Does class position influence Blacks’ beliefs about the causes of poverty and racial inequality? Prior research has established that Blacks are more structural in orientation than Whites. However, existing studies have not adequately assessed the role that class position plays in shaping intraracial attitudinal differences among Blacks. Both multivariate and trend analyses of nearly four decades of data from the Houston Area Survey indicate that privileged Blacks often sharply differ from disadvantaged Blacks and privileged Whites across a range of racially specific and racially neutral individualistic and structural attributions. The results of this study directly concern ideological tensions within the Black community over whether racism and/or personal merit most strongly influences a Black person’s prospects for success.
CosbyW. H.PoussaintA. F. (2007). Come on, people: On the path from victims to victors. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.
9.
CoseE. (1993). The rage of a privileged class. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
10.
CoseE. (2011). The end of anger: A new generation’s take on race and rage. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
11.
DavisJ. A.SmithT. W. (2008). General Social Surveys, 1972-2008: Cumulative codebook. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, National Opinion Research Center.
12.
DawsonM. (1994). Behind the mule: Race and class in African American politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
13.
DawsonM. (2001). Black visions: The roots of contemporary African American political ideologies. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
14.
Du BoisW. E. B. (1903/1990). The souls of Black folk. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
15.
DysonM. E. (2005). Is Bill Cosby right? Or has the Black middle class lost its mind?New York, NY: Basic Civitas Books.
16.
EmersonM. O.SikkinkD. (2006). Panel study of American religion and ethnicity (1st Wave). N.p.: Lilly Endowment, Inc., University of Notre Dame, Rice University.
17.
EmersonM. O.SmithC. (2000). Divided by faith. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
18.
FarleyR.AllenW. (1989). The color line and the quality of life in America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
19.
FeaginJ. (1975). Subordinating the poor. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
20.
FeaginJ. (1985). The global context of metropolitan growth: Houston and the oil industry. American Journal of Sociology, 90, 1204–1230.
21.
GordonM. (1964). Assimilation in American life. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
22.
GrimesM. D.JenkinsP. J.ReavisR. M. (1996). Class, self-perception, and racial group identification among African Americans. Critical Sociology, 22(1), 73–91.
23.
HackerA. (2003). Two nations: Black and White, separate, hostile, and unequal. New York, NY: Scribner.
24.
HandyK. M. (1984). Race and class consciousness among southern Blacks. Sociological Spectrum, 4, 383–403.
25.
HochschildJ. (1995). Facing up to the American dream. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
26.
HuberJ.FormW. H. (1973). Income and ideology. New York, NY: Free Press.
27.
HughesM.TuchS. A. (2000). How beliefs about poverty influence racial policy attitudes: A study of Whites, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians in the United States. In SearsD. O.SidaniusJ.BoboL. (Eds.), Racialized politics: The debate about racism in America (pp. 165–190). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
28.
HuntM. O. (1996). The individual, society, or both? A comparison of Black, Latino, and White beliefs about the causes of poverty. Social Forces, 75(1), 293–322.
29.
HuntM. O. (2004). Race/ethnicity and beliefs about wealth and poverty. Social Science Quarterly, 85(3), 827–853.
30.
HuntM. O. (2007). African American, Hispanic, and White beliefs about Black/White inequality, 1977-2004. American Sociological Review, 72, 390–415.
31.
HwangS. S.FitzpatrickK. M.HelmsD. (1998). Class differences in racial attitudes: A divided Black America?Sociological Perspectives, 41(2), 367–380.
32.
KerboH. (1996). Social stratification and inequality. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
33.
KlinebergS. (2005). Public perceptions in remarkable times. Houston, TX: Houston Chronicle.
34.
KlinebergS. (2010). The Houston Area Survey, 1982-2010. Data and codebook available from www.houstonareasurvey.org
35.
KluegelJ. R. (1990). Trends in Whites’ explanations for the Black-White gap in socioeconomic Status, 1977-1989. American Sociological Review, 55(4), 512–525.
