and neighbors, as opposed to black tenants and neighbors, are balanced against the relative socioeconomic status attainment levels of the groups to determine the outcome of interminority competition for housing. With somewhat greater socioeconomic resources, apparently blacks can compete more successfully for housing if the private market selects on the basis of ability to pay. 62. Massey and Denton, “Trends in the Residential Segregation of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians”; Massey, Condran, and Denton, “The Effects of Residential Segregation on Black Social and Economic Well-Being.” 63. Massey and Denton, “Trends in the Residential Segregation of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians,” 823. 64. Ibid. 65. Ibid.; Massey and Denton, “Suburbanization and Segregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas,” 606. 66. Jargowsky, “Take the Money and Run,” 986. 67. Denowitz, “Racial Succession in New York City, 1960–1970”; cf. Denowitz, “Status Change and Persistence in Chicago Suburbs.” 68. South and Crowder, “Leaving the ’Hood,” 25. 69. South and Deane, “Race and Residential Mobility,” 161, 163. 70. Massey, “American Apartheid,” 353. 71. Ibid.; E. Rosenbaum, “The Constraints on Minority Housing Choices, New York City 1978–1987,” 743. 72. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 73. Denton and Massey, “Racial Identity Among Caribbean Hispanics,” 806.

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74. Marshall and Stahura, “Determinants of Black Suburbanization.” 75. Alba and Logan, “Minority Proximity to Whites in Suburbs,” 1391. 76. Stahura, “Determinants of Change in the Distribution of Blacks Across Suburbs,” 422. 77. Stearns and Logan, “The Racial Structuring of the Housing Market and Segregation in Suburban Areas,” 28; Marshall and Stahura, “Determinants of Black Suburbanization,” 238. 78. Marshall and Stahura, “Determinants of Black Suburbanization,” 251. 79. E. Rosenbaum, “The Constraints on Minority Housing Choices, New York City 1978–1987,” 743. 80. Stahura, “Status Transition of Blacks and Whites in American Suburbs,” 91; Marshall and Stahura, “Determinants of Black Suburbanization,” 238. 81. E. Rosenbaum, “The Constraints on Minority Housing Choices, New York City 1978–1987,” 742, 725–726, 728. 82. Hermalin and Farley, “The Potential for Residential Integration in Cities and Suburbs,” 608. 83. Gross and Massey, “Spatial Assimilation Models,” 351. 84. Massey and Fong, “Segregation and Neighborhood Quality,” 17. Massey and Fong attributed the phrase “web of discrimination” to Amos Hawley. 85. Gross and Massey, “Spatial Assimilation Models,” 350–351. 86. Greer, “The Political Economy of the Local State,” 522. 87. Stahura, “Suburban Development, Black Suburbanization, and the Civil Rights Movement Since World War II,” 141. 88. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 89. R. Brooks, Rethinking the American Race Problem. 90. Shulman, “Race, Class, and Occupational Stratification,” 24; cf. Wilson, When Work Disappears, 46–47, 199–200. Here, Wilson noted that the federal government through the practices of the Federal Housing Administration contributed to the “early decay” of inner-city black neighborhoods by encouraging middle-class whites to move to the suburbs. This statement contradicted his claim in The Declining Significance of Race that the state stood apart from racial conflict in the industrial period and that racial conflict was confined to the economic sector and instigated mainly by the white working class. In fact, state intervention itself structured the life-chances of a substantial segment of the black community. 91. Judd, “Segregation Forever?” 740, 742, 744; cf. Kushner, “Apartheid in America.” 92. Blackwell, The Black Community, 208; Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 36. 93. Judd, “Segregation Forever?” 740. 94. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 50; Massey and Fong, “Segregation and Neighborhood Quality,” 16. 95. Massey, “America’s Apartheid and the Urban Underclass,” 476. 96. Stahura, “Determinants of Change in the Distribution of Blacks Across Suburbs,” 422. 97. Farley and Frey, “Changes in the Segregation of Whites From Blacks During the 1980s,” 25; Blackwell, The Black Community, 204–205; Massey, “America’s Apartheid and the Urban Underclass,” 474; Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 52–55. 98. Parcel, “Wealth Accumulation of Black and White Men,” 208. 99. Farley and Frey, “Changes in the Segregation of Whites From Blacks During the 1980s,” 26.

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100. Blackwell, The Black Community. 101. Ibid., 211. 102. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 195–198. 103. Ibid., 210. 104. Massey, “America’s Apartheid and the Urban Underclass,” 477. 105. Ibid., 474. 106. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 99, 105. 107. Blackwell, The Black Community, 206. 108. For more information on housing practices at the local governmental level that enforce segregation, see Tabb, The Political Economy of the Black Ghetto, 12–20. 109. South and Deane, “Race and Residential Mobility,” 161, 163. 110. Cloud and Galster, “What Do We Know About Racial Discrimination in Mortgage Markets?” 107–108; Leahy, “Are Racial Factors Important for the Allocation of Mortgage Money?” 186; cf. H. Horton, “Race and Wealth”; M. Thomas and Horton, “Race, Class, and Family Structure.” 111. Leahy, “Are Racial Factors Important for the Allocation of Mortgage Money?” 185–196. 112. Ibid., 193. 113. Cloud and Galster, “What Do We Know About Racial Discrimination in Mortgage Markets?” 108–109. 114. Ibid., 109. 115. Marullo, “Targets for Racial Invasion and Reinvasion”; cf. processes of gentrification. 116. Ibid. 117. Stahura, “Determinants of Change in the Distribution of Blacks Across Suburbs,” 422; Stearns and Logan, “The Racial Structuring of the Housing Market and Segregation in Suburban Areas,” 29. 118. Gotham, “Racialization and the State.” 119. Pearce, “Gatekeepers and Homekeepers,” 339–341. 120. Stearns and Logan, “The Racial Structuring of the Housing Market and Segregation in Suburban Areas,” 30. 121. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 106–107. 122. Squires and Kim, “Does Anybody Who Works Here Look Like Me.” 123. Ibid.; cf. Squires, “The Political Economy of Housing.” 124. Squires, DeWolfe, and DeWolfe, “Urban Decline or Disinvestment.” 125. Squires, Velez, and Taeuber, “Insurance Redlining, Agency Location, and the Process of Urban Disinvestment,” 569–570; Squires and Velez, “Insurance Redlining and the Transformation of an Urban Metropolis.” 126. Squires, Velez, and Taeuber, “Insurance Redlining, Agency Location, and the Process of Urban Disinvestment,” 481, 570. 127. Bickford and Massey, “Segregation in the Second Ghetto.” 128. Massey and Fong, “Segregation and Neighborhood Quality,” 17. 129. Bickford and Massey, “Segregation in the Second Ghetto.” 130. Gross and Massey, “Spatial Assimilation Models,” 348–349; Massey, “America’s Apartheid and the Urban Underclass,” 477–478. 131. Roscigno, “Family/School Inequality and African-American/Hispanic Achievement,” 268–269. 132. Cf. Erbe, “Race and Socioeconomic Segregation,” 812; LaVeist, “Linking Residential Segregation to the Infant Mortality Race Disparity in U.S. Cities,” 90–94.

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133. Pattillo, “Sweet Mothers and Gangbangers,” 752, 755. 134. Ibid., 770. Black middle-class residents may experience downward mobility anyway as a function of eroding property values—the main source of equity—and an inability to move out; see Shihadeh and Flynn, “Segregation and Crime.” 135. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 158. 136. Gross and Massey, “Spatial Assimilation Models,” 350; Kapsis, “Black Ghetto Diversity and Anomie,” 1152; cf. Crain, “School Integration and Occupational Achievement of Negroes,” 606. Crain noted that residential segregation, even with the elimination of racial prejudice, would limit the educational and occupational opportunities of blacks for years to come. 137. Massey and Denton, “Spatial Assimilation as a Socioeconomic Outcome,” 104. 138. Gross and Massey, “Spatial Assimilation Models,” 350. 139. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 199. 140. Massey, “America’s Apartheid and the Urban Underclass,” 482–484. 141. E.g., Aronoff, “A Review [of The Declining Significance of Race],” 19; Bonacich, “Capitalism and Race Relations in South Africa”; R. Brooks, Rethinking the American Race Problem; Franklin, Shadows of Race and Class; Pettigrew, “The Changing—Not Declining—Significance of Race”; Shulman, “Race, Class, and Occupational Stratification”; R. Thomas, “A Review [of The Declining Significance of Race],” 12; Willie, Caste and Class Controversy on Race and Poverty. Shulman was one of the first to question why housing was excluded from the economic sector in Wilson’s analysis. 142. Bonacich, “Capitalism and Race Relations in South Africa,” 242. 143. Shulman, “Race, Class, and Occupational Stratification,” 24, 29. 144. D. R. Harris, “‘Property Values Drop When Blacks Move in Because . . . ,’” 463; Schuman and Bobo, “Survey-Based Experiments on White Racial Attitudes Toward Residential Integration,” 296; See, “Ideology and Racial Stratification,” 83–84. 145. D. R. Harris, “‘Property Values Drop When Blacks Move in Because . . . ,’” 475; Farley et al., “Stereotypes and Segregation,” 751; Molotch, “Racial Integration in a Transition Community”; cf. Kantrowitz, “Ethnic and Racial Segregation in the New York Metropolis, 1960”; R. Payne, Getting Beyond Race. 146. Farley et al., “Stereotypes and Segregation,” 753, 776–777. For reasons that are not clear, the preference of blacks for integrated neighborhoods has weakened in recent years. 147. Firebaugh and Davis, “Trends in Antiblack Prejudice, 1972–1984,” 266–267; Ransford and Bartolomeo, “Has There Been a Resurgence of Racist Attitudes in the General Population?” 148. Steeh and Schuman, “Young White Adults: Did Racial Attitudes Change in the 1980s?” 360. 149. Farley and Frey, “Changes in the Segregation of Whites From Blacks During the 1980s,” 28, 40. 150. C. Brooks, “Civil Rights Liberalism and the Suppression of a Republican Political Realignment in the United States, 1972 to 1996,” 484–485, 501–502. 151. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 91–92; Pettigrew, “Race and Class in the 1980s,” 252; Schaefer, “Racial Prejudice in the Capitalist State,” 196–197. 152. Charles, “Neighborhood Racial-Composition Preferences”; Timberlake, “Still Life in Black and White.”

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153. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 92, 94. Ironically, little is known about the effects of integration on property maintenance. Based on a limited study, Reese and Matre (“Property Maintenance and Residential Integration”) concluded that black residents maintained their homes as well as, if not better than, their neighbors. 154. D. R. Harris, “‘Property Values Drop When Blacks Move in Because . . . ,’” 463, 476. 155. Ibid., 476. 156. Ibid.; cf. J. Rosenbaum et al., “Social Integration of Low-Income Adults in Middle-Class White Suburbs.” 157. Giles, Gatlin, and Cataldo, “Racial and Class Prejudice,” 280–288. 158. Fuchs and Case, “A Grid-Group Theory of Prejudice.” 159. Cummings, “White Ethnics, Racial Prejudice, and Labor Market Segmentation,” 938, 945, 948–949. 160. Indeed, much of the behavior commonly associated with ethnicity may be a function of the structural situations within which groups are situated. 161. Schuman and Krysan, “A Historical Note on Whites’ Beliefs About Racial Inequality”; Kluegel, “Trends in Whites’ Explanations of the Black-White Gap in Socioeconomic Status, 1977–1989,” 512; cf. Schuman and Bobo, “SurveyBased Experiments on White Racial Attitudes Toward Residential Integration.” According to Schuman and Krysan, white beliefs about who, or what, is responsible for racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainments are influenced by, and reflect, changes in the larger social context at the time the questions are posed. For example, the increased blaming of blacks for racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainments may have resulted, in part, from media constructions. In the middle to late 1960s, the media shifted their attention from peaceful black protesters being assaulted by southern whites to young black males looting and burning innercity neighborhoods. 162. Schuman and Krysan, “A Historical Note on Whites’ Beliefs About Racial Inequality,” 853–854. 163. Saporito and Lareau, “School Selection as a Process.” 164. Stated more formally, the role of race, as an explanatory variable in discriminatory practices, cannot be grasped correctly without an appropriate understanding of the processes of racialization within which it is embedded. 165. Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World,” 400–401; cf. Weigel and Howes, “Conceptions of Racial Prejudice.” 166. Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World,” 401–402. 167. Ibid., 401. 168. Ibid., 401–402. 169. Ibid., 407. 170. Ibid., 408; Wolff, “The Sociology of Knowledge and Sociological Theory.” 171. Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World,” 409–410. 172. Quoted in Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World,” 410; cf. Hughey, “Americanism and Its Discontents.” 173. Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World,” 410–411. 174. Ibid., 413; cf. R. Payne, Getting Beyond Race. 175. Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World,” 414; cf. Block et al., The Mean Season.

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176. Evans, “The New American Black Middle Classes,” 225; cf. Billingsley, Mighty Like a River; Evans, “Black Middle Classes: The Outlook of a New Generation.” 177. Rein, Social Science and Public Policy, 82–83; Steinberg, “Occupational Apartheid,” 748. 178. R. Payne, Getting Beyond Race. 179. Ibid., 18, 21, 27–28. 180. Ibid., 165–166; cf. Cohen and Roper, “Modification of Interracial Interaction Disability,” 644. 181. W. Ford, “Favorable Intergroup Contact May Not Reduce Prejudice,” 256–258. 182. Cohen and Roper, “Modification of Interracial Interaction Disability,” 657; Emerson, “Is It Different in Dixie?” 578; Langmuir, “Prolegomena to Any Present Analysis of Hostility Against Jews”; Middleton, “Regional Differences in Prejudice.” 183. Cf. Guest and Zuiches, “Another Look at Residential Turnover in Urban Neighborhoods.” 184. Frey, “Central City White Flight,” 444. 185. Marshall, “White Movement to the Suburbs,” 975, 991; South and Deane, “Race and Residential Mobility,” 161, 163; cf. Goodman and Streitwieser, “Explaining Racial Differences.” 186. Stahura, “Suburban Development, Black Suburbanization, and the Civil Rights Movement Since World War II,” 142. 187. Farley and Frey, “Changes in the Segregation of Whites From Blacks During the 1980s,” 40–41. 188. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 136–137. 189. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears. 190. Wilson, When Work Disappears. 191. Cf. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 220. On pages 85, 88, and 109, Massey and Denton argued that race “clearly predominates” as an explanatory variable. 192. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears; cf. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 8–9. 193. Skutnabb-Kangas, “Legitimating or Delegitimating New Forms of Racism,” 87. 194. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 195. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 8; Massey, “America’s Apartheid and the Urban Underclass,” 478. 196. Massey and Eggers, “The Ecology of Inequality,” 1186; Massey and Mullan, “Processes of Hispanic and Black Spatial Assimilation,” 870–871. 197. Judd, “Segregation Forever?” 741. 198. Massey, “American Apartheid,” 329.

6 Conclusion: A Bridge over the Theoretical Divide

The Theoretical Divide With a few exceptions,1 the U.S. sociology of race relations has failed to provide an epistemologically coherent framework that explicitly addresses the role of the state in structuring black life-chances.2 A sustained analysis of the state could serve as a bridge over the theoretical divide embodied in the arbitrary and unjustifiable separation of the economic sector from the sociopolitical order; the failure of an aggregate of conceptual communities to find common ground; and, the apparent inability of the sociology of race relations to discard the ideological baggage that marginalized the field in the first place. Conversely, contemporary developments in the theories of the state have had little to say about race specifically or processes of racialization generally. In the discipline of sociology as a whole, a renewed concern with the state did not become apparent until the mid-1960s when critical-minded neo-Marxists launched a series of debates about the capitalist state and instigated a paradigmatic shift that involved a fundamental rethinking of the role of the state in relation to the political economy.3 All explanations of race relations make implicit (or domain) assumptions regarding the nature of the state and its relationship to racial inequality.4 In the U.S. sociology of race relations, thinking about the state rarely has gone beyond the “acceptable categories of thought” already defined by the state.5 Generally, the field has ignored the power of the state to construct through its ideological apparatuses (notably, public education) the categories of thought that are subsequently applied to the analysis of both race relations and the state itself. Through its ideological apparatuses, the state proclaims that it acts in the interests of all; that is, it claims a false universality expressed, for example, in the American creed. The state’s

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assertion of universality is, in part, an attempt by the state to legitimize itself.6 This process encourages a view that the state is not shaped by race because presumably it intervenes in, but does not constitute the structures of, race relations.7 Although some authors8 challenged Wilson’s9 relatively benign view of the state in the modern industrial period, he laid the groundwork for, but did not suggest or develop, an argument that structural theories of the state can serve as a focal point for conceptually enriching the U.S. sociology of race relations. Particularly, Wilson introduced an element of historicism by arguing that each period of race relations embodies a different form of racial stratification structured by the particular arrangement of both the economy and the polity. And he countered (initially, at least) the liberal assumption that the state is a neutral arbiter in racial conflict: thus different systems of production and/or different arrangements of the polity have imposed different constraints on the way in which racial groups have interacted in the United States, constraints that have structured the relations between racial groups and that have produced dissimilar contexts not only for the manifestation of racial antagonisms, but also for racial group access to rewards and privileges.10

