Oh Brother Where Art Thou?: The Struggles of African American Males in the Global Economy of the Information Age

Abstract

In the late 1980s, William Wilson first 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 because manufacturing work was their primary gateway to middle- class employment, while African American women had already focused more on service work.