Toward a Framework for Understanding Forces that Contribute to or Reinforce Racial Inequality by Wil

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Toward a Framework for Understanding Forces that
Contribute to or Reinforce Racial Inequality
by William Julius Wilson

• Brownbag Discussion
• Facilitated by Andrew Grant-Thomas
• October 9, 2009

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Wilsons Perspective

• Wilson offers three correctives/complications
• Both structure and culture matter
• Theres more to both structure and culture than
  commonly recognized
• Structure and culture are interactive

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SOCIAL STRUCTURE
CULTURE

• Social Acts
• (discriminatory acts)
• Stereotyping
• Stigmatization
• Housing discrimination
• Job discrimination

• National Views and
• Beliefs on Race
• Racism
• Cultural/biological inferiority
• Rationalize inferior treatment
• laissez-faire racism

Racial Inequality

• Social Processes (discriminatory machinery)
• Direct racial impact/Racialist'
• Segregation laws
• Racial profiling
• Redlining
• Indirect racial impact
• Political actions/decisions
• Impersonal economic forces

• Cultural Traits
• Group norms, values, attitudes
• Cultural repertoires
• Meaning-making processes
• Decision-making processes

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Social structure shapes culture and
Q. What causes distinct cultural traits in
place-based communities?
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culture shapes structural outcomes

• Street-smart behavior (Cultural Trait) can ?
  joblessness
• Experience accrued in the informal economy cant
  be listed on resume
• Investment in the street leads some not to take
  advantage of legitimate opportunities when
  available
• Time invested in underground work reduces time
  devoted to accumulating skills or contacts for
  legitimate employment
• National Views and Beliefs on Race can ?
  discrimination

• Social Acts
• Stereotyping
• Stigmatization
• Housing/job discrimination
• Social Processes
• Segregation laws
• Racial profiling

RACISM
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Critique (I) Social Acts vs. Processes

• Acts Individual or group acts of discrimination
• Processes Laws, policies, and institutional
  practices that exclude on basis of race or
  ethnicity
• discretionary vs. non-discretionary?
• Acts Discrimination in hiring/exclusion from
  unions
• Processes school tracking or racial profiling
• Distinction unclear

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(II) Non-racialist social processes provide a
limited account of racial inequality

• Ambiguity in what Wilson means to explain
• Racial inequality
• Social and economic outcomes of African Americans
• The formation and maintenance of racial
  inequality
• The interconnectedness of race and poverty
• Black poverty
• Racial disadvantage
• Racial group outcomes such as differences in
  poverty and employment rate

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Child Poverty Rate
Child Poverty Black/White 1992 3.73 2000
3.64
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II Other factors interact with nonracialist
structure factors to ? racial inequality

• A. Black social vulnerability
• B. Implicit bias
• C. Implications for policy
• targeted universalism

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(III) Thoughts about Culture
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• A. Missing cultural elements
• Are there non-racialist components of US
  national culture that deserve mention?
• B. Naïve?
• The politics of the structure vs. culture debate
• C. Understanding culture