Full Citation
Title: Oh Brother Where Art Thou? The Struggles of African American Men in the Global Economy of the Information Age
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2016
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2857475
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Abstract: As early as the late 1980’s, William Wilson (1987, 1996) argued that widespread economic transitions had altered the socioeconomic structure of American inner cities to the detriment of African Americans. Wilson identified declines in manufacturing work and its replacement with poorly compensated service sector work as driving racial segregation and leaving African Americans jobless, poor and alienated from American society. These transitions were particularly problematic for African American men since manufacturing work was their primary gateway to middle-class employment while African American women had already focused more on service work. Since the initial exposition of Wilson’s theory of deindustrialization, Wilson’s framework of transition, disadvantage and alienation has proven true with a vengeance for working class African American men. The decline in manufacturing jobs since the 1980’s has left African American men without their traditional gateway to the middle-class and accelerated the decline of American unions which benefited those men. As the economy transitioned from manufacturing to service jobs, African American men’s disadvantages in education have left them at a loss in competing for the high wage jobs that remain. At the same time deindustrialization was sweeping our economy, the nation waged a “War on Drugs,” largely at the expense of inner city African American men who suffered high rates of imprisonment with long mandatory sentences even for non-violent offences. These high rates of imprisonment removed African American men from the Black community and left them at a serious disadvantage in an increasingly competitive low-skilled labor market. . .
Url: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318005710
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Glenn Dau-Schmidt, Kenneth
Publisher: Indiana University, Maurer School of Law
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Other, Race and Ethnicity
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