Description
Why does racial inequality in America persist? In this important textbook, Michelle Holder and Jeannette Wicks-Lim answer this question by introducing readers to the innovative field of stratification economics.
Stratification economics offers an antidote to conventional economics’ hyper-focus on individuals and disregard for how politics shapes the economy. It spotlights how groups – such as racial groups – compete to gain favorable positions in society through political and economic domination. The book fuses stratification economics with intersectional theory to illuminate how gender and ethnicity intertwine with racial oppression. Holder and Wicks-Lim argue that anti-Black racism developed and persists because it protects the interests of a politically dominant social group: White Americans. This argument is demonstrated across multiple arenas: education, employment, wealth, and the criminal legal system. Policy intervention – through government action spurred by social movements – is necessary for achieving racial equity.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Figures and Tables
Part One: How We Use Stratification Economics to Analyze Anti-Blackness in the United States
1 Introduction
2 The Construction of Race and the Origins of Racism in the United States
3 Afro-Latinxs and Anti-Blackness
4 An Intersectional Approach to Stratification Economics
Part Two: Demonstrating How Anti-Blackness Stratifies the U.S. Economy
Primer to Part Two
5 Education: Unequal Access, Unequal Outcomes
6 Unemployment, Occupational Crowding, Wage Inequality And Anti-Blackness in the Labor Market
7 Wealth and Anti-Blackness: The Case of Black Women
8 The Criminal Legal System: Hardening the Racial Divide
9 Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