The promise of The Declining Significance of Race was its potential for theoretically analyzing the state and its role in structuring race relations through the course of U.S. history. In contradistinction to the popular tendency to psychologize race relations, The Declining Significance of Race introduced a greater degree of historical specificity and a sharper awareness of the role of social-class struggle. Race relations were detached no longer from the structure and functioning of the state (although Wilson did not develop such an argument in any of his published books or articles). The state supported the racial and social-class structures of society in the preindustrial and industrial periods, and it supports the social-class structure in the modern industrial period. Nevertheless, Wilson’s11 framework was not state-centered. That is, it did not articulate a conception of the state that explains why the state acts as it does in structuring race relations. In effect, Wilson reproduced the shortcomings in the sociology of race relations itself. For example, Michael Burawoy 12 noted that the concept of the state is missing as well from Bonacich’s13 split labor market theory—a critical component of the industrial period. The central question is how certain social-class interests were able to prevail over other interests, which cannot be answered fully without an appropriate specification of the state, including the limits imposed, or the opportunities presented, by the specific contradictions of the state itself.14 In this context, Wilson did not identify the broad limits of state

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actions in each of the three periods; neither did he explain why these limits exist. A substantial part of the sociology of race relations subscribes to liberal or pluralist views of the state or ignores the state altogether.15 It is fettered by the older assumptions of a problem-solving, policy-oriented sociology that in its latest guise appears in The Bridge Over the Racial Divide. In the memorable phrase of President Herbert Hoover, it is written as if the state were “the umpire in our social system.”16 Wilson’s failure to adequately conceptualize the role of the state denies, in effect, what Skocpol17 called the “inherent historicity of sociopolitical structures.” Stated differently, Wilson’s18 failure to meaningfully articulate the relationship between the economic sector and the sociopolitical order resulted in the absence of a coherent conception of the structures and functions of the capitalist state. Wilson confined his analysis mainly to structures external to the state—for example, the split labor market. His sensitivity to the complex dynamics and contradictions that characterize the levels of the state was barely visible. This lack of sensitivity may lead to a serious error—the belief that if one has conceptualized the relationship between capital and labor in the context of race, then one has conceptualized the state as well.19 Wilson recognized that race relations are conditioned by the dynamics of the capitalist mode of production as it evolves over time. However, these relations are embodied within, and mediated by, the apparatuses of the state.20 The sociology of race relations is characterized by comparatively few attempts to conceptualize this problematic. In this context, Wilson21 did not advance the theoretical standing of the sociology of race relations. In short, despite his concern with policy, Wilson22 did not offer a wellformulated, coherent, and sustained theoretical analysis of the state and its relationship to racial inequality. He did not make explicit the assumptions that define the nature of the state or explain why the state changes over time. The state as a neutral arbiter responding to societal needs and social dislocations was rejected, partially, in The Declining Significance of Race and was accepted, mainly, in The Bridge Over the Racial Divide. This incoherence is possible because Wilson’s work as a whole did not escape one of the main failings of the sociology of race relations: throughout its history, it has operated in a context in which sociological theories of race relations and sociological theories of the state are treated as if they are unrelated to each other. 23 Where the state has appeared, liberal and pluralist views encouraged the assumption that the economic sector and the sociopolitical order are separate; in other words, the state stands apart from, and acts as, a neutral arbiter or umpire in the social system. In The Declining Significance of Race, Wilson overestimated the ability of the state to effect racial transformation and consolidate black socioe-

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conomic status gains in the modern industrial period. In The Truly Disadvantaged and When Work Disappears, he underestimated the extent to which the spatial isolation of poor blacks is exacerbated by the indifference of political parties, public agencies, parastatal corporations, and local and regional governing bodies to their plight. The extent to which these bodies are capable of spanning numerous boundaries in order to “create interests which can be unified across racial lines” is an empirical question that cannot be adequately answered in the absence of appropriate theoretical specification.24 In The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, Wilson recognized the state as the focal point for collective change. However, he did not offer a thorough study of the intricacies of, and constraints on, collective action through the state. As I will attempt to demonstrate below, the state does not respond in a coherent, consistent, or contradictory-free manner.25 In the formulation of policies to redress racial inequities, it is essential to know more about the contours of the state, how they have changed historically, and why they may change in the future. In short, no “politics of reformism” can take place without a theory of the character of the state.26 Although the U.S. sociology of race relations has discarded some of its ideological baggage in recent years, it has not rejected liberal or pluralist views of the state in which competing racial and ethnic interests contend with one another to make claims on the state and shape the decisionmaking process.27 Here the state is, or ought to be, a neutral arbiter among contending groups and a guarantor of individual rights. Some groups may “capture” the state, thus encouraging other groups to develop strategies to capture it back.28 In some pluralist accounts of the state, the proliferation of agencies, on the one hand, and the differentiation of state levels on the other, provide greater access for any group to block gross injustice and at least secure a minimum foothold in the state.29 Theoretically sophisticated versions of liberal and pluralist views of the state are available in the academic literature. However, in the abstract they seem more like a statement of what should be rather than a statement of what is. These versions celebrate an ideal-typical system of governance that exists for some, but not other, segments of society and thus may be—to paraphrase Alvin Gouldner30—consistent with the dominant group’s need to justify its social position. To reject the assumption of the state as neutral arbiter would call into question the edifice upon which liberal accounts of race relations are constructed.31 This edifice directs attention toward the politics of assimilation and integration and away from the sociohistorical and structural foundations of the state itself.32 By representing the state as the aggregate of competing racial and ethnic as well as other interests, accomplished through institutions committed (presumably) to universalistic ideals such as due process, the U.S. sociology of race relations denies the intrinsically racial character of the state.33 Implicit or explicit views of the

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state imply appropriate political contexts within which to redress grievances and effect action. Wilson’s34 “real world model” for the development of a multiracial political coalition that would address national issues is, in this context, little more than a reiteration of liberal assumptions about how the political process should work. This view fails to answer important questions and is not consistent with recent historical studies.

Bringing Back the State Structural theories of the state35 provide a potentially useful framework for reconstructing the concept of the state in the U.S. sociology of race relations and advancing the field itself.36 They are derived from, and are consistent with, a general Marxist tradition.37 However, the Marxist classics lack a well-formulated theory of the state; and contrary to Wilson, their instrumentalist implications are not acceptable—as in assuming that racism is “unequivocally functional” for the capitalist class or that the state is merely a tool in the hands of the capitalist class. 38 Furthermore, the “Weberian tendencies” in some versions of U.S. Marxism detract from, rather than facilitate, an appropriate theoretical specification of the state and its relationship to racial inequality because they shift attention from the basic tenets of historical materialism to the idea that social life can be conceptualized and examined in terms of separate and distinct spheres (economic, social, political, ideological).39 In this context, few sociologists have applied structuralist analysis to the sociology of race relations. In contrast to the “abstracted empiricism”40 that characterizes U.S. sociology at times, structuralist analysis requires the adequate theoretical specification of its subject as a precondition for the accumulation of knowledge. However, this requirement does not remove the necessity for empirical verification.41 Structuralist analysis defines the whole (i.e., the social order) as consisting of complex and heterogeneous spheres that are dialectically interrelated but relatively autonomous. Examples include the economic, social, political, and ideological spheres. Although the economic sphere is determinant in the last instance in the capitalist mode of production, each sphere displays distinctive and internally contradictory characteristics and contributes in its own way to the functioning of the whole. In this context, individuals are the “supports” or “bearers” of the structural relations within which they are situated.42 At this level of abstraction, “structures” do not refer to the institutions that make up society; rather, they refer to the systematic interrelationships that exist among these institutions. Structures constitute a level of reality “invisible but present behind the visible social relations.”43 Amos Hawley’s reference to a “web of discrimination”44 is an example of a structure in this

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context. In order to assess the ways by which state structures reproduce or undermine racial inequality, it is necessary to specify these structures and explain how they embody different interests. Otherwise, the state is likely to be seen as a neutral arbiter or a “functionalist thermostat.”45 Therefore, the theoretical works of Nicos Poulantzas, Claus Offe, and James O’Connor are invaluable for clarifying the theoretical dilemmas that appear in Wilson’s work because they direct attention to the contradictory imperatives of the capitalist state—facilitating capital accumulation and legitimizing the system.46 By analyzing the development of, and institutionalization of functions within, the formal apparatuses of the state, it is possible to grasp the “autonomization of the capitalist state” as a complex, concrete, and historically determined process.47 Because the economic sphere is determinant in the last instance in the capitalist mode of production, it is easy to dismiss, as Wilson48 did, the consequences of the sociopolitical order for black life-chances.49 The economic, social, political, and ideological spheres of the capitalist mode of production possess some degree of independence or autonomy; however, they are not discrete categories. In other words, despite the fact that the sociopolitical order may possess relative autonomy from the economic sector, the dualism of the polity and the economy is more apparent than real.50 For example, the economic sector becomes subordinated to the sociopolitical order to the extent that the allocation of monies, resources, and rewards results from decisions made in the sociopolitical order rather than in the economic sector. Policies are shaped, and decisions on the allocation of monies, resources, and rewards are made, by political entities through elaborate bureaucratic procedures.51 In addition, the capitalist state is engaged in the creation and legitimation of the frameworks and rules within which social life itself is structured, expressed, for example, in education, employment, low-income and public housing, marriage and family, and tax policies.52 The capitalist state has assumed an increasing number of social welfare functions, including a bureaucratically ordered system of supervision of unwed mothers, nonintact or broken families, delinquent youth, and criminals patterned on therapeutic models. The tendency to psychologize the social costs of production has important ideological implications, because if the client is defined as the problem, then other causes, as well as other points of view, are excluded before the fact.53 Benjamin Ringer’s54 exhaustive analysis of the complex interrelationship between the spheres helps to illustrate these points. More than a century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that the right to vote is fundamental because it is the basis for the preservation of all other rights. Therefore, one would have expected the Court to apply the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to strike down the racially discriminatory restrictions on the right to vote that were adopted by many states after

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Reconstruction. However, the Court confined its efforts largely to rhetoric and for many decades ignored the use of white primaries, literacy tests, poll taxes, and other devices to deny blacks the right to vote. The white primary was outlawed in 1944; however, the U.S. Congress did not act until 1957.55 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally mandated federal approval of any changes in voting qualifications or procedures in states that had a history of racially discriminatory restrictions. The Thirteenth Amendment, which was passed in 1866, abolished slavery as an institution; Southern states responded by enacting the Black Codes. The Fourteenth Amendment, which was passed in 1868, overruled the Black Codes and extended suffrage to blacks. The Fifteenth Amendment, which was passed in 1870, prohibited voter discrimination on the basis of race; however, this proscription was more a formality than a reality, as Southern states devised intricate election laws and other devices to disenfranchise blacks and many poor whites.56 These practices were reinforced when the U.S. Supreme Court, in the 1896 Plessey v. Ferguson decision, accepted as constitutional the doctrine of separate but equal and accorded state and local governments the right to enact legislation that sanctioned discrimination.57 The U.S. Supreme Court, in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, overturned the doctrine of separate but equal, undermined state and local government support for racially discriminatory practices, and paved the way for civil rights legislation to be passed.58 Despite Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court left the formulation of specific orders to desegregate schools in the hands of U.S. district courts. Obstruction and delay resulted, with massive resistance in the South and a comparatively weak federal response. It was not until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when federal desegregation standards were adopted, that substantial desegregation of schools could begin. Thereafter, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) and the federal courts became more unified in their attack on so-called free choice and various delaying tactics in the South. However, under the Richard Nixon administration, federal enforcement efforts were undercut. Major responsibility for enforcing school desegregation was shifted from HEW to the slower judicial efforts of the Justice Department.59 State and local governments may pass laws that legalize behaviors that later may be declared unconstitutional and therefore prohibited.60 The Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964, the Voting Rights Acts of 1965, 1970, 1975, and 1985, and several U.S. Supreme Court decisions were required to eliminate state and local government restrictions on black voting.61 The Civil Rights Acts were well-intentioned but not very effective. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended in 1970, is now the principal vehicle for protecting blacks’ right to vote.62 U.S. Supreme Court support for, or oppo-

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sition to, local autonomy has important implications in this context. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 empowered agencies of the federal government to bring suit in federal court to protect the right to vote, and it created the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to enforce the provisions of the bill. Despite this empowerment, the act was only partially effective as local courts resisted. 63 State and local governments adopted ostensibly race-blind strategies that in fact had racially discriminatory effects, such as converting to citywide, at-large elections that effectively prevented blacks from obtaining office in cities that had a white majority. 64 The U.S. Supreme Court, in the 1969 Alleven v. Board of Elections decision, affirmed that all election law changes in the jurisdictions covered by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were to be cleared by the Justice Department, in effect giving it veto power over all changes in election practices in the South.65 At-large elections were introduced during the Progressive Era under the guise of “good government” reform. However, often the intent was to reduce the potential political power of blacks and ethnic immigrants. A meta-analysis of all cross-sectional studies completed prior to 1980 (with a sample size of sixteen or larger) that examined the relationship between atlarge election systems and the proportional representation of blacks and Hispanics on city councils found evidence that at-large systems “diluted” the representation of minorities.66 Furthermore, a study of forty-one political jurisdictions in Texas that changed from at-large to single-member-district elections in the 1970s revealed that the proportional representation of blacks and Hispanics dramatically increased after the changes. Where blacks and Hispanics were able to affect the boundary-drawing process, minority representation increased even more.67 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 focused on eradicating discrimination in employment practices; it established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to monitor compliance.68 Establishment of the EEOC was followed by Executive Order 11246 in 1965, which required federal contractors to take affirmative action to recruit, employ, and promote minorities. It created the Office of Federal Contract Compliance with the power to terminate federal contracts for failure to comply with these provisions. However, as a caution against broad generalizations about the declining significance of race, the Reagan administration amended this order to eliminate timetables and certain measures of compliance. Although federal, state, and local governments have maintained prohibitions against racial discrimination in employment practices since the 1940s, the major legal weapon has been Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Despite limited resources, civil rights organizations more so than the federal government have carried the burden of enforcing this statute; they have won favorable judicial decisions in cases brought under this statute. Nevertheless, these decisions have had

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mixed results in reducing the occupational and earnings disparities between blacks and whites.69 Thus, constitutional and legislative changes are processes of controlled conflict between competing interests.70 A fundamental question in this context is whether, how, and under what conditions structurally determined disadvantages can be “undone.”71 For example, the U.S. Supreme Court may legitimize or delegitimize racially discriminatory policies, hinder social change or hasten it; however, its decisions have the force of laws only if other administrative apparatuses choose to carry them out.72 The decisions that accord minorities broader citizenship rights may be contradicted by administrative obstruction, jurisdictional friction, informal social practices, or extralegal practices such as intimidation or terrorism.73 Restrictive covenants are a case in point. When state legislatures were prohibited from passing laws that enforced racial segregation, local courts assumed the role by legally enforcing the covenants. The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed the contractual right of individuals to discriminate in the sociopolitical order and, in 1948, introduced restrictions on the exercise of this right. These discriminatory practices were reinforced by the FHA, which included “racially segregated criteria in guidelines to its ‘valuators’ for rating applications for housing loans in various areas. [The FHA] stipulated that an area should be given a high rating if covered by restrictive covenants and deed restrictions which would protect the areas from ‘undesirable encroachment.’” 74 The John Kennedy administration issued an executive order to cease such practices; however, evidence indicates that the order was not very effective.75 In short, the tendency to reify the state as a transcendental reality that exists by and for itself76 sidetracks important questions about (1) the role of the state in the formation, maintenance, and reproduction of racial inequality in the various spheres;77 (2) whose interests the state secures and why;78 (3) the ability of the state to effect alternative courses of action or to transform “recalcitrant [racial] structures”;79 and (4) the grounds on which a particular conception of the state can be justified.

