William Julius Wilson has one main argument in More Than Just Race: “...more weight should be given to structural causes of inequality, despite the dynamic interrelationships of structure and culture, because they continue to play a far greater role in the subjugation of black Americans and other people of color.” (Wilson 135). In order to support this, Wilson separates his key points for this argument in three chapters, each on what he identifies as key aspects of African American’s current plight. These are “The Forces Shaping Concentrated Poverty”, “The Economic Plight of Inner-City Black Males”, and “The Fragmentation of the Poor Black Family.” In each chapter, Wilson brings up various pieces of evidence supporting structure as the main issue that ill-affecting culture comes from, each time noting and recognizing
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In Chapter 2, what Wilson means by the forces that shape “concentrated” poverty, is why there are such specific clusters of poverty-stricken neighborhoods specifically. One of the explanations he chose to discuss was the “self-selection bias” concept, which was “to describe the effect of people grouping themselves together according to common characteristics.” (Wilson 46). Wilson tells that this means that it is simply the fact that families have weak job-related skills, low awareness of and concern that the local environment where their children are growing up will affect their development, and other unfavorable aspects cause them to choose poor neighborhoods (Wilson 47). Wilson argues against this, maintaining that “living in a ghetto neighborhood has both structural and cultural effects that compromise life chances above and beyond personal attributes.” (Wilson 47). But he does respond to a study that seemingly proved that the self-selection bias was a solid argument. This experiment was the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment which was performed between 1994 and
In Chapter 2, what Wilson means by the forces that shape “concentrated” poverty, is why there are such specific clusters of poverty-stricken neighborhoods specifically. One of the explanations he chose to discuss was the “self-selection bias” concept, which was “to describe the effect of people grouping themselves together according to common characteristics.” (Wilson 46). Wilson tells that this means that it is simply the fact that families have weak job-related skills, low awareness of and concern that the local environment where their children are growing up will affect their development, and other unfavorable aspects cause them to choose poor neighborhoods (Wilson 47). Wilson argues against this, maintaining that “living in a ghetto neighborhood has both structural and cultural effects that compromise life chances above and beyond personal attributes.” (Wilson 47). But he does respond to a study that seemingly proved that the self-selection bias was a solid argument. This experiment was the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment which was performed between 1994 and