Douglas Massey is a leading US social scientist who has worked on issues of inequality in America throughout his career. His 2008 book (Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System) is a huge contribution to our understanding of the mechanisms producing inequalities in American society, and it amounts to a stunning indictment of racism and anti-poor …
Persistent racial inequalities in America
Historian Thomas Sugrue is a national expert on the state of persistent racial inequalities in our nation today. His The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit set the standard for the field of recent urban history when it appeared in 1996. His most recent book, Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden …
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National attitudes on racial equality
Today the country celebrates the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most of us think of Dr. King as a genuinely important American thinker, and one whose life and actions permanently changed some important values and thought processes in this country when it came to racial equality and affirming communities in the United States. …
Race and racism
Race has been a fundamental fact in American society for centuries, since the sixteenth century with the arrival of African slaves. And many would observe that racism has been a part of that history from beginning to end. These are distinct statements; it is possible for race to be a factor, without racism being present. …
Movements for social justice
It was argued in an earlier post that social progress is best pursued through incremental, gradual steps that can be evaluated as we go along (post). It was also suggested that programs of change that are bent on achieving huge systemic change and the establishment of a complex new set of institutions are unwise, because …
Urban inequalities and social mobility
Most American cities commonly look a lot like the poverty map of Cleveland above, when it comes to the spatial distribution of poverty and affluence. There is a high-poverty core, in which residents have low income, poor health, poor education, and poor quality of life; there are rings of moderate income; and there are outer …
Essentializing race?
PBS is running a program this month called "Faces of America" (link), hosted by distinguished African-American Studies professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The program focuses on a handful of celebrity guests, a genetic profile for each, and then a variety of "surprising" discoveries about the genealogies of various of the guests. What I found surprising and …
Equality and violence in Alabama, 1960s
image: Ben Shahn photo of Arkansas sharecropper Creating civil and political rights for African Americans in the 1960s required courage and persistence by hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. The system of Jim Crow assured subordination in fundamental rights and needs for millions of rural southern black people -- the right to vote, the right …
The March on Washington, August 1963
African-American citizens and a host of supporters made some of this country's most important history almost forty-seven years ago in the mobilization that resulted in the March on Washington in August, 1963. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his most famous speech on the occasion, and of course many of us are remembering Dr. King's …
American urban unrest
photo: Newark, 1967 Several recent posts have focused on periods of civil unrest in other countries -- France and Thailand most recently. The United States has its own history of civil unrest as well; and much of that history involves poverty, race, and cities. So it's worthwhile taking a look at some of the dynamics …
Understanding Society 