“The State” Defined Here “the state” is defined broadly as a system of governance that incorporates the executive, legislative, and judicial branches at the federal and state levels; regulatory bodies; parastatal corporations; public agencies; regional authorities; and local governmental bodies. These apparatuses represent the specific and often contradictory interests of different social classes, socialclass fractions, and power blocs.80 The state is characterized by all of the following:

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1. Structural selectiveness, which determines how issues and matters are to be addressed by policies and actions.81 For example, the guarantee of private property rights restricts the ability of the state to effect certain courses of action, such as gaining control over the investment priorities of major corporations or mandating nationalized health care. 2. A paradigmatic framework, which sets limits on the value and assumptive bases of the formulation and implementation of policies.82 For example, policies and actions must be consistent with any of the following: private property relations, free enterprise, the American creed, philosophies of individualism, ideologies of equality of opportunity, and Anglo-Saxon Protestant values. 3. Formal rule structures, which predetermine content and outcomes. For example, procedural rules are embedded in bureaucratic administration, policy formulation and implementation, collective bargaining, and election campaigns. They, too, may favor or exclude alternative courses of action.83 4. Repression, which may be exercised through the police, armed forces, or judiciary.84 In this context, the state is excluded from organizing production for profit and from determining the allocation and movement of private capital; thus it can affect capital accumulation only indirectly.85 Because the state is separated from capitalist production, its existence and ability to function depend on revenues that originate from outside its immediate control. Contrary to popular belief, because capitalism is neither self-regulating nor self-sufficient, the state has a mandate to create and sustain those conditions necessary to facilitate capital accumulation. Faced with a contradictory combination of exclusion and dependence, the state can function on behalf of capital only if it can equate the needs of capital with the national interest and secure popular support for measures that maintain the conditions for accumulation.86 Therefore, the capitalist state is a structure constrained by the logic of the economic sphere within which it functions and embedded in a complex set of apparatuses. Contrary to instrumentalist views, the state does not constitute itself as an executive committee of the capitalist class; rather, its overriding purpose is to be the “factor of cohesion of a social formation”87 consisting of freely competing individuals. The state as the factor of cohesion of a social formation legitimizes the interests of the capitalist class (or one or more of its factions) in the face of the interests of other social classes and factions.88 State apparatuses tend to serve the interests of the capitalist class because the characteristics of these apparatuses derive from the necessity to fulfill the contradictory imperatives of the capitalist system.89 Legitimation is crucial because mass participation in state decisions at any level will bring to the forefront the growing contradiction between the

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socialization of the costs of production and the private appropriation of profits. Therefore, the state must fulfill its class-bound functions under the pretext of social-class neutrality—that is, the public interest—but not necessarily race-neutrality (as the history of legislative and judicial actions shows). Stated differently, the state conceals its obligations through a depoliticization of the public. Governance that openly favors one social class or faction over others involves the risk of polarization and a politicization of the social-class struggle.90 In addition, in order to realize a common interest from among the competing factions of the capitalist class, the state must be able to override specific interests. This form of compromise allows subordinate classes to extract concessions and push for reforms.91 The philosophies, doctrines, and official accounts of the state tend to incorporate the values that protect the interests of the dominant classes or factions; its agents are recruited disproportionately from these groups.92 For example, intolerant and exclusive (i.e., prejudicial and discriminatory) values and practices are endemic features of, but are not unique to, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture generally. They are grounded in the religious heritage of the country, beginning with the Puritans, and over a long period have been incorporated into the apparatuses and ideological rationales of the state.93 These observations imply that the state does not exist outside the praxis that created it.94 In this context, the state, as a collection of apparatuses and rule-bound hierarchies with roots in specific socioreligious and political heritages, can understand problems only in certain ways.95 In sum, the state is not a neutral arbiter; it is simultaneously an object, product, and determinant of race-class interactions understood within the context of (1) the contradictory imperatives of capital accumulation and legitimation, and (2) the degree to which the apparatuses of the state are at any point in time in the hands of various factions of the capitalist class.96 Contradictory imperatives structure opportunities available to the capitalist class. By virtue of its historically specific influence in the state, the capitalist class structures opportunities available to racial and ethnic minorities, as well as the majority. Although these statements incorporate contradictory views (structuralist and instrumentalist), they might be interpreted to represent different tendencies within the state as a set of relations.97 The state intervenes in racial conflicts; however, it does not do so in a coherent or unified manner, despite Wilson’s98 imputation to the contrary in the modern industrial period. Race occupies “varying degrees of centrality” at different historical moments in different state apparatuses.99 Consequently, different levels of the state will act in contradictory ways. Nevertheless, through policies that are explicitly or implicitly racial, state apparatuses organize and enforce the racial politics of everyday life—for example, expressed in the enforcement, or lack thereof, of antidiscriminatory policies.100

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Structural analysis highlights the relationship between the processes of capital accumulation and legitimation and the functions of the state. However, state activity is not a simple correlate of the processes of capital accumulation and legitimation. The state is bureaucratically organized and ruled by legal-rational authority. Therefore, the apparatuses of the state have a logic of their own that cannot be changed at will—in other words, a relative autonomy.101 According to Ralph Miliband,102 recognizing relative autonomy requires studying the forces that cause it to be greater or less and the circumstances in which it is exercised. However, the concept of relative autonomy is ambiguous. Particularly, the bases on which degrees of relative autonomy are to be determined are not explicit or well-formulated; the forms of autonomy may be diverse; and the “content of the concept” will vary from one social formation to another and, within each formation, from one specific conjuncture to another.103 Relative autonomy is not a fixed feature of any governmental system; the potential for autonomous activity changes over time as state apparatuses undergo transformation. Neither, by definition, does the concept imply superior knowledge and capability. For example, state attempts to redress racial inequities may fail if they are based on incorrect assumptions and mediocre information, or if they emerge from “deficient state organization.”104 Therefore, to refer to the existence of autonomy is one matter; to locate its source, explain its existence, and show how it is exercised is another matter. The autonomy of the capitalist state is restricted by its dependence on the realization of profit before it can fulfill any of its other functions. Nevertheless, it is theoretically likely that at times state activity will contravene the interests of the dominant groups.105 The local state encloses distinctive political, economic, and social arrangements. It forms an “administrative matrix” through which national goals and policies are realized. It also holds an array of rights and powers that enable local apparatuses to pursue different goals and policies. For example, local state apparatuses “interpret” federal policies to suit local interests; therefore, they affect how policies are implemented. Evidence suggests great variation in the local implementation of federal policies, including the enforcement of national civil rights policies in the modern industrial period.106 The autonomy of the local state varies in relation to the constraints imposed by the national, state, and local social-class structures. For example, during the industrial period, the local state in the U.S. South maintained a high degree of autonomy from the national state because federal policy enforcement mechanisms were weak.107 When the national state’s constraints are strong, local social-class structures exert less influence on the local state; when the national state’s constraints are weak, local socialclass structures exert greater influence on the local state.108 Local social-

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class structures establish the social context in which the governmental bodies, public agencies, and school boards that make up these apparatuses produce their effects. A high degree of local autonomy is associated with an ability to determine goals, and the capacity to develop policies to achieve those goals. Autonomy may be enhanced by the local state’s capacity to control the recruitment of personnel to political and administrative offices, and by the degree of its power to tax its citizens.109 Under massive pressure from the civil rights movement, the executive branch of the federal government and the U.S. Congress strengthened the linkages between the national state and the local state in the latter part of the modern industrial period. The discriminatory procedures and practices of the local state in the South were dismantled. However, Gordon110 noted that southern states used delaying tactics to resist; furthermore, changes in the goals and policies of the national state did not bring racial harmony. Nevertheless, the local state’s dependence on the national state’s resources restricts the ability of local apparatuses to initiate policies autonomously.111 At the national and local levels, states circumscribe how dominant groups will realize their objectives.112 For example, after 1964 states to varying degrees constructed statutes that incorporated the principles and language of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. These statutes represent mechanisms through which states create “institutional environments.” Different institutional environments encourage different organizational practices. 113 More specifically, when circuit courts rule on compliance strategies, they indicate to organizations in their respective jurisdictions how a given law is going to be interpreted. States and circuit courts that incorporate the language of equal employment opportunity and affirmative action create uncertain institutional environments for the organizations that reside in those jurisdictions. They send a message that chances are good that the court will mete out liberal rulings if cases of discrimination are brought before it. Organizations respond to the uncertainty by adopting strategies that demonstrate to the courts that they are in compliance. If approved by the courts, these strategies then “diffuse across the organizational field”; that is, organizations adapt to, and internalize, the expectations that are defined by the institutional environment in which they are embedded.114 Structured by the state, institutional environments affect the degree of equality of opportunity in organizations. For example, they influence the likelihood that a woman or minority will become a chief executive officer, net of other factors such as the composition of applicant pools, the nature of sponsorship, or the accumulation of work experience. Institutional environments structure the strategies and practices that organizations adopt; in the face of uncertainty, organizations respond to cues by adopting strategies and practices that comply with these institutional environments and that

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help to ensure their survival. The uncertainty created produces an environment that operates, to some extent, independently of the threat of legal action. Organizations in more liberal states and circuit court jurisdictions often step beyond the letter of the law, adopting strategies and practices that reflect a “substantive interpretation and internalization of the law.”115 Racial struggles occur at all levels of the state and reflect attempts by various groups to gain control of the goals and policies shaped at those levels. Demands by groups upon the state are constrained to the extent that they must be congruent with the reproduction of capitalist social relations, generally, and the imperatives of capital accumulation and legitimation, specifically.116 The concrete ways in which the state responds vary with such factors as (1) the level of capitalist development; (2) the forms of social-class struggle; (3) the relative strengths of racial groups as reflected in electoral politics, social movements, or other forms of insurgency; (4) administrative capacities and constitutional constraints; (5) local socialclass structures and political histories; and (6) the zeitgeist of the times reflected, for example, in institutional environments.117 The balance of these complex forces determines distributional outcomes for various racial groups, including access to educational, occupational, and income opportunities, as well as spatial mobility and political influence.118 This definition of the state (1) shifts the frame of analysis from liberal to structural accounts, bringing into question its presumed role as neutral arbiter; (2) accounts for the changing role of the state in historical context—a role that mediates between structural contradictions on the one hand and racial discourses on the other;119 and (3) views the state itself as the preeminent site of racial conflict, as well as social-class conflict.120 Wilson’s121 earlier work appeared to support the underlying assumption that state interventions in the structuring of race relations reflect the historical tendency for the reproduction of the social formation as a whole to take place through the mediation of state activity. However, in The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, he backed away from this assumption in favor of an implicit—but distinctly liberal—conception of the state.

Bridging the Theoretical Divide: Twelve Propositions 1. In the United States, the state is a structure that is constrained by the emergence, logic, and contradictions of the capitalist mode of production as a whole.122 It is composed of distinctive levels and practices that are defined according to the functions that they fulfill in relation to the whole; however, the state is not free to abrogate the structural requirements of the capitalist economy. 123 As O’Connor 124 argued, a state that ignores the necessity of assisting the process of capital accumulation risks drying up

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the sources of its own power: the economy’s ability to produce a surplus and the taxes drawn from that surplus. Conversely, a state that openly uses its coercive force to help one social class or racial group accumulate capital and other advantages at the expense of others risks losing its legitimacy and may undermine the basis of its loyalty and support. The state at the national level is better able to represent the interests of the capitalist class or the dominant groups when it can transcend the parochial, individualized interests of specific factions and present itself as the embodiment of the aggregated interests of the nation as a whole within the context of a universal set of values such as the American creed.125 2. As a structure, the state is relatively autonomous, with a logic and interests of its own not necessarily equivalent to, or “fused with,” the interests of the capitalist class or the dominant groups.126 In addition, the separation of functions among different levels of the state affects the internal structure of each level, ensures its relative autonomy in relation to other levels, and shapes and limits forms of intervention.127 The concept of relative autonomy is not equivalent to the concept of neutral arbiter, or umpire, in the social system. The former creates the possibility that the state can act as if it were neutral despite structural constraints, whereas the latter assumes that the state is neutral. Neither is the concept of relative autonomy an invariant feature of the state. Problematic in this respect, one of the difficulties lies in specifying its nature, determinants, and limits within specific historical contexts.128 However, the use of the concept corrects for problems in strictly instrumentalist and liberal interpretations of the state; it allows for the possibility that the state can serve as an emancipatory force for oppressed groups.129 3. Individual states (e.g., Alabama, Mississippi) are constrained by local class structures, various political economic and social interests, and the national state; they change as these forces attempt to modify the “racial selectiveness” of these states in their favor.130 Historically, the division of functions between the national state and the individual states confined relations between dominant and minority groups within the boundaries of individual states; this division favored delaying tactics and obstruction in the pursuit of racial equality.131 Individual states did not arbitrate between dominant and minority groups so much as establish the rules of the game for practicing racial discrimination.132 Although individual states are constrained by the laws and resources of, and subject to review by, the national state, as fragmented and somewhat insulated political systems they hold an array of rights and powers that enable them to pursue objectives specific to local interests. These objectives may contravene the intentions of the national state.133 In addition, to varying degrees, minority groups themselves have distinctive histories, social structures, and degrees of consciousness and cohe-

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sion. They are encapsulated within specific political jurisdictions—a concept that is more inclusive than, and subsumes, internal colonies. For example, when superordinate-subordinate relations emerge from intergroup contact, the superordinates may create (often arbitrary) political entities that incorporate the subordinates within the larger system. These political entities may take different forms; however, the incorporation is of such a nature that no alternative may exist other than to “[revise or destroy] the institutions of political, economic, and social subordination.”134 Such entities affect minority groups’ political and economic strategies; patterns of conflict with, and access to, dominant groups; and ability to be represented at the various levels of the state. Local states are replete with unique norms and implicit procedures that govern the conduct of politics. In the local political arena, unwritten rules and customary cultural practices [establish] the legitimacy of certain community actors to speak, the proper venues in which they [may] do so, and the most fitting means for expressing consent or dissent. Definitions of statuses, roles, and appropriate political behaviors [are] communicated and learned through localized social networks.135

Social conventions legitimize some forms of discourse over others; designate the actors eligible or ineligible to participate in the political process; define the appropriate and inappropriate forms of political action; and, therefore, circumscribe the range of solutions.136 These forms of influence and manipulation may change even the most carefully formulated policies that originate at the national level.137 At each level of the state fundamental conflicts of interest may arise between, and within, dominant, minority, and state administrative groups. However, state administrators cannot abrogate the structural requirements of local, state, and national economies (and thus at least some of the interests of the dominant groups) without jeopardizing their own position.138 This structural imperative places limits on which forms of state intervention will be acceptable—and therefore likely to be implemented—and which forms will be unacceptable. Furthermore, state administrators may restructure concessions won by minority groups to support existing racial relationships. To that extent, they serve to perpetuate the status quo.139 The state, generally, is able to grant the concessions that the current dynamics of racial relationships require because it is capable of transcending parochial, individualized interests. These concessions may divide racial minorities into competing subgroups and further limit the possibility for fundamental social change.140 State interventions in the form of policies, programs, and directives may have unintended as well as intended consequences—for example, in

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the form of unforeseen social, political, and structural changes. These interventions are not necessarily coordinated, coherent, or unified; indeed, different levels and branches of the state may act in a contradictory fashion. For example, concurrent with the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s prohibiting racial discrimination, other branches of the federal government pursued policies that worked, in effect, to the disadvantage of minority groups.141 4. The purpose of a capitalist state is to maintain the unity of the nation so that the objective interests of the capitalist class can be realized. However, the state does not function unambiguously in the interests of a single social class, social-class faction, or group regardless of historical period.142 In other words, the state serves the general interests of the capitalist class and specific interests of the dominant groups even as it portrays itself as serving the interests of all groups; thus, it is simultaneously a racial state (and has been since its founding) and a universal state claiming to act in the interests of all. The state can function on behalf of the capitalist class and dominant racial or ethnic groups only when it equates their needs with the national interest (however defined) and secures support for the policies, programs, and directives that maintain those interests.143 Policies must be consistent with the demands of the capital accumulation process. Otherwise, the state risks losing the source of its power: the ability to tax the surplus.144 Nevertheless, policy constraints are political and social, as well as economic, in nature; therefore, the state faces a series of inherent dilemmas as it carries out its functions, particularly how to establish and institutionalize a method of policy formulation and implementation that constitutes a balance between its structural requirements and the demands of various constituencies.145 5. The intents and effects of policies, programs, and directives in the preindustrial, industrial, and modern industrial periods should not be assumed before the fact; they may be established by examining the determinants that shaped their formulation and implementation.146 Policies are composed of (1) values and assumptions that are made explicit only rarely; (2) operating principles that give those values and assumptions form in specific programs and directives; (3) the outcomes of specific programs and directives that enable policy planners to contrast ideals with reality; (4) the often weak linkages among aims, means, and outcomes; and (5) the strategies of social change suggested by, and omitted from, points one through four above.147 By and large, programmatic recommendations are acceptable only by those who share the framework. As a set of objectives, policies emerge from compromise among contending values, assumptions, ideals, interests, and purposes; thus, they contain the limitations that made these policies acceptable.148 For example, the real estate and lending industries substantially influ-

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enced the major provisions of the 1934 Housing Act that resulted in racially restrictive covenants on government-insured housing. They did so in part by staffing the FHA’s administrative ranks. The provisions were intended to increase profits without altering existing patterns of residential segregation. The subsequent standards adopted and applied by institutions throughout the real estate and lending industries embodied the FHA’s discriminatory recommendations and practices. In other words, the FHA legitimized the idea that racial discrimination is a necessary condition for profitable transactions in the housing market.149 Once a state apparatus such as the FHA is racialized, it may function in such a way as to allocate differentially resources to whites and blacks, thus reinforcing relations of domination and subordination (reflected particularly in life-chances).150 6. As Wilson argued, policies will not effectively redress the plight of the truly disadvantaged if they do not account for the rate of growth of the economy and the nature of its demand for labor; the factors that affect employment such as changing technologies and rising or falling profit rates; and the migration patterns of capital and labor that result from “industrial shifts and transformations.”151 For example, community control strategies that encourage the development of black capitalism have important limitations because they do not address “structural realities”152— a contention supported by recent research. Compared to their white counterparts, black entrepreneurs have greater difficulties finding capital; even where capital is found, the technical assistance necessary for profitable investment strategies may be inadequate.153 They face a lack of consistent community support; investments may be limited to failure-prone retail or service enterprises that offer little possibility for building a substantial job base that can reduce the occupational and earnings gap with whites. Ironically, black entrepreneurs also face a shortage of black workers; that is, unskilled and semiskilled black workers forego the possible long-term gains of employment in black businesses for short-term gains in white businesses in the form of higher wages, even though these wages may be lower than whites’ wages and earned in jobs with few chances for promotion. Skilled and highly skilled blacks apparently prefer jobs in the state sector.154 Nearly one-third of all businesses in black low-income communities are owned by blacks. However, in terms of proportion of workers employed, percentage of wages paid, and income returns to owners, absentee-owned or -managed businesses dominate the economies of both black low-income and white low-income communities in major metropolitan areas. In this context, white-owned businesses employ a large majority of the people in low-income communities who work, and they are more likely than black-owned businesses to hire white employees in greater proportion than the racial composition of the area would suggest. Yet it appears that

