The Truly Disadvantaged [antikvár]

PrefaceIn 1978 the University of Chicago Press published my controversial book. The Declining Significance of Race. I had hoped that the major academic contribution of that book would be to explain racial change in America within a macrohistorical-theoretical framework. But there was another contribution I had hoped to makeI wanted to call attention to the worsening condition of the black underclass, in both absolute and relative terms, by relating it to the improving position of the black middle class.The Declining Significance of Race generated controversy not only within academic quarters but in the popular media as well. At the time of publication, heightened awareness of racial issues had been created because changing social structures altered many traditional patterns of race relations and because the state was inextricably involved in the emerging controversy over affirmative action.In the initial months following publication of the book, it seemed that critics were so preoccupied with what I had to say about the improving conditions of the black middle class that they virtually ignored my more important arguments about the deteriorating conditions of the black underclass. The view was often expressed that since all blacks are suffering there is no need to single out the black poor.During the controversy over The Declining Significance of Race I committed myself to doing two things: (1) I would address the problems of the ghetto underclass in a comprehensive analysis; and (2) 1 would spell out, in considerable detail, the policy implications of my work. These two commitments provided direction for the writing of The Truly Disadvantaged. The first commitment grew out of my personal and academic reaction to the early critics' almost total preoccupation with my arguments concerning the black middle class. Indeed, it was only after I began writing The Truly Disadvantaged that serious scholars (particularly those working in fields such as urban poverty, social welfare, and public policy) were beginning to focus on my analysis of the underclass in The Declining Significance of Race.