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

Harvard University professor of sociology William Julius Wilson is a member of the Library of Congress Scholars Council and was a policy advisor to the Clinton administration. He has written numerous books on racial inequality in the United States and is the recipient of various prestigious awards. More than Just Race (2009) contends with both liberal and conservative ideologies in its representation of the factors that have contributed to the ghettoization of uneducated African Americans.

Wilson cites his Harvard colleague Bobo throughout More Than Just Race, particularly in Chapter 5, where Wilson makes recommendations for policy reform based on his exploration of structural and cultural contributors to race. Wilson also uses the term “laissez-faire racism,” coined by Bobo and co-authors James R. Kluegel and Ryan A. Smith.

Wilson observes that President Bush’s tax cuts for wealthy citizens and freeze on minimum wage reduced the support available for disenfranchised inner-city neighborhoods (14; 37). So, too, did the economic pressures of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that took place during Bush’s 2001-2009 presidency (38).