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the issue of who owns local businesses is not salient to most black residents; protests tend to originate mainly with black political and community leaders.155 The position of black-owned businesses relative to white-owned businesses in the U.S. economy deteriorated from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, primarily because black-owned businesses did not successfully compete for the rising incomes of the black middle class. The black-owned businesses that survived did so by diversifying into computer-related technologies and telecommunications. Little growth is evident in the traditional fields that have served black customers for decades. Moreover, growth in those industries that benefited from affirmative action programs (e.g., public construction) has slowed. 156 Nevertheless, the proportion of blackowned businesses relative to other-owned businesses in a community appears to have a major impact on the relative well-being of blacks in that community “net of other contributory factors.”157 Stated differently, as the proportion of black-owned businesses in a community increases, the probability of black political influence in local government also increases. In turn, this influence may result in positive outcomes for the community.158 Studies of residential succession in low-income communities show that white-owned businesses depart in much the same way as white residents do, that is, at a fairly low but constant rate.159 The rate of departure of white-owned businesses is relatively constant across industries in the early stages of succession, with retail and service businesses somewhat more likely to leave. In later stages, however, the loss of retail and service businesses is substantial and disproportionate compared with other businesses. The proportion of white-owned businesses decreases over time in black low-income communities because whites do not return to invest in these communities. Blacks lack both the capital and the experience necessary to take advantage of opportunities opened to them by the withdrawal of whites. Blacks who wish to start businesses face difficulties obtaining credit and are forced to rely heavily on personal savings.160 Banks and other financial institutions do not build a proportionate number of their branches in ghetto areas—only small loan companies charging high interest rates do.161 The gains that occur come about primarily when black entrepreneurs are able to take advantage of newly vacated niches.162 The loss of traditional entrepreneurial niches—for example, black skin care products to companies such as Revlon—means that an important avenue to self-employment has closed.163 In the early 1980s, black entrepreneurship was most common in areas with large black populations, high black employment rates, and low dissimilarity between blacks and whites occupationally. This fact suggests that a sizable high-status black community supports black entrepreneurship.164 A historical study165 of black entrepreneurship demonstrated regional differences in the “character of black

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businesses”; that is, black businesses are quite different in the western United States compared to all other regions. The profitable and expanding black businesses in the western United States do not specialize in delivering services to a primarily black clientele and have managed to penetrate high-technology fields. Entrepreneurs who have acquired highly specialized training run these businesses. To my knowledge, no study has attempted to examine a possible correlation between indices of segregation (the Southwest and West do not evidence the extreme segregation of the northeastern and north-central region) and the ability of black-owned and -managed businesses to thrive. The black business community appears to be an extension of the competitive sector in the United States, even though this community is somewhat distinct by virtue of the fact that many of its businesses are blackowned and to some extent geographically isolated. The Cuban business community appears to be characterized by a greater degree of autonomy from the monopoly and competitive sectors, or by a greater degree of “selfenclosed interdependence,” than is characteristic of the black business community.166 Cubans have been more successful because they are linked to international trade; have greater access to investment capital; have more experience with entrepreneurship; and produce ethnic goods such as textiles, cigars, and food (only in the meat industry did the Cubans drive out black competition). In contrast, the black community lacks investment capital and the technical assistance necessary for successful development strategies; furthermore, most of the labor power in the black community, when it can be utilized, is exported to white businesses where wages are higher. In other words, situational factors have created employment alternatives.167 7. The state is constrained in its ability to formulate and implement policies that significantly limit freedom of investment and subordinate “private units of production” to political decisions.168 For example, mechanisms such as constitutional restrictions and mission statements “ensure” that some options will not enter the arena of state activity.169 Collectively, U.S. capitalists possess a de facto veto over policy formulation and implementation in that their failure to invest, combined with their willingness to disinvest, may create serious political problems for state officials. This possibility discourages officials from taking actions that challenge the priorities of major corporations.170 Increasingly, corporations themselves structure the frameworks within which policy can be formulated and implemented, evidenced in the subordinate role that city and state governments play in their attempts to attract and retain capital.171 Constrained by contradictory imperatives and dependent on tax revenues, officials attempt to create the conditions that facilitate capital accumulation without exacerbating demands that policies should be oriented

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away from private needs and toward public needs such as universal health care. Therefore, the ability to plan is limited accordingly. Generally, current policies do not address the growing contradiction between the systemic needs of capitalism, such as capital mobility, and the social needs of communities172—a problem that is readily apparent in the emergence of neighborhoods characterized by extreme poverty. Planning requires prioritization and a need to justify proposals to constituencies fragmented by social class and racial struggles. However, mass participation in the planning process would open the door to greater scrutiny of private investment and production decisions—a problematic fiercely resisted by capitalists. 173 Furthermore, if officials are pressured from below to develop policies to meet social needs, the divide between (shortsighted) capitalists and officials may grow over time.174 Many officials acquire some consciousness of what is necessary to maintain the social order—for example, reflected in the co-optation of black demands for racial justice by expanding employment opportunities in the state sector. However, increased consciousness does not imply control over the “historical process.”175 For example, the penetration of the state by special interest groups constrains the ability of officials to develop more rational and efficient policies. Furthermore, no guarantees exist that the policies formulated by officials, and that have the support of major corporations or organized labor, will succeed in achieving their objectives.176 8. Within state apparatuses, policies are formulated and implemented under a series of conditions and procedures. These rules of the game define what is and is not permissible.177 Understanding the conditions and procedures of policy formulation and implementation is important because they predetermine what can and does become policy.178 Certain kinds of policies are much more likely to develop than others as a function of structural constraints and political considerations.179 The state has the capacity to systematically exclude certain points of view (e.g., black nationalism) and certain policy alternatives (e.g., universal health care). In order to assess the contradictory ways by which state apparatuses constrain social change, it is necessary to identify who controls the policy formulation and implementation process.180 The state administrative system constrains policy formulation and implementation in two ways: first, various state apparatuses may act autonomously, not reducible to the preferences or pressures of any identifiable group. These actions may result because appointed as well as elected officials have organizational and career interests of their own; they will devise and work for policies that further those interests. If a given state apparatus provides no existing or readily feasible policy format for implementing an action, appointed and elected officials are not likely to pursue them, and politicians aspiring to office are not likely to propose them.

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Second, state apparatuses both respond to, and influence, the conceptions that constituencies are likely to develop about what is desirable or possible.181 For example, in the passage of equal employment opportunity legislation, evidence is consistent with the view that the U.S. Congress responded as a consequence of constituent demands, well-organized lobbying by civil rights organizations, and a “liberal trend” in U.S. Supreme Court decisions.182 Paul Burstein and Margo MacLeod183 noted a lack of new ideas for equal employment opportunity legislation coming from most quarters after the early 1970s. The picture of congressional activity that emerged in their study was one of routine organizational response to a slowly changing environment. Interested members of the U.S. Congress responded to a social problem by developing a small number of proposals based upon past legislation with which everyone was familiar and by briefly searching for a solution. This practice is consistent with theories of U.S. political decisionmaking that claim that limits on decisionmakers’ analytical capabilities and resources will encourage them to consider only a small number of solutions to any problem and to settle on a familiar solution. A failure to recognize these constraints may result in overstating the progressive possibilities (i.e., the reductions that are possible in racial inequities) of the passage of civil rights, equal employment opportunity, affirmative action, and other forms of legislation. This conclusion is sustained because the political context in which legislation is passed and the likelihood of its enforcement are not sufficiently analyzed.184 Wilson and Robert Aponte185 pointed out that recent studies on the effects of budget cuts during the Reagan administration on the working poor are clear and consistent, revealing a “retreat” from the Great Society initiatives of the Lyndon Johnson administration. During the Bill Clinton administration, the federal government’s reluctance to intervene on behalf of civil rights had parallels to the withdrawal of federal protection of black rights after Reconstruction. In other words, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld states’ rights—for example, in decisions shielding states from suits for violating federal laws.186 9. If the purpose of the state is to maintain the unity of the nation, then its apparatuses should be responsive to pressures instigated by constituencies from below.187 The degree to which the interests of various groups are realized, and distributional outcomes are affected, depend on a variety of circumstances. For example, Roger Friedland188 concluded that the poverty funds made available by the Great Society initiatives of the 1960s were not distributed according to actual needs expressed in rates of poverty by locale. Rather, they were distributed to those groups who successfully pressed their demands into national issues and were deemed significant as a

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consequence. However, these groups were effective only in cases where they threatened corporate or union interests. Wilson189 claimed that as long as the middle and lower classes are fragmented along racial lines, they would fail to see how their combined efforts could change the factors that affect their life-chances and thus promote policies that reflect their interests. His “real world model” called for the development of a broad-based political constituency consisting of civil rights groups, women’s groups, labor unions, grassroots organizations, and religious organizations acting in a bipartisan way and focusing on their common interests. This constituency would concentrate on programs that benefit all groups in question, not just poor blacks. It would address national issues as well as specific grievances that could be rectified, such as flood control in poor neighborhoods and improved streets and sidewalks. Also, it would start an “earnest” national debate on extant approaches and prompt public officials to “consider seriously the effects of their action or inaction on a broad range of issues that impact vulnerable families.”190 Recently, Wilson191 cited the role that faith-based organizations might play in revitalizing neighborhoods characterized by, or vulnerable to, concentrated poverty. It is not clear, though, how constituencies—particularly those at the bottom of the stratification system, with little or no formal political power—are able to influence the policy formulation and implementation process. Opportunities to create alliances with sympathetic elites, access to financial resources, an organizational structure that can leverage the state, and “a modification of known forms of action” may be crucial. 192 For example, in the early-twentieth-century South, disenfranchised blacks allied with northern philanthropists used private funds to secure public funds to construct an adequate system of elementary education for blacks. Once this service was established in the state sector, then it could be institutionalized as a “routine matter of state policy.”193 In this context, research is needed to determine how, under what circumstances, and to what extent race and class inequities might be redressed by popular participation in the political process.194 Because subordinate class unity is a threat to capitalists, Poulantzas posited that the state functions most fundamentally to disunite the masses; at the same time, the political system allows them to vote and to form political parties and interest groups to achieve concessions. In effect, subordinate classes become competing subgroups.195 Intraclass conflict increases when these groups have to vie with each other for scarce resources.196 10. Extrainstitutional methods and tactics may be required to redress racial inequality. How, and in what ways, organized protest, insurgency, and violence affect objective outcomes for the groups employing these

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strategies are open to debate. Policies, programs, and directives may reject, ignore, co-opt, or embody the group demands that emerge from these methods and tactics.197 For example, some views claim that the expansion of the social welfare system was a response by a neutral state to the dislocations inherent in, and the needs created by, an expanding industrial society. Other views suggest that the expansion was a response by a capitalist class–dominated state to the threats posed by social movements from below.198 Larry Isaac and William Kelly199 showed that collective violence in the form of urban riots played an important role nationally in the short-term expansion (in the aggregate) of several major relief programs after World War II. Thus, they provided empirical support for Francis Piven and Richard Cloward’s200 controversial thesis in Regulating the Poor. However, Isaac and Kelly added that centrally controlled programs were no more “riot elastic” than locally controlled programs; and riot frequency better predicted the expansion of major relief programs than did riot severity. Furthermore, extrainstitutional politics yielded greater benefits for those who did not have access to existing welfare institutions, whereas electoral politics yielded greater benefits for those who already had acquired access. In this context, they stressed the importance of developing an empirically justifiable theory of the state that identifies the forces that affect the formulation and implementation of policy, as well as the consequences for reducing educational, occupational, and earnings disparities between the races.201 Edward Jennings challenged Isaac and Kelly’s202 research on methodological grounds. That is, its statistical methodology constituted an inappropriate test of the comparative effects of variables drawn from different theoretical traditions. Urban riots alone did not prompt the state to respond by expanding major relief programs. In a study of the U.S. welfare system from 1947 to 1976, Jennings203 argued that the state acted as it did also because of “increased economic capacity” and “a general propensity to respond to aggregated individual preferences.” According to Jennings, the data are sufficient to support elements of both mainstream and alternative views and that the two can be “reconciled.” More recently, sociologists have moved beyond the traditional focus of social movement theories (which examine how the state shapes the outcomes of organized protest, insurgency, and other forms of extrainstitutional politics) to consider how social movements affect the process of state formation or transformation itself. For example, Jill Quadagno204 identified changes that occurred within the state as a consequence of the conflict between civil rights activists and organized labor over the definition of economic justice. Changes included new policies and programs to expand and implement civil rights. The redistribution of society’s rewards and privileges depends on the mobilization of political resources, even if this is difficult for many groups to accomplish. With few electoral resources, blacks have had to rely on the

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legal system and on extrainstitutional methods and tactics.205 Reductions in racial inequality from the early 1960s to the present would have been substantially less in the absence of these efforts and the effects on state actions expressed in legislative initiatives, judicial decisions, federal enforcement efforts, and employment opportunities. In part, demands for racial reform reflect changes in collective identities as electoral bases are sought, administrative procedures contested, and judicial decisions handed down.206 The problematic here is to link political inputs (which may originate from a variety of sources) and systemic constraints to the outputs of state activity, such as new or more favorable interpretations of the U.S. Constitution.207 In a government of legislation and litigation, politics might be defined as the struggle to translate economic, social, and racial interests into law. In this context, crises serve as the steering mechanism for state interventions. Because crises result from complex dynamics and affect different social classes, social-class fractions, and races in contradictory ways, conflict is likely to occur over their interpretation and resolution.208 Legal mandates to reduce racial inequities may be issued; however, legal mandates may not include the organizational capacity and resources to effect change, particularly if the apparatuses in question have strong ties to local political and social-class structures. “Organizational capacity” refers to the extent to which goals can be fulfilled. The capacity of an apparatus to implement policies depends on formal and informal norms, standard procedures, routines, and conventions embedded in its organizational structure. In addition, its policy legacy sets boundaries on the options open to it, as well as limiting the direction of future programmatic possibilities. In these cases, the autonomy to act may (and probably will) be compromised, and state interventions may not succeed.209 For example, in the absence of federal intervention, the southern elite “by proper choice of tactics” could use the legal system in the South to harass, and occasionally defeat, civil rights forces.210 11. Ideologies (such as philosophies of individualism) serve the function of cohesion by minimizing complexities, as well as the significance of contradictions; often they resolve contradictions by excluding them from consideration. Wilson 211 claimed that ideology was a problem of the sociopolitical order; thus, by definition, it was relegated to secondary consideration. Katherine See212 countered that an understanding of the role of ideology is crucial in any attempt to comprehend the opposition to redistributive policies in the United States. Research studies continue to show that whites generally reject, ignore, or are unaware of structural accounts of poverty; adopt individualistic accounts; and interpret socioeconomic successes and failures as a consequence of personal characteristics. These views shape perceptions of the extent and causes of racial inequality, as well as the appropriate solutions.213 This problematic is apparent in over-

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generalizations about the poor expressed, for example, in culture of poverty arguments contrasted with processes of hyperghettoization. Even extrainstitutional politics may be framed in terms of the dominant ideology, thus demonstrating the efficacy of that ideology itself.214 12. The study of how policies emerge within, and may be co-opted by, state apparatuses and structures requires a high degree of historical specificity.215 Research may be able to determine (1) who develops, administers, and controls what forms of intervention at various levels of the state, in whose interests, and why (e.g., by legitimizing the civil rights movement and repressing alternatives such as the Black Panthers, the liberal wing of the U.S. capitalist class set the parameters for public discourse and practice and avoided more fundamental social change); (2) when, why, and to what extent state administrators can act against the general interests of the dominant groups; and (3) how the potential for any form of intervention changes over time as internal transformations occur in the organization of the state. This research may reveal how, and why, state interventions prove effective or ineffective in redressing racial inequality, as well as the direct and indirect effects from above of dominant group challenges to minority group claims.216 For example, according to Quadagno,217 although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation and banned racial discrimination in education and employment, compliance was uneven across institutional spheres. Racial integration proceeded more rapidly in the health care system than in other institutions because Medicare, the largest expansion of the welfare state since the New Deal, provided the leverage to force health care providers to comply with the law. The federal government had allowed a racially segregated health care system to flourish in most southern states and in some northern states by defining hospitals as “private” institutions whose rules and regulations weren’t subject to state jurisdiction. A redefinition of the scope of state authority transformed hospitals from private institutions into public institutions. Therefore, the state can promote racial equality if political resources are available to challenge racially discriminatory practices; institutions with a history of racial discrimination are incorporated into the state sector; the conditions for the distribution of benefits support the objective of racial equality; and the benefits are provided on a continuous and universal basis.218

Theory and Practice: Wilson on Affirmative Action If race is to be used as an instrument of policy, then racial groups have to be constructed; people have to be assigned to one racial group or another; relations between racial groups have to be quantified; and the reasons for

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educational, occupational, and earnings disparities have to be assessed.219 Racial classification systems present difficult ontological, methodological, and political problems. Officially approved or adopted by the state and incorporated into legislative initiatives and judicial rulings, racial categories raise questions about how they came into being. Understanding racial classification systems requires analysis of the historical context in which they arose; processes of codification, reification, and legitimation; and problems of politics reflected in social movements, on the one hand, and the “race relations industry” on the other.220 For example, the color caste system in Brazil makes it nearly impossible to decide who should be eligible to receive racially based preferences. This conundrum may extend to the United States as it becomes increasingly diverse. In other words, the growing population of multiracial individuals and families increases the confusion of determining who should benefit from affirmative action programs.221 Wilson did not address these issues in a systematic way. Rather, he argued that affirmative action programs likely will improve the opportunities of the advantaged, but not the opportunities of the disadvantaged, if they are proffered on the basis of racial-group membership. The problems of the disadvantaged require “nonracial solutions” that address fundamental causes—in other words, a “social democratic policy agenda that highlights macroeconomic policies” and is promoted by a “progressive coalition for change.”222 In this context, comprehensive research on the impact of affirmative action programs is hard to find. Affirmative action programs increased access to the professional and administrative positions that are crucial to the black middle class. However, they also increased access to the blue-collar and government jobs that are crucial to the black working class. 223 On a limited scale in the early 1970s, programs such as the Philadelphia Plan were implemented that opened the building trades to blacks. In the late 1970s, programs were expanded to require minority participation in major construction projects—for example, the Public Works Employment Act of 1977 and the ensuing Fullilove v. Klumnick U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1980 upholding “set-asides” for minority contractors (however, it was reversed in the Court’s 1989 Richmond v. Croson ruling).224 Shortly after The Declining Significance of Race was published, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action programs whose intent was to improve the skills of black workers with low seniority were legal, as were racial preferences in hiring in occupations such as sheet metal fabrication and state and local police forces. Wilson was correct to argue that affirmative action programs are of little value for less-skilled blacks in blue-collar industries that have experienced massive layoffs, such as the U.S. automobile and rubber industries. However, in his overemphasis on

