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WHAT WE FACE

Framing Problems in the Black Community1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2012

Nicole Arlette Hirsch  and
Anthony Abraham Jack
Nicole Arlette Hirsch*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Harvard University
Anthony Abraham Jack
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Harvard University
*
Nicole Arlette Hirsch, Department of Sociology, Harvard University, 541 William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Email: nahirsch@fas.harvard.edu
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Abstract

While many sociological studies analyze the causes, conditions, and mechanisms perpetuating American racial inequality, the literature on how African Americans understand and explain these inequalities is less developed. Drawing on 150 interviews with middle-class and working-class African American men and women, this paper analyzes inductively how respondents define and conceptualize the most pressing obstacles facing their group when probed on this question. We find that middle- and working-class respondents alike identify the problem of racism as the most salient obstacle facing African Americans. Class differences appear with respect to what other obstacles are singled out as salient: while middle-class respondents focus on lack of racial solidarity among Blacks and economic problems (in this order), working-class respondents are more concerned with the fragility of the Black family followed by the lack of racial solidarity. This analysis discusses the relevance of considering how groups make sense of obstacles, and of racism and discrimination in particular, for the study of destigmatization and antiracist strategies of stigmatized minorities.

Keywords

African AmericansSocial ProblemsRacismSolidarityEconomicsBlack Family
Type
Special Feature
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , Spring 2012 , pp. 133 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research 2012

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Footnotes

1

The authors would like to thank Michèle Lamont, Jessica Welburn, Crystal Fleming, Ann Morning, Mark Warren, and Nissim Mizrachi for their helpful comments and suggestions. The data was collected under the project “African-American Responses to Racism and Discrimination,” funded by the National Science Foundation (grant number SES-0701542; Michèle Lamont, PI). Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at the conference “Responses to Discrimination and Racism: Comparative Perspectives,” held at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, on April 10, 2010; at the 2011 Meeting of the Association of Black Sociologists in Las Vegas, NV; and at the 2011 Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Las Vegas, NV.

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