Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Essays on structural racism
Structural racism research paper
Life of an underclass
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
William Julius Wilson, a sociologist, refers to the urban poor as the "underclass". The primary issue facing members of the underclass is "joblessness reinforced by an increasing social isolation in an impoverished neighborhood". (1) They not only suffer from lower socioeconomic status, minimal education, and lack of opportunities, but they are further victimized by a lack of community safeguards and resources. The underclass’s defining characteristic is the absence of job opportunities coupled with the absence of societal supports. Wilson believes that social isolationism, "the lack of contact or of sustained interaction with individuals and institutions that represent mainstream society", is a result of decreased employment opportunities. (2) When joblessness becomes a way of life for a community, its citizens then "experience a social isolation that excludes them from the job network system that permeates other neighborhoods and is so important in learning about or being recommended for other jobs…thus a vicious cycle is perpetuated through the family, through the community." (3) Wilson argues that the problem of the underclass in America is not one of culture but one of isolation from community and necessary resources: "The key theoretical concept, therefore, is not culture of poverty but social isolation. Culture of poverty implies that basic values and attitudes of the ghetto subculture have been internalized and thereby influence behavior…Social isolation…implies that contact between groups of different class and/or racial backgrounds is either lacking or has become increasingly intermittent but that the nature of this contact enhances the effects of living in a highly concentrated poverty area…To emphasize the concept ... ... middle of paper ... ...hetto Underclass: Social Science Perspectives. Sage Publications: London: 1993, 20. 2. Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago: 1987, 60. 3. Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged. 57. 4. Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged. 61. 5. Cole, Sam and Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. "Structural Racism and Efforts to Radically Reconstruct the Inner-City Built Environment." 2 6. Cole, Sam and Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. 4. Works Cited Cole, Sam and Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. "Structural Racism and Efforts to Radically Reconstruct the Inner-City Built Environment." 2 Wilson, William Julius."The Underclass." The Ghetto Underclass: Social Science Perspectives. Sage Publications: London: 1993, 20. Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago: 1987, 60.
The book deals with several sociological issues. It focuses on poverty, as well as s...
Wilson, William J. More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. New York: Norton & Company, 2009. Print.
Charles, Camille (2003). The dynamics of racial residential segregation. Annual Review of Sociology, 167. Retrieved from http://jstor.org/stable/30036965.
Wilson, William Julius. (1998) "Ghetto-Related Behavior and the Structure of Opportunity" in Reading Between the Lines: Toward an Understanding of Current Social Problems. Ed Amanda Konradi and Martha Schmidt. London: Mayfield Publishing Company.
Newark began to deteriorate and the white residents blamed the rising African-American population for Newark's downfall. However, one of the real culprits of this decline in Newark was do to poor housing, lack of employment, and discrimination. Twenty-five percent of the cities housing was substandard according to the Model C...
The downgrading of African Americans to certain neighborhoods continues today. The phrase of a not interested neighborhood followed by a shift in the urban community and disturbance of the minority has made it hard for African Americans to launch themselves, have fairness, and try to break out into a housing neighborhood. If they have a reason to relocate, Caucasians who support open housing laws, but become uncomfortable and relocate if they are contact with a rise of the African American population in their own neighborhood most likely, settle the neighborhoods they have transfer. This motion creates a tremendously increase of an African American neighborhood, and then shift in the urban community begins an alternative. All of these slight prejudiced procedures leave a metropolitan African American population with few options. It forces them to remain in non-advanced neighborhoods with rising crime, gang activity, and...
America’s working-class poor, especially those of color often feel neglected, inadequate, and deprived of hope. Mos Def demonstrates the distress of those living in poverty when he expresses, “ Working class poor: better keep your
Adelmann, Larry. "Racial Preferences for Whites: The Houses that Racism Built." PBS.org. Public Broadcasting Service, 29 June 2003. Web. 4 May 2014.
In the article “Gentrification’s Insidious Violence: The Truth about American Cities” by Daniel Jose Older, Older places emphasis on the neighboring issue of gentrification in minority, low income communities or as better known as being called the “hood” communities. The author is biased on how race is a factor in gentrifying communities by local governments. Older explains his experience as a paramedic aiding a white patient in the “hood” where he was pistol whipped in a home invasion by a black male. This is an example of black on white crime which is found to be a normal occurrence in the residence of his community. But that is not the case in Older’s situation because that was the first time he has
Boser, Ulrich. "The Black Man's Burden." U.S. News & World Report 133.8 (2002): 50. Academic
In The Working Poor: Invisible in America, David K. Shipler tells the story of a handful of people he has interviewed and followed through their struggles with poverty over the course of six years. David Shipler is an accomplished writer and consultant on social issues. His knowledge, experience, and extensive field work is authoritative and trustworthy. Shipler describes a vicious cycle of low paying jobs, health issues, abuse, addiction, and other factors that all combine to create a mountain of adversity that is virtually impossible to overcome. The American dream and promise of prosperity through hard work fails to deliver to the 35 million people in America who make up the working poor. Since there is neither one problem nor one solution to poverty, Shipler connects all of the issues together to show how they escalate each other. Poor children are abused, drugs and gangs run rampant in the poor neighborhoods, low wage dead end jobs, immigrants are exploited, high interest loans and credit cards entice people in times of crisis and unhealthy diets and lack of health care cause a multitude of problems. The only way that we can begin to see positive change is through a community approach joining the poverty stricken individuals, community, businesses, and government to band together to make a commitment to improve all areas that need help.
Wilson, William J. "Jobless Poverty." The Inequality Reader: Contemporary and Foundational Readings in Race, Class, and Gender. Ed. David B. Grusky and Szonja Szelenyi. 2md ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2011. 159-69. Print.
Sherman Alexie’s Gentrification first sets out to show the effect a white man has on his black community, but ends out taking a deeper dive into the protagonist, instead. Gentrification is littered with the internal struggles this person faces as a minority in his community. The white protagonist of this short story appears very self-conscious of his race, perhaps even apologetic.
...r of inequality in America, with so much poverty located within such a close proximity to the White House. That being said, gentrification efforts in DC appear to be focused on removing poor people, or at the very least, the visual image of crime, poverty, and corruption as it relates to the most powerful city in the country. Community activist groups have tried time and time again to stop gentrification from affecting their community, but often times, to no avail. What is truly sad is that while this cycle is continually perpetuated as a matter of “haves versus have nots” the way in which this system seems to always disproportionately marginalize one race of people in favor of another, does raise the question as to whether or not gentrification was orchestrated to operate in such a manner; and if so, what are the affected groups going to do about it.
Purtill, Maureen. 2009. A Call for Critical Race Studies in Urban Planning. Critical Planning. 16: 218-222