Wilson treats black poverty as cultural adaptation to structure, minimizing the role of race

Evidence

It is his conceptual framework that has attracted opposition: the notion that class divides have superseded racial ones within the black community. In more recent books and articles, Wilson has focused on what happens “when work disappears” (1997). … Wilson explains these conditions as “cultural” adaptations to the harsh “structural” conditions of the ghetto (the “inner city”), explicitly invoking the legacies of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, as well as Oscar Lewis’s “culture of poverty” theories. And, once again, he argues for “race neutral” policies to overcome these dire conditions: Minimum wage jobs programs akin to those of the New Deal, and vocational training efforts as well are about the only recommendations he can envision in the effort to overcome poverty and inequality. And while he recognizes that blacks are the main victims of this dire situation, the relationship between poverty and race seems almost incidental in his account: The global Bill Clinton as part of his “triangulation” strategy- resulted in ajump in the undocumented immigrant population. — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 73

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes Wilson’s class-over-race framework, which Omi and Winant position against their racial-formation thesis.