36.
KluegelJ. R.SmithE. R. (1986). Beliefs about inequality. New York, NY: Aldine DeGruyter.
37.
LacyK. (2007). Blue-chip Black. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
38.
LandryB. (1987). The new Black middle class. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
39.
LandryB.MarshK. (2011). The evolution of the new Black middle class. Annual Review of Sociology, 37, 373–394.
40.
LeeB. A.JonesS. H.LewisD. W. (1990). Public beliefs about the causes of homelessness. Social Forces, 69(1), 253–265.
41.
LewisO. (1959). Five families. New York, NY: Basic Books.
42.
LewisO. (1968). La vida. New York, NY: Knopf.
43.
LongJ. S. (1997). Regression models for categorical and limited dependent variables. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
44.
MasseyD. (2007). Categorically unequal. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
45.
MasseyD. S.DentonN. A. (1993). American apartheid. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
46.
PattilloM. (2003). Negotiating Blackness, for richer or for poorer. Ethnography, 4(1), 61–93.
47.
Pattillo-McCoyM. (1999). Middle class, yet Black: A review essay. African American Research Perspectives, 5(1), 1–11.
48.
Pew Research Center. (2007). Optimism about Black progress declines: Blacks see growing values gap between poor and middle class [Survey conducted in association with National Public Radio]. Washington, DC: Author.
49.
PortesA.RumbautR. (2001). Legacies: The story of the immigrant second generation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
50.
RobinsonJ. (2009). American poverty cause beliefs and structured inequality legitimation. Sociological Spectrum, 29, 489–518.
51.
SheltonB. A.RodriguezN.FeaginJ. R.BullardR.ThomasR. (1989). Houston: Growth and decline in a sunbelt boomtown. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
52.
SheltonJ. E. (2008). The investment in Blackness hypothesis: Toward greater understanding of who teaches what during racial socialization. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 5(2), 235–257.
53.
SheltonJ. E.EmersonM. O. (2010). Extending the debate over nationalism versus integration: How cultural commitments and assimilation trajectories influence beliefs about Black power. Journal of African American Studies, 14, 312–336.
54.
SheltonJ. E.EmersonM. O. (2012). Blacks and Whites in Christian America: How racial discrimination shapes religious convictions. New York, NY: New York University Press.
55.
SheltonJ. E.WilsonG. (2006). Socioeconomic status and racial group interests among Black Americans. Sociological Spectrum, 26, 184–204.
56.
SheltonJ. E.WilsonG. (2009). Race, class, and the basis of group alignment: An analysis of support for redistributive policy among privileged Blacks. Sociological Perspectives, 52(3), 385–408.
57.
SigelmanL.WelchS. (1991). Black Americans’ views of racial inequality. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
58.
SmithK. B. (1985). I made it because of me: Beliefs about the causes of wealth and poverty. Sociological Spectrum, 5, 255–267.
59.
SmithK. B.StoneL. (1989). Rags, riches, and bootstraps: Beliefs about the causes of wealth and poverty. Sociological Quarterly, 30(1), 93–107.
60.
SmithR.SeltzerR. (1992). Race, class, and culture: A study of Afro-American mass opinion. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
61.
SteinbergS. (1981). The ethnic myth. Boston, MA: Beacon.
62.
StollM. (2005). African Americans and the color line. In FarleyR.HaagaJ. (Eds.), The American people: Census 2000 (pp. 380–413). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
63.
ThernstromS.ThernstromA. (1997). America in Black and White. New York, NY: Touchstone.
64.
WebsterB.BishawA. (2007). Income, earnings, and poverty data from the 2006 American Community Survey. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau.
65.
WilsonG. (1996). Toward a revised framework for examining beliefs about the causes of poverty. Sociological Quarterly, 37(3), 413–428.
66.
WilsonW. (1978). The declining significance of race. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