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the black middle class, he overlooked the fact that some blue-collar occupations, such as the construction industry and state and local police forces, are not declining. Here, the contributory potential of affirmative action programs for blacks without advanced degrees may be significant.225 Wilson was aware that as long as affirmative action is framed as a race-targeted, outcomes-equalizing program, opposition will continue. The degree of opposition hinges on the explicitness of race-targeting and on whether the program’s goal is equality of opportunity or equality of results.226 On the basis of research that shows that whites will support affirmative action programs that “enhance opportunity” vis-à-vis establish preferential quotas, Wilson227 envisioned programs guided by a principle of equality of life-chances, wherein programs would be applicable to all of the truly disadvantaged regardless of their race or ethnicity; he referred to this principle as “affirmative opportunity.” Affirmative opportunity is not a guarantee of equal results; it avoids the negative connotations of preferential quotas, lowered standards, and reverse discrimination. This principle would not require reference to past discrimination as a justification. Rather, it would attempt to overcome the disadvantages of lower-class background through programs such as compensatory schooling and job training, income redistribution, and special medical services. These programs would not be mistargeted to those who are relatively affluent. Wilson argued that only programs such as these are capable of simultaneously helping the truly disadvantaged and achieving public support. His qualified support for racespecific programs reflects their major flaw: they ignore class deprivations among poor whites.228 In this context, Wilson acknowledged that blacks would disproportionately benefit from affirmative opportunity programs intended to redress environmental disadvantages because they disproportionately suffer from the effects of such environments. Nevertheless, these programs would be available to disadvantaged whites as well, defraying some opposition.229 However, Americans as a whole have not rejected the view that individuals, regardless of race, are responsible for their plight. Committed to meritocracy and fair play, denying structural limits on opportunities, and opposed to governmental intrusion, they are more likely to stigmatize the poor than defend their citizenship rights.230 In this context, Wilson’s belief that affirmative opportunity is more likely to succeed than affirmative action may be little more than wishful thinking. Contrary to the claims of some of his critics, Wilson did not advocate eliminating race-targeted programs altogether. However, Wilson did not address the fundamental justifications for affirmative action; whether affirmative action should be limited to hiring or should include promotions and terminations; whether a less-qualified member of a beneficiary group should be selected over a better-qualified member of the dominant group

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(in contrast to selecting the beneficiary-group member from among equally qualified candidates); whether affirmative action ought to take the form of quotas or goals; or what characteristics a group would have to have in order to warrant awarding its members preferential treatment.231 Wilson could have, but did not, make a case for affirmative action programs based on inadequacies in the merit system, which should work rationally and objectively to allocate rewards and privileges. In fact, the merit system contains a variety of nonrational and subjective components that prejudice results in favor of some groups and against others232—a point that is apparent in the promotional practices of major corporations discussed above. According to Wilson, even though affirmative action programs may be useful in a delimited sense, they have fragmented the liberal coalitions crucial to his social-democratic policy agenda. The Republican Party has capitalized on public opposition by criticizing affirmative action programs and promoting policies that benefit whites in the upper reaches of the U.S. social-class structure. Thus, Wilson saw a need to deemphasize divisive programs that target particular racial groups in favor of inclusive programs that target all groups. Race-targeted programs would be considered an offshoot of, and secondary to, universal programs.233 Social-democratic policies requiring (unspecified) “macroeconomic changes” to promote balanced economic growth and public-sector employment would benefit the disadvantaged, regardless of race, while attracting and sustaining the support of more advantaged groups from different racial and social-class backgrounds.234 Balanced economic growth is a popular idea. If the economy expands at a sufficient pace, profit and wage rates should increase and the unemployment rate should fall. For these reasons, racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainments should also decrease. This expectation explains why policies to promote economic growth are popular substitutes for affirmative action as the most appropriate way to reduce disparities between blacks and whites.235 However, the post-1982 experience challenges this expectation, suggesting that Wilson’s emphasis on policies to promote economic growth may be misplaced. The impact of economic growth may be mediated by other factors, such as reduced enforcement of antidiscriminatory laws during the Reagan administration. 236 Particularly, in The Declining Significance of Race Wilson claimed that government intervention in U.S. labor markets between 1930 and 1980 promoted opportunities for blacks and decreased racial disparities in educational, occupational, and earnings attainments; others237 argued that the government’s retreat from equal opportunity employment and affirmative action programs in the 1980s reversed the trend. That is, the 1985 cohort of young blacks competed in a labor market that had become less sympathetic to achieving racial equality than was true a decade earlier.

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Data analyzed by Fossett et al.238 suggest that economic growth is less consequential than “strategies of social intervention” for promoting the movement toward racial equality. When they examined the period 1940– 1980, they found that the correlation between economic growth and reductions in racial inequality is inconsistent at best. Civil rights legislation, judicial decisions, and other social interventions contributed much more toward reducing disparities in educational, occupational, and earnings attainments. According to Fossett et al.239 the claim that reductions in racial disparities would have occurred in the absence of social interventions—that is, an activist state—cannot be supported on the basis of available evidence. Furthermore, given deindustrialization and disinvestment, the economy may not have the capacity to absorb a significant part of the black population in other than low-paying service-sector jobs that offer few prospects for socioeconomic advancement.240

In Summary Without a doubt, Wilson’s contribution to the sociology of race relations ranks as extraordinary and productive. Nevertheless, I have to conclude that his attempt to bridge the racial divide through affirmative opportunity and balanced economic growth falls short. An explicit recognition of the state’s role in structuring life-chances in the industrial and modern industrial periods is missing—apparent in U.S. Supreme Court decisions; housing, mortgage-lending, and insurance practices; low-income housing and community development initiatives; zoning and land-use policies; tax incentive programs; interstate highway construction projects; and local control issues.241 The evidence evaluated here suggests that Massey was right: the housing market plays a crucial role in the socioeconomic well-being of blacks. Given substantial evidence of discrimination in the housing and lending markets, its significance as a determinant of racial disparities in socioeconomic status attainment outcomes cannot be dismissed. 242 The high level of black segregation cannot be explained by improper relational contexts or by blacks’ objective socioeconomic characteristics, their housing preferences, or their (limited) knowledge of suburban housing markets. Rather, it is linked empirically to the “web of discrimination”—the combination of banking, finance, insurance, real estate, and government practices that structure life-chances.243 Supply-side economic policies (e.g., urban renewal, tax incentive programs, and free enterprise zones) have done little to redress the inequalities that result from private investment practices. This fact has led to calls for strengthening enforcement of fair housing and credit laws at the national,

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state, and local levels; revising the mortgage practices of the FHA and the Veterans’ Administration; increasing oversight of landlords; expanding rent subsidies to allow lower-income blacks to move into higher-quality housing; increasing the stock of affordable housing; developing regional planning agencies with sufficient authority to implement metropolitan-wide land-use and transportation policies; restricting plant closures; making available investment monies for community-owned and worker-owned enterprises; and encouraging unionization in the service sector.244 Most of these proposals, as well as others, are controversial. Those whose material interests are threatened, and those whose cultural repertoires do not acknowledge (or exclude before the fact) the grounds that resulted in these proposals, will protest. Cultural repertoires play an important role in how people explain, and propose solutions to, racial inequities. These explanations may not be only or even primarily about race. Inferring meanings, attributing motives, and predicting outcomes have become difficult because today ambiguity, inconsistency, hesitation, and avoidance are common in all spheres of social life, not just race relations.245 Nevertheless, these explanations provide insights into how people connect themselves to each other. Cultural repertoires may mitigate, sustain, or intensify conflicts. Because these repertoires vary widely across the white population, it is difficult to accurately predict how whites will react to proposals intended to redress racial inequities.246 However, if racial disparities in educational, occupational, and earnings attainments are the consequence of complex political economic and social relations, then no proposal compatible with the maintenance of the prevailing relations will have much impact on reducing these disparities.247

Notes 1. E.g., Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States From the 1960s to the 1980s, 1st ed. 2. Hawkins, “The ‘Discovery’ of Institutional Racism,” 179. 3. Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In,” 5, 7; C. Young, “Patterns of Social Conflict.” 4. Cf. Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology, 33–34; Gouldner, The Two Marxisms, 55, 71, 312; D. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, 15; Wagner and Berger, “Do Sociological Theories Grow?” 700–702. 5. Wolfe, “New Directions in the Marxist Theory of Politics,” 149. 6. Ibid., 149–150. 7. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd ed., 82. 8. E.g., Marable, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America. 9. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 10. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race,” 56–57.

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11. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears; Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide. 12. Burawoy, “The Capitalist State in South Africa,” 284; cf. Burawoy, “State and Social Revolution in South Africa.” 13. Bonacich, “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism”; Bonacich, “Abolition, the Extension of Slavery, and the Position of Free Blacks”; Bonacich, “Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Race Relations in the United States”; Bonacich, “The Past, Present, and Future of Split Labor Market Theory”; Bonacich, “Class Approaches to Ethnicity and Race”; Bonacich, “Capitalism and Race Relations in South Africa.” 14. Burawoy, “The Capitalist State in South Africa,” 286; Geddes, “The Capitalist State and the Local Economy”; cf. Bonefield, “Some Notes on the Theory of the Capitalist State.” 15. Cf. Niemonen, “The Race Relations Problematic in American Sociology”; Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In,” 6. 16. Cf. Nettl, “The State as a Conceptual Variable,” 561, 591. 17. Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In,” 28. 18. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 19. Cf. Frankel, “On the State of the State,” 203. 20. R. C. Hill, “Race, Class, and the State,” 45. 21. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race; Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 22. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged; Wilson, When Work Disappears; Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 23. D. James, “The Transformation of the Southern Racial State,” 205. 24. Weir, “From Equal Opportunity to ‘The New Social Contract,’” 104; cf. Valocchi, “The Racial Basis of Capitalism and the State, and the Impact of the New Deal on African Americans”; Jessop, “Recent Theories of the Capitalist State,” 371. Although Wilson (The Bridge Over the Racial Divide) neglected the role of insurgency expressed in race riots and other forms of noninstitutional politics, he recognized the importance of popular democratic struggles. 25. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s, 1st ed., 76. 26. M. Keith and Cross, “Racism and the Postmodern City,” 19; Wolfe, “New Directions in the Marxist Theory of Politics,” 143. 27. Cf. Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, in which this assumption is embedded deeply. 28. Connell, “The State, Gender, and Sexual Politics,” 512. 29. Esping-Andersen, Friedland, and Wright, “Modes of Class Struggle and the Capitalist State,” 187. 30. Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology, 47–48, 126. 31. For additional evidence showing that the state is not a neutral arbiter in racial conflict, see Barnes and Connolly, “Repression, the Judicial System, and Political Opportunities for Civil Rights Advocacy During Reconstruction.” 32. Jorgensen, “A Century of Political Economic Effects on American Indian Society, 1880–1980,” 2; Mosley, “Capital and the State,” 27. 33. Frankel, “On the State of the State,” 199; Gold, Lo, and Wright, “Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of the Capitalist State [Part 1],” 37; Isaac and Kelly, “Developmental/Modernization and Political Class Struggle Theories of Welfare Expansion,” 213–214.

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34. Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, 89. 35. E.g., O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State; Offe, “Structural Problems of the Capitalist State”; Offe and Ronge, “Theses on the Theory of the State”; Poulantzas, “The Problem of the Capitalist State”; Poulantzas, “Internationalisation of Capitalist Relations and the Nation-State”; Poulantzas, “The Capitalist State.” 36. Connell, “The State, Gender, and Sexual Politics,” 509; Mollenkopf, “Theories of the State and Power Structure Research,” 256. 37. Burris, “Introduction: The Structuralist Influence in Marxist Theory and Research,” 7–8. 38. Franklin, Shadows of Race and Class, 40; Willhelm, “Can Marxism Explain America’s Racism?” 105. 39. Levine, “Marxism, Sociology, and Neo-Marxist Theories of the State”; cf. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 40. C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination. 41. Burris, “Introduction: The Structuralist Influence in Marxist Theory and Research,” 5, 9. 42. Ibid., 7–8. 43. Gold, Lo, and Wright, “Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of the Capitalist State [Part 1],” 36. 44. Massey and Fong, “Segregation and Neighborhood Quality,” 17. 45. Esping-Andersen, Friedland, and Wright, “Modes of Class Struggle and the Capitalist State,” 197. 46. Poulantzas, “The Problem of the Capitalist State”; Poulantzas, “Internationalisation of Capitalist Relations and the Nation-State”; Poulantzas, “The Capitalist State”; Offe, “Structural Problems of the Capitalist State”; Offe and Ronge, “Theses on the Theory of the State”; O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State; O’Connor, “Some Reflective Criticisms on Mosley’s ‘Critical Reflections on The Fiscal Crisis of the State’”; Frankel, “On the State of the State,” 209; Schroyer, “The Re-Politicization of the Relations of Production,” 117. 47. Mayer and Fay, “The Formation of the American Nation-State,” 71. Mayer and Fay’s article is useful in that it provides a historical overview of the emergence of the formal apparatuses of the capitalist state. 48. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 49. Fine and Harris, “‘State Expenditure in Advanced Capitalism,’” 109. 50. Cf. O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State. 51. Bjorklund, “Ethnicity and the Welfare State,” 20–21. 52. Abu-Febiri, “The State, Racism and Domination in Contemporary Capitalist Societies,” 194–195; H. Baron, “Racism Transformed,” 26; cf. Navarro, “Political Power, the State, and Their Implications in Medicine,” 74. 53. H. Baron, “Racism Transformed,” 27–28. 54. Ringer, We the People and Others, 3–559; cf. McDonald, “The Legal Barriers Crumble.” 55. McKay, “Racial Discrimination in the Electoral Process.” 56. Cloward and Piven, “Race and the Democrats,” 737; D. James, “The Transformation of the Southern Racial State,” 191, 194–195, 205; Parenti, Democracy for the Few, 185; Turner, Singleton, and Musick, Oppression, 148–150. 57. Parenti, Democracy for the Few, 281; Ringer and Lawless, Race-Ethnicity and Society, 153; Scott, “Afro-Americans as a Political Class,” 386, 388–389; Scott, “1984: The Public and Private Governance of Race Relations,” 175–178. 58. Parenti, Democracy for the Few, 287, 293; Ringer and Lawless, RaceEthnicity and Society, 153.

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59. Edelman, “Southern School Desegregation, 1954–1973.” 60. Myrdal, An American Dilemma, 438–439, 448, 450, 480–481. 61. Parenti, Democracy for the Few, 185. 62. McKay, “Racial Discrimination in the Electoral Process.” 63. Turner, Singleton, and Musick, Oppression, 99. 64. Edsall, with Edsall, Chain Reaction, 84. 65. Ibid. 66. Davidson and Korbel, “At-Large Elections and Minority Group Representation.” 67. Cited in Davidson and Korbel, “At-Large Elections and Minority Group Representation.” 68. Ironically, the federal civil service was openly discriminatory against blacks until the 1960s. Its discriminatory practices have a long history. For example, in May 1914, the U.S. Civil Service Commission approved a proposal to require photographs on the application forms of prospective employees, which became a means to exclude black applicants. See King, “A Strong or Weak State?” 24. 69. Cf. King, “A Strong or Weak State?”; Rosenthal, “Employment Discrimination and the Law.” 70. Willie, Race, Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Status, 243. 71. K. Brown, “Keeping Their Distance,” 389; Esping-Andersen, “The Three Political Economies of the Welfare State,” 94; Girardin, “On the Marxist Theory of the State,” 193; Held, “Democracy, the Nation-State, and the Global System,” 140–141; Jessop, “Recent Theories of the Capitalist State,” 355; Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In,” 15. 72. Parenti, Democracy for the Few, 251; Turner, Singleton, and Musick, Oppression, 155; Edsall, with Edsall, Chain Reaction, 187–188. 73. Myrdal, An American Dilemma, 17, 435, 484–485; Turner, Singleton, and Musick, Oppression, 148. King (“A Strong or Weak State?” 41) noted that the New Deal exposed the inequities imposed upon blacks; however, it took three decades before the U.S. Congress “decisively legislated” equality of treatment for blacks. 74. Ringer, We the People and Others, 261; Judd, “Segregation Forever?” 740; Tabb, The Political Economy of the Black Ghetto, 15–20. 75. Turner, Singleton, and Musick, Oppression, 152; cf. Reese, “Residential Segregation,” 60–61. 76. Girardin, “On the Marxist Theory of the State,” 195. 77. Boston, “Racial Inequality and Class Stratification,” 67; Burawoy, “State and Social Revolution in South Africa,” 98; Burawoy, “The Capitalist State in South Africa”; Dubin, “Symbolic Slavery”; Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States From the 1960s to the 1980s, 1st ed., 62–64; Turner, Singleton, and Musick, Oppression, 169–178. 78. Mosley, “Capital and the State,” 25. 79. Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In,” 16, 19. 80. Poulantzas, “The Capitalist State,” 75. 81. Offe, “Structural Problems of the Capitalist State,” 39. 82. Ibid. 83. Ibid., 40. 84. Ibid. 85. Cf. O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State. 86. Jessop, “Recent Theories of the Capitalist State,” 366. 87. A. Bridges, “Nicos Poulantzas and the Marxist Theory of the State,” 165.

