Book : The Hidden Cost Of Being African American How Wealth.

-Titulo Original : The Hidden Cost Of Being African American How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality

-Fabricante :

Oxford University Press

-Descripcion Original:

Over the past three decades, racial prejudice in America has declined significantly and many African American families have seen a steady rise in employment and annual income. But alongside these encouraging signs, Thomas Shapiro argues in The Hidden Cost of Being African American, fundamentallevels of racial inequality persist, particularly in the area of asset accumulation--inheritance, savings accounts, stocks, bonds, home equity, and other investments. Shapiro reveals how the lack of these family assets along with continuing racial discrimination in crucial areas like homeownershipdramatically impact the everyday lives of many black families, reversing gains earned in schools and on jobs, and perpetuating the cycle of poverty in which far too many find themselves trapped. Shapiro uses a combination of in-depth interviews with almost 200 families from Los Angeles, Boston, and St. Louis, and national survey data with 10,000 families to show how racial inequality is transmitted across generations. We see how those families with private wealth are able to move up fromgeneration to generation, relocating to safer communities with better schools and passing along the accompanying advantages to their children. At the same time those without significant wealth remain trapped in communities that dont allow them to move up, no matter how hard they work. Shapirochallenges white middle class families to consider how the privileges that wealth brings not only improve their own chances but also hold back people who dont have them. This wealthfare is a legacy of inequality that, if unchanged, will project social injustice far into the future. Showing that over half of black families fall below the asset poverty line at the beginning of the new century, The Hidden Cost of Being African American will challenge all Americans to reconsider what must be done to end racial inequality. Review Powerfully mixes poignant individual stories and moral outrage with clear statistical analyses and a strong exposition of a workable solution to continued, severe racial inequality. Boston GlobeWith all the data Shapiro convincingly pulls together, this should be an essential document for policy groups and could reframe the debate around affirmative action and reparations. Publishers WeeklyShapiro does an excellent job of showing the connections between racial inequality, opportunities, and family wealth. BooklistHow can disadvantage persist so long after most laws, minds and practices have changed? Shapiro argues in this sober and authoritative book that we should look to disparities of wealth for the answer.... Few of his proposals may be tried in the current political climate, where far more pressure goes toward abolishing inheritance taxes altogether. Yet by giving such a frank and probing appraisal of the long-term damage wrought by unequal wealth, Shapiro continues to press the case for resolving Americas most stubborn and profound source of racial division. Washington Post Book WorldThis book almost unerringly finds its mark. CrisisShapiros book deserves attention for its focus on an enduring fissure in Americans ideas about themselves. There were and are considerably fewer self-made men in the New World than the current mythology enumerates. Those who enjoyed success largely did so abetted by the sweated labor of those whom they owned or hired, not to mention their wives, who kept their homes clean and bore their children. Inequality was the favored fews leg-up on life. If that advantage persists, as Shapiro suggests it has, and if it is being replicated through generations, because of the financial advantages reaped by the founders of those generations, as he also suggests, then it is time to consider ways to redress the balance of inequality. The New LeaderAn important book about the troubling and persistent disparities of wealth along racial lines. It deepens our critical understanding of