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88. Poulantzas, “The Problem of the Capitalist State,” 73; Poulantzas, “Internationalisation of Capitalist Relations and the Nation-State,” 171. 89. Poulantzas, “The Problem of the Capitalist State,” 74. 90. O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State; Schroyer, “The RePoliticization of the Relations of Production,” 115, 118; Gough, “State Expenditure in Advanced Capitalism,” 65; Offe, “Structural Problems of the Capitalist State,” 47. For example, when the legitimacy of the capitalist class was threatened by popular protest movements and social unrest, antitrust activity by the Federal Trade Commission increased; when legitimacy was secure, antitrust activity decreased. Threats to the legitimacy of the system account for the growth or decline in antitrust activity over time better than do changes in levels of corporate concentration. See Neuman, “Crisis and Growth in U.S. Antitrust Policy Activity.” 91. Gough, “State Expenditure in Advanced Capitalism,” 65; Offe, “Structural Problems of the Capitalist State,” 47. 92. C. Young, “Patterns of Social Conflict,” 73. 93. Hughey, “Americanism and Its Discontents,” 534, 536–537. 94. Girardin, “On the Marxist Theory of the State,” 210. 95. McAll, Class, Ethnicity, and Social Inequality, 134; Rueschemeyer and Evans, “The State and Economic Transformation,” 52–53. 96. Esping-Andersen, Friedland, and Wright, “Modes of Class Struggle and the Capitalist State,” 191; Ollman, Dialectical Investigations, 89. 97. Ollman, Dialectical Investigations, 91. 98. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 99. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd ed., 83. 100. Ibid., 82–83. 101. Burawoy, “The Capitalist State in South Africa,” 315–316. It would be a mistake, however, to overemphasize the independence of the sociopolitical order from the economic sector; see Akard, “Bringing the Economy Back in (Again).” Cf. Gulap, “Capital Accumulation, Classes, and the Relative Autonomy of the State”; Gulap, “State and Class in Capitalism.” 102. Miliband, “Poulantzas and the Capitalist State,” 85–88, cf. Das, “State Theories: A Critical Analysis.” 103. Bamat, “Relative State Autonomy and Capitalism in Brazil and Peru,” 75; Burris, “Introduction: The Structuralist Influence in Marxist Theory and Research,” 11; Gerstenberger, “Theory of the State,” 88; Poulantzas, “The Capitalist State,” 72; Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In,” 14. 104. Rueschemeyer and Evans, “The State and Economic Transformation,” 62, 67. 105. Gerstenberger, “Theory of the State,” 87. 106. Chouinard and Fincher, “State Formation in Capitalist Societies”; Solomos, “The Local Politics of Racial Equality,” 145–146; D. James, “The Transformation of the Southern Racial State,” 191–192, 194, 206; Frankel, “On the State of the State.” 107. D. James, “The Transformation of the Southern Racial State,” 194–195. 108. Ibid. 109. Greer, “The Political Economy of the Local State,” 515; D. James, “The Transformation of the Southern Racial State,” 205–206. 110. M. Gordon, “Models of Pluralism,” 178–188; D. James, “The Transformation of the Southern Racial State,” 198. 111. Local state fragmentation is an important determinant of racial inequities. When metropolitan areas fragment into autonomous units, the boundaries that are

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created impede systemwide policy implementation. For example, political fragmentation has enabled suburban whites to avoid, to some extent, disproportionately black schools. Suburban school boards ignore the demands of disadvantaged constituencies for more equitable funding and high-quality education. See D. James, “City Limits on Racial Equality,” 981, 983; Walters, James, and McCammon, “Citizenship and Public Schools,” 50. 112. Greer, “The Political Economy of the Local State,” 515–517, 523–524, 526–527. 113. Guthrie and Roth, “The State, Courts, and Equal Opportunities for Female CEOs in U.S. Organizations.” 114. Ibid. 115. Ibid. Consistent with earlier observations, Guthrie and Ross determined that nonprofit (especially state) organizations have been more effective in institutionalizing structures that embody equal employment opportunity practices than commercial organizations. 116. Esping-Andersen, Friedland, and Wright, “Modes of Class Struggle and the Capitalist State,” 198; Gold, Lo, and Wright, “Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of the Capitalist State [Part 2],” 46; Jessop, “Recent Theories of the Capitalist State,” 358; O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State. 117. Elkins, Slavery, 2nd ed., 37–80; Esping-Andersen, Friedland, and Wright, “Modes of Class Struggle and the Capitalist State,” 215; Gold, Lo, and Wright, “Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of the Capitalist State [Part 1],” 36. 118. Esping-Andersen, “The Three Political Economies of the Welfare State,” 99–100; Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In,” 24. 119. Cf. Isaac and Kelly, “Racial Insurgency, the State, and Welfare Expansion”; D. James, “The Transformation of the Southern Racial State”; Scott, “1984: The Public and Private Governance of Race Relations”; Scott, “AfroAmericans as a Political Class”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 120. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States From the 1960s to the 1980s, 1st ed., 76; cf. Nikolinakos, “Notes on an Economic Theory of Racism.” 121. Wilson, “The Declining Significance of Race”; Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 122. Gold, Lo, and Wright, “Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of the Capitalist State [Part 2],” 46; Gough, “State Expenditure in Advanced Capitalism,” 66; Poulantzas, “The Problem of the Capitalist State,” 75; Kelly, “Dos Santos and Poulantzas on Fascism, Imperialism, and the State”; Pooley, “The State Rules, OK?” 55–56. 123. Burris, “Introduction: The Structuralist Influence in Marxist Theory and Research,” 9–10; Esping-Andersen, Friedland, and Wright, “Modes of Class Struggle and the Capitalist State,” 188; Fine and Harris, “‘State Expenditure in Advanced Capitalism,’” 99; Mosley, “Capital and the State,” 30. 124. O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State. 125. Bamat, “Relative State Autonomy and Capitalism in Brazil and Peru,” 75; Gold, Lo, and Wright, “Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of the Capitalist State [Part 1],” 37–38; Poulantzas, “The Problem of the Capitalist State,” 73. 126. Burawoy, “State and Social Revolution in South Africa,” 109; Burris, “Introduction: The Structuralist Influence in Marxist Theory and Research,” 10; Esping-Andersen, Friedland, and Wright, “Modes of Class Struggle and the Capitalist State,” 19; Gold, Lo, and Wright, “Recent Developments in Marxist

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Theories of the Capitalist State [Part 1],” 31; Miliband, “State Power and Class Interests,” 59. 127. Burris, “Introduction: The Structuralist Influence in Marxist Theory and Research,” 9–10; Greer, “The Political Economy of the Local State,” 515; Mayer and Fay, “The Formation of the American Nation-State.” 128. Bamat, “Relative State Autonomy and Capitalism in Brazil and Peru,” 75; Block, “The Ruling Class Does Not Rule,” 9; Burris, “Introduction: The Structuralist Influence in Marxist Theory and Research,” 11; Esping-Andersen, “The Three Political Economies of the Welfare State,” 14–15; Gough, “State Expenditure in Advanced Capitalism,” 64; Greer, “The Political Economy of the Local State,” 525; Poulantzas, “The Capitalist State,” 72; Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In,” 5, 12. 129. Miles and Satzewich, “Migration, Racism, and ‘Postmodern’ Capitalism,” 351. 130. Cloward and Piven, “Race and the Democrats,” 737–738; D. James, “The Transformation of the Southern Racial State,” 191, 195, 198; Quadagno, “Race, Class, and Gender in the U.S. Welfare State”; Solomos, “The Local Politics of Racial Equality,” 144–156. 131. Mayer and Fay, “The Formation of the American Nation-State,” 72; Ono, “The Limits of Bourgeois Pluralism,” 62. 132. D. James, “The Transformation of the Southern Racial State,” 194– 195. 133. Ibid., 195, 198; Greer, “The Political Economy of the Local State,” 516, 523–524; Hicks, Friedland, and Johnson, “Class Power and State Policy”; Mayer and Fay, “The Formation of the American Nation-State,” 72; Isaac and Kelly, “Developmental/Modernization and Political Class Struggle Theories of Welfare Expansion,” 217. 134. Lieberson, “A Societal Theory of Race and Ethnic Relations,” 904–905, 908; cf. Blauner, Racial Oppression in America; Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. 135. Mele, “Asserting the Political Self,” 75. 136. Ibid., 76–77, 81; Eliasoph, “‘Everyday Racism’ in a Culture of Political Avoidance,” 481. 137. Piven and Cloward, “We Should Have Made a Plan!” 138. A. Bridges, “Nicos Poulantzas and the Marxist Theory of the State,” 173; Miliband, “State Power and Class Interests,” 60; O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State; Skocpol, “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis,” 182–183. 139. Greer, “The Political Economy of the Local State,” 525; Poulantzas, “The Capitalist State,” 75; Skocpol, “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis,” 184. 140. Bamat, “Relative State Autonomy and Capitalism in Brazil and Peru,” 75; Navarro, “Political Power, the State, and Their Implications in Medicine,” 63–64; Poulantzas, “The Problem of the Capitalist State,” 73; Skocpol, “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis,” 170–171. 141. Omi and Winant, “By the Rivers of Babylon,” 57. 142. Poulantzas, “Internationalisation of Capitalist Relations and the NationState,” 171; Burris, “Introduction: The Structuralist Influence in Marxist Theory and Research,” 9–10; Miliband, “State Power and Class Interests,” 59, 62, 65; Weir, “Race, Localism, and Urban Poverty”; Pierson, “New Theories of the State and Civil Society,” 567. 143. Gold, Lo, and Wright, “Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of the Capitalist State [Part 1],” 40; Jessop, “Recent Theories of the Capitalist State,” 366;

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Omi and Winant, “By the Rivers of Babylon,” 57; Wolfe, “New Directions in the Marxist Theory of Politics,” 149–150. 144. A. Bridges, “Nicos Poulantzas and the Marxist Theory of the State,” 178. 145. Mollenkopf, “Theories of the State and Power Structure Research,” 256; Esping-Andersen, Friedland, and Wright, “Modes of Class Struggle and the Capitalist State,” 198; Offe, “The Theory of the Capitalist State and the Problem of Policy Formation,” 140. 146. Gotham, “Racialization and the State.” 147. Rein, Social Science and Public Policy, 141–142. 148. Ibid., 25, 79; Solomos and Back, Racism and Society, 74. 149. Gotham, “Racialization and the State.” 150. Cf. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States From the 1960s to the 1980s, 1st ed., 77, 138; Omi and Winant, “By the Rivers of Babylon,” 48–49; Connell, “The State, Gender, and Sexual Politics,” 519–520, 529–530; Frankel, “On the State of the State,” 209; Freitag, “Class Conflict and the Rise of Government Regulation,” 51, 53; Dubin, “Symbolic Slavery”; Wuthnow, “State Structures and Ideological Outcomes,” 805, 815; Poulantzas, “The Problem of the Capitalist State,” 75, 78; K. Brown, “Keeping Their Distance,” 393; Aronowitz, The Crisis in Historical Materialism, 93–94, 103–104, 189–190; Chang, “Toward a Marxist Theory of Racism,” 39. 151. Wilson, “Race, Class, and Public Policy,” 129; Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 122; Wilson, “When Work Disappears”; Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide; Kasarda, “Urban Industrial Transition and the Underclass,” 27; Sullivan, “Absent Fathers in the Inner City,” 58; Esping-Andersen, “Power and Distributional Regimes,” 224; Stanfield, “Theoretical and Ideological Barriers to the Study of Race-Making”; cf. Kirkland, “Social Policy, Ethical Life, and the Urban Underclass”; Solomos and Back, Racism and Society, 75–76; Bash, Sociology, Race, and Ethnicity, 119; Carmichael and Hamilton, Black Power; McLaughlin, “Beyond ‘Race vs. Class’”; McKee, Sociology and the Race Problem, 348; Pelton, “Misinforming Public Policy.” 152. Villemez and Beggs, “Black Capitalism and Black Inequality,” 139. 153. K. Wilson and Martin, “Ethnic Enclaves,” 156–157; cf. K. Wilson and Portes, “Immigrant Enclaves.” 154. K. Wilson and Martin, “Ethnic Enclaves,” 157. 155. Aldrich, “Employment Opportunities for Blacks in the Black Ghetto”; Reiss and Aldrich, “Absentee Ownership and Management in the Black Ghetto,” 334–338. 156. Brimmer, “Long-Term Trends and Prospects for Black-Owned Businesses.” 157. Villemez and Beggs, “Black Capitalism and Black Inequality,” 137; cf. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 55, 61; Wilson, “American Social Policy and the Ghetto Underclass,” 58–59; Wilson, “A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged,” 134. 158. Villemez and Beggs, “Black Capitalism and Black Inequality,” 122–123, 137. 159. Aldrich and Reiss, “Continuities in the Study of Ecological Succession,” 865. 160. Ibid. 161. Hiltz, “Black and White in the Consumer Financial System,” 987–988. 162. Aldrich and Reiss, “Continuities in the Study of Ecological Succession,” 864–865. No compelling evidence exists that growth in the Asian population is

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pushing blacks out of the small business niche. See R. Boyd, “Black and Asian SelfEmployment in Large Metropolitan Areas,” 268–269. 163. R. Boyd, “A Contextual Analysis of Black Self-Employment in Large Metropolitan Areas, 1970–1980,” 423–424. 164. Ibid., 424; cf. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, on the consequences of the exodus of relatively high status members of the community. 165. A. Smith and Moore, “East-West Differences in Black Economic Development.” 166. K. Wilson and Martin, “Ethnic Enclaves,” 155. 167. Ibid., 156–157. 168. Frankel, “On the State of the State,” 224. 169. Bonastia, “Why Did Affirmative Action Fail During the Nixon Era?” 525–526, 529, 533; Gold, Lo, and Wright, “Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of the Capitalist State [Part 2],” 38. 170. Block, “The Ruling Class Does Not Rule,” 15. 171. Pellow, “Environmental Justice and the Political Process,” 47, 50–51. 172. Beverly and Stanback, “The Black Underclass: Theory and Reality,” 30. 173. Frankel, “On the State of the State,” 224; cf. O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State; Offe, “Structural Problems of the Capitalist State.” 174. Skocpol, “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis,” 183, 189–190. 175. Block, “The Ruling Class Does Not Rule,” 27. 176. Mosley, “Monopoly Capital and the State,” 56; Quadagno, “Race, Class, and Gender in the U.S. Welfare State,” 12; cf. O’Connor, “Some Reflective Criticisms on Mosley’s ‘Critical Reflections on The Fiscal Crisis of the State,’” 63; Pierson, “New Theories of the State and Civil Society,” 567. 177. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States From the 1960s to the 1980s, 1st ed., 77. 178. Offe, “The Theory of the Capitalist State and the Problem of Policy Formation,” 135, 140; Burris, “Introduction: The Structuralist Influence in Marxist Theory and Research,” 10; Pierson, “New Theories of the State and Civil Society,” 567; Jessop, “Recent Theories of the Capitalist State,” 370. 179. Esping-Andersen, Friedland, and Wright, “Modes of Class Struggle and the Capitalist State,” 214. 180. Ibid., 197. The fact that the state (as a set of apparatuses) exists reinforces an illusion that the state is neutral or independent. This illusion is maintained through compulsory legislation, for example. See Müller and Neusüss, “The Illusion of State Socialism and the Contradiction Between Wage Labor and Capital,” 74, 80. 181. Weir and Skocpol, “State Structures and the Possibilities for ‘Keynesian’ Responses to the Great Depression in Sweden, Britain, and the United States,” 118. 182. Burstein and MacLeod, “Prohibiting Employment Discrimination,” 529. 183. Ibid., 531. 184. Gerber, “A Politics of Limited Options.” 185. Wilson and Aponte, “Urban Poverty.” Wilson and Aponte did not point out that this observation was a clear departure from the main thesis of The Declining Significance of Race. 186. Glenn, “Citizenship and Inequality,” 5. 187. A. Bridges, “Nicos Poulantzas and the Marxist Theory of the State,” 169, 178–179; cf. Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide; Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States From the 1960s to the 1980s, 1st ed. 188. Friedland, “Class Power and Social Control,” 466, 487–488.

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189. Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, 1–6, 43, 76–77. 190. Ibid., 70, 89–90. 191. V. Ford, “Review [of The Bridge Over the Racial Divide],” 585; Lehrer, “Wilson Says Faith Can Help the Inner City [An Interview with William Julius Wilson],” 21; cf. Billingsley, Mighty Like a River. 192. Strong et al., “Leveraging the State.” 193. Ibid. 194. Pierson, “New Theories of the State and Civil Society,” 567; EspingAndersen, “The Three Political Economies of the Welfare State,” 94. 195. Skocpol, “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis,” 170. 196. A. Bridges, “Nicos Poulantzas and the Marxist Theory of the State,” 174; Gerstenberger, “Theory of the State,” 88. 197. Andrews, “Social Movements and Policy Implementation,” 71; Isaac and Kelly, “Racial Insurgency, the State, and Welfare Expansion,” 1350, 1356, 1380; Leiman, “The Political Economy of Racism,” 95; Esping-Andersen, “The Three Political Economies of the Welfare State,” 16; Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States From the 1960s to the 1980s, 1st ed. Generally, textbooks in the sociology of race relations have neglected the role of extrainstitutional politics in effecting social change. See Niemonen, “Some Observations on the Problem of Paradigms in Recent Racial and Ethnic Relations Texts.” 198. Isaac and Kelly, “Racial Insurgency, the State, and Welfare Expansion,” 1350. 199. Ibid., 1348–1386. 200. Piven and Cloward, Regulating the Poor. 201. Isaac and Kelly, “Racial Insurgency, the State, and Welfare Expansion,” 1348, 1374, 1376–1377. 202. Jennings, “Racial Insurgency, the State, and Welfare Expansion,” 1226; Isaac and Kelly, “Racial Insurgency, the State, and Welfare Expansion.” 203. Jennings, “Racial Insurgency, the State, and Welfare Expansion,” 1221, 1235; cf. Olzak and Shanahan, “Deprivation and Race Riots,” 951–953. 204. Quadagno, “Social Movements and State Transformation,” 616, 630. 205. Quadagno, “Promoting Civil Rights Through the Welfare State,” 74–75. 206. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd ed., 89; cf. Pierson, “New Theories of the State and Civil Society,” 568. 207. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd ed., 89; cf. Wilson, “When Work Disappears.” 208. Jessop, “Recent Theories of the Capitalist State,” 366. 209. Quadagno, “Promoting Civil Rights Through the Welfare State,” 77, 79–80, 82; Skocpol, “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis,” 173, 178. 210. Barkan, “Legal Control of the Southern Civil Rights Movement,” 553. 211. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race. 212. See, “Ideology and Racial Stratification,” 76. 213. Ibid., 81; Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World”; cf. Pettigrew, “New Black-White Patterns,” 334. 214. A. Bridges, “Nicos Poulantzas and the Marxist Theory of the State,” 180, 183; Jessop, “Recent Theories of the Capitalist State,” 368; cf. Carmichael and Hamilton, Black Power; Burawoy, “The Capitalist State in South Africa,” 319. For a brilliant example, see Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World.” 215. Pierson, “New Theories of the State and Civil Society,” 567. 216. Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 310–311, 380, 394; Esping-

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Andersen, Friedland, and Wright, “Modes of Class Struggle and the Capitalist State,” 197; Mosley, “Capital and the State,” 28; Skocpol, “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis,” 182; Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In,” 14, 20; Therborn, “What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules?” 11. 217. Quadagno, “Promoting Civil Rights Through the Welfare State,” 68–69. 218. Ibid. 219. Fyfe, “Using Race as an Instrument of Policy,” 70. 220. Starr, “Social Categories and Claims in the Liberal State.” 221. Ibid.; Guillebeau, “Affirmative Action in a Global Perspective.” 222. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 99–100, 102; Wilson, “Race, Class, and Public Policy,” 113–115, 147; Wilson, “A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged,” 135, 144; Wilson, “American Social Policy and the Ghetto Underclass,” 60–63; cf. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd ed., 149; Tigges, Brown, and Green, “Social Isolation of the Urban Poor,” 74. 223. Steinberg, “Occupational Apartheid,” 746. 224. Guillebeau, “Affirmative Action in a Global Perspective.” 225. Ibid. 226. D. Williams et al., “Traditional and Contemporary Prejudice and Urban Whites’ Support for Affirmative Action and Government Help,” 522–523; Bobo and Kluegel, “Opposition to Race-Targeting,” 443, 458–460; Wilson, When Work Disappears, 203–204. 227. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged, 116–118, 120, 123, 153–155; Wilson, The Bridge Over the Racial Divide, 102, 110–113, 125; cf. Washington, “The Civil Rights Movement After Three Decades,” 260–262. 228. Implicit in Wilson’s recommendations is an assumption that small reforms may indirectly prompt larger structural changes. Cf. H. Hunter, “Oliver C. Cox: Marxist or Intellectual Radical?” 21. 229. Wilson, “American Social Policy and the Ghetto Underclass,” 61; Wilson, “A Response to Critics of The Truly Disadvantaged,” 135–136; Wilson, When Work Disappears, 198–199. 230. Fraser and Kick, “The Interpretive Repertoires of Whites on RaceTargeted Policies”; Bobo and Kluegel, “Opposition to Race-Targeting”; Bobo and Smith, “From Jim Crow Racism to Laissez-Faire Racism”; Kluegel and Smith, “Whites’ Beliefs About Blacks’ Opportunity,” 518, 529; Kluegel and Smith, “Affirmative Action Attitudes”; Kluegel, “Trends in Whites’ Explanations of the Black-White Gap in Socioeconomic Status, 1977–1989”; Kluegel and Smith, Beliefs About Inequality; D. Williams et al., “Traditional and Contemporary Prejudice and Urban Whites’ Support for Affirmative Action and Government Help,” 507–508, 522; cf. Ryan, Equality. Some black conservatives (a category that does not include William Julius Wilson) argue that, because of the declining significance of race, affirmative action and other equal employment opportunity programs are no longer necessary; indeed, these programs may be detrimental to the advancement of blacks. They contend that continuing racial disparities in educational, occupational, and earnings attainments can be explained by factors other than race. See Boston, “Racial Inequality and Class Stratification,” 46; cf. Pride, “Public Opinion and the End of Busing,” 221; Adkins-Covert et al., “News in My Backyard.” 231. Cf. Stroud, “The Aim of Affirmative Action.” 232. McLaughlin, “Beyond ‘Race vs. Class’”; Ringer, “Affirmative Action, Quotas, and Meritocracy.” 233. Wilson, “American Social Policy and the Ghetto Underclass,” 61–63;

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Alexander, Bronner, and Jacobsen, “The Angst of Affirmative Action”; cf. D. J. Harris, “The Black Ghetto as Colony,” 27. 234. Wilson, “American Social Policy and the Ghetto Underclass”; Wilson, “The Underclass: Issues, Perspectives, and Public Policy.” 235. Cf. Villemez and Wiswell, “The Impact of Diminishing Discrimination on the Internal Size Distribution of Black Income.” 236. Guillebeau, “Affirmative Action in a Global Perspective”; Shulman, “Competition and Racial Discrimination,” 113; Marrett, “The Precariousness of Social Class in Black America,” 17. 237. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, “Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race,” 554. 238. Fossett, Galle, and Kelly, “Racial Occupational Inequality, 1940–1980,” 426, 428. 239. Ibid., 428. 240. Beverly and Stanback, “The Black Underclass,” 26. 241. Kushner, “Apartheid in America”; cf. Rabin, “Highways as Barriers to Equal Access”; C. Smith, “Public School Desegregation and the Law,” 326–327. 242. E. Rosenbaum, “Racial/Ethnic Differences in Home Ownership and Housing Quality, 1991,” 418. In 1977, the Department of Housing and Urban Development attempted to measure the nature and extent of racial discrimination in housing. The nationwide audit, which incorporated rigorous controls, concluded that racial discrimination in housing was pervasive, although geographical variations were evident. See Saltman, “Housing Discrimination”; cf. Farley and Frey, “Changes in the Segregation of Whites From Blacks During the 1980s.” 243. Massey, “American Apartheid,” 354; Massey and Fong, “Segregation and Neighborhood Quality,” 17; Squires, “The Political Economy of Housing.” 244. Beverly and Stanback, “The Black Underclass,” 31; Eggers and Massey, “The Structural Determinants of Urban Poverty,” 250; Massey, Gross; and Shibuya, “Migration, Segregation, and the Geographic Concentration of Poverty,” 443; Rabin, “Highways as Barriers to Equal Access.” 245. Downey, “Situating Social Attitudes Toward Cultural Pluralism,” 93; Eliasoph, “‘Everyday Racism’ in a Culture of Political Avoidance,” 483, 494, 496. 246. Downey, “Situating Social Attitudes Toward Cultural Pluralism,” 91, 104; Eliasoph, “‘Everyday Racism’ in a Culture of Political Avoidance,” 497. 247. Darity, “The Goal of Racial Economic Equality,” 66; cf. Darity, “The Undesirables, America’s Underclass in the Managerial Age”; Quadagno, “Race, Class, and Gender in the U.S. Welfare State,” 11.

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Index

ABS. See Association of Black Sociologists Academic sector, underrepresentation of blacks in, 111–112 Achievement scores, 92, 135(n68) AFDC. See Aid to Families with Dependent Children Affirmative action programs, 5–6, 10, 21; black middle-class opposition to, 257(n230); construction union labor, 120–121; decreasing the income gap, 100; influencing upward mobility, 109–110; lack of state support for, 98; mortgage-lending practices and, 196; multiracialism, 50–51; Protestant opposition to, 203–205; white opposition to, 200; Wilson’s affirmative opportunity concept, 242–246 Age: income disparity as a function of, 69, 95–96; male marriageable pool index, 160 Aggregate inequality, 89–91 Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), 149 Alleven v. Board of Elections, 224 Alternative capital, 166 American Journal of Sociology, 25, 74, 206 American Sociological Association, 3 American Sociological Review, 25, 74, 206

Antitrust activity, 251(n90) Asian Americans: concentrated poverty, 183; interclass segregation, 184; job competition for blacks, 254(n162); residential segregation, 186–187, 190 Assimilation: assimilation theory, 13–15, 24–25; attitudinal receptional assimilation, 14; cultural pluralism and, 57; spatial, 187–189, 207 Assimilation in American Life (Gordon), 61 Association of Black Sociologists (ABS), 3 Athletic achievement, 135(n76) Attitudinal receptional assimilation, 14 Authority attainment, 115–119 Autonomy, relative, 228–229, 231 Banking sector, redlining practices in, 182, 193–196 Biological nature, of racialization, 50–53, 66, 91, 103–104 Black Codes, 223 Black Hispanics, 187 Black-owned businesses, 235 Blue-collar workers: affirmative action programs, 243–244; job attainment and mobility, 113–115 Brazil, racial discrimination in, 209(n54) The Bridge Over the Racial Divide (Wilson), 5; eth-class, 63; multicul-

299

300 turalism, 57; state role in racial conflict, 11–12, 39–40, 42 Brown v. Board of Education, 223 Busing, 200, 205 C. Wright Mills Award, 4 Capital: human, 100, 117–119, 166, 181, 189, 207; types of, 166 Capitalist state. See State, the Capital punishment rates, 171–172 Caribbean Hispanics, 187 Causality, 4; inferring causality of discrimination, 72–75; redlining as factor in urban poverty, 182, 193–196; undesirable behavior as outgrowth of poverty, 36–37 Census criteria, 49–51 Chicago public housing, 197 Childbearing, premarital, 161–162, 177(n197) Chinese Americans, 158 Civil Rights Acts, 95, 116, 123, 223–225, 229, 242 Civil rights movement, 65, 87, 229, 238, 242 Class. See Social class Classifications, ethnic and racial, 49–53 Clinton administration, 238 Cognitive skills acquisition, 100–101 Colonialism: internal colony model of power conflict, 17–18 Community Service Administration, 123 Competitive sector jobs, 124 Concentrated poverty: areas of, 151–153; middle class blacks and, 152–153, 183–185; non-black populations, 182–183; residential segregation as factor in, 152, 181–191; state contribution to, 211(n90) Construction industry, 120–122, 243 Corporate sector employment: antitrust activity, 251(n90); black mobility in, 108; white corporations in the black sector, 143(n304) Cosmopolitanism, 58 Covenants, housing, 193, 225, 234 Craft labor, 120–122 Crime, 52, 167–170, 179(n159) Cuban Americans, 158, 186, 236 Cultural capital, 166 Cultural heterogeneity, 27, 64–65

Index Cultural pluralism, 24–25, 57, 59–60 Cultural processes, 87 Cultural racism, 91–94 Cultural structure, 17; cultural versus capital deficiencies, 167; hiring practices for young black men, 114; as poverty survival method, 165–166; stereotyping characteristics and behavior of the underclass, 31–38; violence and crime, 167–170 Death-sentence rates, 171–172 The Declining Significance of Race (Wilson), 1–3, 6; earnings attainment, 94–104; economic development periods, 84–85; failure to analyze state role in race relations, 217–221; flawed research methodology, 29–30; housing markets, 199–206; human capital account, 110–112; ideology and racial antagonisms, 41–42; labor unions, 119–122; occupational titles, 64; race and social-psychological distress, 128–131; racial inequality over time, 89–91; racial stratification as a function of social class, 20; racism and labor exploitation, 55; school practices and black gains in education, 91–94; social class increasing in significance, 84–85; state structuring of race relations, 10–12, 38–40 Deindustrialization, 98–99 Delinquency, 167–170 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), 223 Department of Health and Human Services, 123 Department of Housing and Urban Development, 123, 194, 197–198, 258(n242) Desegregation. See Segregation Differential distribution, in labor market division, 104 Disarticulation, 157–159 Discrimination: contemporary, 8, 24, 31, 54; continuation over time, 91; emergence of the underclass, 31–38; historical, 8, 23–24, 31–32, 54, 68–72, 148–149, 181; racial discrimination versus racism, 28–29. See also

Index Residential discrimination and segregation Divorce, 129 Domestic abuse, 163 Dominant group: competition for power and resources, 16–17 Downward mobility, 106–108, 213(n134) Earnings. See Income gap Eastern Europeans, 201 Economic relations, 67 Economic sector, 5; competition for resources and power, 16–17, 22; determining social class, 64; emergence of the underclass, 34–38; impact of local economy on racial inequality, 85–87; influence on racial stratification, 20; structuralist analysis of the state, 221–225 Economic sector/sociopolitical order separation, 38–40, 67, 182, 191–199, 217–221 Economy: balanced growth and affirmative action programs, 245–246; blacks’ vulnerability to layoffs, 108–109; emergence of the urban underclass, 207; industrial restructuring and concentrated urban poverty, 153; policy formation in the context of economic growth, 234–236; reinforcing patterns of race relations, 19–20; state role in capitalist production, 226; structural changes fostering black urban poverty, 148. See also Poverty Education: achievement scores, 92, 135(n68); black gains over time, 89–91; cognitive skills acquisition, 100–101; empirical validation of the black/white income gap, 68–72; employment opportunities for black women, 156–157; impact on second generation achievement, 105–106; increase in income gap as consequence of educational performance gap, 94–95; level of education and job competition, 102–103; North/South income gap, 97; occupational attainment and, 139(n77); school choice based on racial impli-

301 cations, 202; school practices, 91–94; social-class prejudice and education level, 201; unequal access to, 72–73 EEOC. See Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Efficacy, personal, 131, 150 Elections legislation, 222–224 Employment, 65–66, 140(n231), 181; authority attainment, 115–119; black students’ perceptions of opportunities, 92–93; Civil Rights Act and EEOC, 224–225; disarticulation leading to employment hardship, 157–159; marital disintegration, 159–163; measuring the black/white income gap, 69–72; middle-class gains in, 30–31; new racism of employers towards urban blacks, 164–166; regional disparities, 81(n171); rural and urban, 35; spatial mismatch hypothesis and urban labor markets, 153–157; state contribution to urban black joblessness, 148; violence and crime, 167–170. See also Corporate sector employment; Labor market; Layoffs; State sector employment Entrepreneurship, 121, 235–236 Epistemological incoherence, 65–66 Equal employment opportunities, in nonprofit organizations, 252(n115) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 122–123, 224, 238 Eth-class, 62–63 Ethnic groupings, 49–53, 57–58, 60–61 Ethnicity, 57–58; eth-class, 62–63; ethnic groupings, 49–53, 57–58, 60–61; nonblacks, 187; roots of, 79(n98) Ethnic segregation, 185–189 European countries: underclass concept, 33 Executive Order 9981 (1948), 127 Executive Order 11063 (1962), 194 Executive Order 11246 (1965), 123, 224 Extrainstitutional tactics, for social change, 239–241, 251(n90) Fair Housing Act (1968), 194, 211(n90) Fair Housing Amendments Act (1988), 194

302 Faith-based values, 202–205 Family structure: impact on school achievement, 92–93; marital disintegration, 159–163; public housing demographics, 197; return to family resources, 104–106; violence and crime, 169–170 Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 41, 193–194, 225 Federal National Mortgage Association, 194 Federal Trade Commission, 251(n90) FHA. See Federal Housing Administration Fifteenth Amendment, to the U.S. Constitution, 223 Financial capital, 166 Financial sector, residential segregation by, 8–10, 37–38 Food stamp programs, 149 Fourteenth Amendment, to the U.S. Constitution, 223 France: underclass concept, 33 Fullilove v. Klumnick, 243 Gang activities, 166, 198 Gender. See Women General Social Surveys, 118 Germany: underclass concept, 33 Getting Beyond Race (Payne), 205–206 Ghetto culture, 34–35, 151 G.I. Bill, 193 Government institutions: black gains in employment and income, 22; black representation in state sector jobs, 123; as body for collective change, 11–12; residential discrimination, 9–10. See also State, the Great Society initiatives, 238–239 Griggs v. Duke Power, 123 Hawaii, 50 Health care, 242 HEW. See Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Hiring practices: resulting from residential segregation, 115; in the state sector, 122–123; for young black men, 114 Hispanic Americans: as black resource, 102; concentrated poverty, 182–183;

Index Cuban Americans, 158, 186, 236; industrial restructuring and, 153; interclass segregation, 184; occupational attainments, 105; residential segregation, 186–188, 190, 210(n61); sentencing outcomes for crimes, 171 Historical discrimination, 8; empirical validation of black/white income gap, 68–72; importance in socioeconomic gains, 24; as root cause of black urban poverty, 148–149; segregation as artifact of, 181; separating from contemporary discrimination, 54; state role in removing, 31 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, 194 Homicide, 179(n159) Hoover, Herbert, 219 Housing. See Residential discrimination and segregation Housing Act (1934), 234 Housing and Urban Development Act (1968), 194 Human capital, 166; authority attainment, 117–119; human capital and structural accounts, 110–112; income gap and, 100; spatial assimilation and, 189, 207 Identity politics, 61 Ideology, 10; determining social class, 64; false universality of state actions, 217–218; race as ideological construct, 51–54, 67; redistributive policies and, 241–242; Wilson’s failure to acknowledge importance of, 85 Immigration, 88, 156 Incarceration, 172–173 Income gap, 22, 24, 27; authority attainment, 115–119; black gains over time, 89–91; increase in educational performance gap, 94; labor union practices and, 120–122; racial versus class divides, 86; spatial mismatch hypothesis, 154–157; in the state sector, 122–128; statistical analyses, 68–75; in the U.S. military, 128; variables affecting measurement of, 94–104 Industrialization, 2, 16–17 Industrial labor, 120–122 Industrial period, 3, 19–21; defining

Index social class, 65; policies and programs, 233–234; split labor market theory, 16–17, 86–88 Industrial restructuring, 9; concentrated urban poverty, 153, 182, 184–185; impact on women, 156–157 In-migration, 183, 185 Inner-city population. See Urban population Institutional environments, 229–230 Institutional racism, 54 Instrumentalism, 38 Insurance, homeowners, 196 Integration, white opposition to, 199–206 Internal colony model, of power conflict, 17–18 Internal labor market, 112, 117, 121–122 Interpersonal relations, 25 Invasion-succession pattern, of residential segregation, 186–189 Investment, freedom of, 236 Irish Protestant Americans, 201 Italian Americans, 201 Japanese Americans, 199 Job contacts, 157–158 Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program, 1–2 Job sorting, 111 Johnson administration, 238 Journal of Social Issues, 206 Judicial system, 170–173, 193, 198 Kennedy administration, 225 Korean Americans, 158 Labor market: conditions fostering racial tolerance and intolerance, 201–202; exploitation of labor as power conflict, 17; government participation in, 125; impact of local economy on racial inequality, 85–87; increase in educational performance gap, 94; internal colony model, 17–18; internal labor market, 112, 117, 121–122; layoff rate among blacks, 108; measuring the black/white income gap through occupational classification, 70–72; mobility opportunities after segmentation of, 21–22; occupation

303 defining social class, 64; policy formation in the context of the labor demand, 234–236; racial versus class divides, 86; spatial mismatch hypothesis and urban labor markets, 153–157; unions and discrimination, 88. See also Employment Labor unions, 119–122 Layoffs, 108, 123–124, 126, 243–244 Liberal views, of the state, 220 Lower class: defining social class, 63–65; growing gap between middle class and, 18–19; job attainment and mobility, 113–115; versus underclass, 33–38 Male marriageable pool index, 160–162 Management-level jobs, 109–110 Manufacturing industry, 98 Marital status, 129–130, 159–163 Marxist theory, 19, 221; applicability to modern race relations theory, 25–26; modern industrial period, 84; preindustrial period, 85; state role in social-class struggle, 89 Materialism, 65 Mechanization, 88 Media portrayal, of blacks, 214(n161) Medicare, 242 Mexican Americans, 186 Middle class, 63–65 Middle class, black, 67, 184; authority attainment, 115–119; corporate and private sector employment gains, 30–31; creating concentrated poverty, 149–150, 152–153, 183–185; growing gap between lower class and, 18–19; impact of age on income gap, 95–96; occupational attainment, 104–115; opposition to affirmative action programs, 257(n230); racial structuring of housing markets, 199–206; residential segregation by social class, 197–198; social-psychological distress, 128–131; state sector employment gains, 122–128; upward mobility increases, 109–110 Migration, 91, 97; in-migration to urban areas, 183, 185; out-migration and concentrated urban poverty, 9, 149, 152, 181–184

304 Military, black representation in, 126–127 Mobility: alternative capital as underclass resource, 166–167; corporate sector employment, 108; downward mobility, 106–108, 213(n134); job attainment and mobility for blue-collar workers, 113–115; job mobility in the state sector, 122–123; labor market segmentation, 21–22; measuring the black/white income gap, 71–72; in the military, 127–128; parallel black/white job ladders, 110; residential mobility, 187–191; social and spatial, 198; social-psychological distress, 128–131; state sector employment, 108, 122–123; transportation access, 155; union labor, 122; upward mobility in middle class blacks, 109–110; white and black mobility, 36 Modern industrial period, 3, 19–21; black employment gains during, 30–31; defining social class, 65; economic competition and racial group formation, 84–85; historical discrimination, 24; policies and programs, 233–234; state role in race relations, 38–40 Monopoly sector jobs, 112, 124 Mortgage-lending practices, 193–196, 199 Multiculturalism, 25, 56–63, 77(n66) Multiple regression analysis. See Regression analysis National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), 195–196 National Housing Act (1934), 193 National Medal of Science, 2 Native Americans, 35, 105 Neoconservative view of the underclass, 32, 35 Netherlands: underclass concept, 33 Neutral arbiter concept, 231 New Deal legislation, 86 Nixon administration Nonprofit organizations, equal employment opportunities in, 252(n115)

Index Occupational attainment, 104–115, 139(n77); defining social class, 64; education and, 139(n77); impact of immigration on skilled and unskilled black labor markets, 156; impact on earnings, 98–99; measuring the black/white income gap, 70–72 Occupational distribution, 73 Occupational formations: authority attainment, 115–119; black gains over time, 89–91 Occupational segregation, 101–102 Office of Federal Contract Compliance, 122–123, 224 Omnibus Fair Housing Act (1968), 194 Oppositional culture, as poverty survival method, 165–166 Organizational capacity, 241 Out-migration, 9, 149, 152, 181–184 Payne, Richard, 205–206 Personal efficacy, 131 Philadelphia Plan, 243 Plantation economy, 85 Plessey v. Ferguson, 223 Pluralism, cultural, 25, 57 Pluralism, structural, 60 Pluralist views, of the state, 220 Policy formation, 5, 40–41; extrainstitutional group tactics and pressure, 239–241; local state fragmentation, 251(n111); in the preindustrial, industrial, and modern industrial periods, 233–234; promoting freedom of investment, 236; providing conditions and procedures for, 237–238; state role in, 226; state versus public interests, 242 Political influences: competition for power, 16–17; determining social class, 64; impact of local economy on racial inequality, 85–87; influence on racial stratification, 20, 67 Population concentration, 101, 149 Postal Service. See U.S. Postal Service Poverty, 4–5; access to social resources and job contacts, 158–159; distribution of poverty funds, 238–239; emergence of the black underclass, 147–151; stereotyping characteristics and behavior of the underclass,

Index 31–38; violence and crime, 167–170. See also Concentrated poverty Power, 2 Power, Racism, and Privilege (Wilson), 2–3, 16–17 Power-conflict theory, 15–17, 23, 63 Preindustrial period, 3, 19–21, 67, 85, 233–234 Prejudice reduction through interracial contact, 15 Prison population, 172–173 Production modes, 83–84 Productivity, 109, 164–166 Property values, 201, 213(n134) Protestant values, 202–205 Public housing, 196–197 Public Works Employment Act (1977), 243 Puerto Rican Americans, 188, 210(n61) Punishment, of students, 93–94 Questionnaire response styles, 131 Race: versus class, 6–8; defining social class, 63–68; emergence of the underclass, 31–38; growing gap between lower- and middle-class blacks, 18–19; reification of, 49–53; Webster’s definition, 75(n6) Race-class debate: assimilation theory, 13–15; power-conflict theory, 15–23; Wilson and the ontological standing of race and class, 27–29 Race relations, 13–14; assimilationist theory, 13–16; state role in, 38–40 Race signification, 26–27 Race-targeted programs, 5–6, 243–245 Racial antagonism, 28–29, 85 Racial antipathy, 3 Racial categorization, 66 Racial classification, 49–53 Racial equality, 10 Racial group formation, 83–89, 242–246 Racial injustice, 10 Racialization, 50, 56 Racially marginalized people, 35 Racism, conceptionalization of, 53–56 Reagan administration, 123–124, 238 Recession periods, 108–109 Redlining, 182, 193–196 Regional influences: black entrepreneur-

305 ship, 236; black population concentrations affecting income gap, 101; black/white employment disparities, 81(n171); and concentrated poverty, 183–185; hiring practices resulting from residential segregation, 115; local state fragmentation, 251(n111) Regression analysis, 29; black gains compared to whites, 89–90; black/white income gap, 96–97; inferring causality, 72–75; sentencing outcomes for crimes, 171; validating the declining significance of race, 68–72 Relative autonomy, 228–229, 231 Religious roots, of the state, 227 Religious values, 202–205 Rental housing, 186 Republican Party, 245 Research methodology: empirical validation of black/white income gap, 68–72; impact of immigration on skilled and unskilled black labor markets, 156; inferring causality, 72–75; multiple regression analysis, 29; violence leading to social change, 240. See also Regression analysis Residential discrimination and segregation, 8–10; acquisition of human capital as requisite for, 189–191; as factor in concentrated poverty, 152, 181–191; as form of ghettoization, 191–199; growth of the black underclass, 37–38; hiring practices resulting from, 115; importance in black life-chances, 206–207; racial structuring of housing markets, 199–206; by skin color, 209(n54); social-class stratification and, 106; state-supported discrimination, 225, 234; violence and crime, 169, 179(n159); white preference for non-black minorities, 210(n61); Wilson’s propositions for state programs, 41–42 Residential mobility, 189 Resources, competition for, 3, 16–17, 28; closing the black-white gap, 28–30; defining social class, 63–64; ethnicity and, 61; intragroup competition in the underclass, 239; role of

306 ideology in, 41–42; role of race in, 86 Restrictive covenants, 193, 225, 234 Riots, 240 Rural areas, employment hardship in, 157 School choice, 202, 251(n111) Segregation: black civil rights in the industrial period, 87; concentrated urban poverty and, 152–153, 181–191; ethnic segregation in neighborhoods, 185–189; impact of desegregation on black achievement scores, 92; impact on black achievement scores, 92; job sorting, 111; in labor unions, 120–122; occupational, 101–102; residential (See Residential discrimination and segregation) Self-esteem, personal and racial, 130–131 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (1944), 193 Service sector jobs, 98 Shelley v. Kramer, 193 Skin color, as racialization criterion, 51–53, 103–104, 209(n54) SMSAs. See Standard metropolitan statistical areas Social buffer, 150 Social capital, 166 Social change, state role in, 10–12 Social class structure, 6–8; ascertaining the conceptual reality of, 27; defining in terms of race, 63–68; eth-class, 62–63; growing gap between lower and middle class blacks, 18–19; impact of local interests on, 87; impact on racial disparity, 85–87; influence on the state, 228–229; interclass segregation, 183; internal stratification among blacks, 106; lower and underclass, 33–38; multiculturalism and, 56–63; occupational attainment among blacks, 104–115; race consciousness and social class consciousness, 52–53; residential segregation and, 197; social-psychological distress, 128–131; upper class, 63–65; upper-middle class,

Index 104–119. See also Middle class; Underclass Social dislocations, 147–148 Social Forces, 74, 206 Social formation: racial categorization in the context of, 66; state role in capitalist production, 226–227; underclass as, 33–38 Social intervention, in racial equality, 246 Social isolation: emergence of urban poverty, 149–150; leading to employment hardship, 157; male marriageable pool index, 160–162; in public housing, 196–197; value of job contacts as function of socioeconomic status, 158–159; violence and crime, 167–170 Social mobility, 198 Social movements, 2 Social pathology, 34 Social Problems journal, 53, 74, 206 Social programs, 5–6, 202–205. See also Affirmative action programs Social-psychological dimension, of race relations, 25, 87 Social-psychological distress, 128–131 Social Psychological Quarterly, 206 Social resources: job contacts, 158– 159 Social welfare. See Welfare programs Society for the Study of Social Problems, 4 Sociocultural issues, 25 Socioeconomic status: authority attainment, 115–119; determining by skintone variations, 103–104; ethnic concentration in neighborhoods, 185; factors influencing white opposition to integration, 199–206; male marriageable pool index, 160; residential mobility and, 186–180; value of job contacts as function of, 158–159; white and black mobility, 36 Sociofile database, 75 Sociological Quarterly, 74 Sociopolitical order, 5, 10–11, 22, 38–40. See also Economic sector/ sociopolitical order separation Spatial assimilation, 187–189, 207 Spatial isolation, 169, 183, 186–189

Index Spatial mismatch hypothesis, 153 Spatial mobility, 198 Special interest groups, 238 Split labor market theory, 2, 16–17, 19; applicability to modern race relations theory, 25–26; industrial period, 86–88; lack of state concept for, 218; modern industrial period, 22, 84; racial versus class divides in the industrial period, 86–88 Standard metropolitan statistical areas (SMSAs), 71, 190 State, the, 13–14; affirmative action programs, 243–246; black employment gains, 30–31; changing role through history, 26; contribution to concentrated urban poverty, 211(n90); definition and characteristics of, 225–230; determining social class, 64; emergence of the black underclass, 147–151; false universality of, 255(n180); lack of support for affirmative action programs, 98; national versus individual state functions, 231–233; policies enforcing residential discrimination and segregation, 192–199; propositions for bridging the theoretical divide, 230–242; racial classification and affirmative action, 243; role in residential discrimination, 9–10; setting parameters for social change, 410–42; structuralist analysis applied to race relations, 221–225; Wilson’s failure to analyze role in race relations, 38–40, 217–221 State sector employment: black mobility in, 108; employment practices, 105; factors influencing black socioeconomic advancement, 122–128; labor unions, 119–122; open discrimination in, 250(n68) Statistical analysis. See Regression analysis Structural accounts, 110–112 Structural dimension of race relations, 25 Structural discrimination, 165 Structuralist theories, of the state, 221–225 Structural pluralism, 60

307 Structural processes, shaping race relations, 2 Structural transformations, 99 Structuration: racial group and social class formation, 66–67 Structure formation, 83–84 Students. See Education Subordinate group: competition for power and resources, 16–17 Suburbanization, 149, 185–189, 191–199 Supervisory jobs, 96–97 Time magazine, 2 Title VII (Civil Rights Act), 116, 224, 229 Transportation access, 155 The Truly Disadvantaged (Wilson), 1, 4, 31; causality of values system, 163–167; marital disintegration, 159–163; neoconservative view of the underclass, 35; racialization, 52; state as a body for change, 11; state role in race relations, 220; state role in the emergence of the black underclass, 147–151; violence and crime, 168 Truman, Harry, 127 Underclass, 8–10, 22, 42; alternative capital as adaptive resource, 165–167; causality of values system, 163–167; defining social class, 64–65; formation factors, 175(n49); intragroup competition for resources, 239; middle-class influence in creating, 67; multicultural movement, 60; state role in the emergence of, 147–151; stereotyping characteristics and behavior of, 31–38; violence and crime, 167–170 Underemployment, 111 Unemployment. See Employment Union labor, 22, 88, 119–122 United Kingdom: underclass concept, 33 Upper class, 63–65 Upper middle-class: authority attainment, 115–119; occupational attainment, 104–115; upward mobility increases, 109–110 Upward mobility: internal labor market,

308 112; measuring the black/white income gap, 71–72; parallel black/white job ladders, 110; socialpsychological distress, 128–131 Urban population, 4–5; concentrated poverty, 151–153, 181–191; emergence of the black underclass, 147–151; factors influencing failure to close income gap, 98; historical and contemporary discrimination, 31–32; job attainment and mobility, 113–115; media portrayal of blacks, 214(n161); new racism of employers toward urban blacks, 164–166; spatial mismatch hypothesis and urban labor markets, 153–157. See also Concentrated poverty; Poverty Urban riots, 240 U.S. Civil Service Commission, 250(n68) U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 224 U.S. Constitution, 223 U.S. Justice Department, 198, 223 U.S. Postal Service, 111–112, 126 U.S. Sentencing Commission, 171 U.S. Supreme Court, 193, 202, 222–225, 238 Values, 13–15; causality of values system, 163–167; faith-based values, 202–205; racism conceptualization, 55; value structures of the urban poor, 149–150, 197–198 Veterans Administration, 193–194 Violence: domestic abuse, 163; homicide, 179(n159); racial disparities in

Index occurrence of, 167–170; racialization of, 52; resource allocations competition, 88; as tactic for social change, 239–241 Voluntaristic nominalism, 15–16 Voting rights, 222–225 Welfare programs, 149, 240 When Work Disappears (Wilson), 4–5; causality of values system, 163–167; neoconservative view of the underclass, 35; personal efficacy, 131; racialization, 52; state as a body for change, 11; state contribution to concentrated poverty, 211(n90); state role in race relations, 39–40, 220 White-collar workers: defining social class, 64; factors influencing socioeconomic advancement in the state sector, 122–128 Women: aid to single-parent families, 149, 240; black women in the military, 126–127; decrease in income gap between blacks and whites, 99–100; impact of industrial restructuring on, 156–157; marital disintegration, 159–163; sex differences in school achievement, 93; state sector jobs, 125–126; variables affecting income for black women, 95; Working class, 65, 84–85, 184; benefits to whites from discrimination against blacks, 88; defining social class, 63–65; emergence of urban poverty, 149–150; labor unions, 119–122; plantation economy, 85

About the Book

Focusing on the work legacy of William Julius Wilson and the arguments of his longstanding critics, Niemonen deftly illustrates the strengths, weaknesses, and influence of Wilson’s work. His fair-minded but critical analysis calls for a major shift in how sociology conceptualizes race relations—a shift that challenges popular assumptions and contemporary vocabularies and brings to the forefront the role of the state. Jack Niemonen is associate professor of sociology at the University of South Dakota.

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