Black Americans’ Views of Racial Inequality: The Dream Deferred

Although the opinions of whites on issues of race and inequality have been examined in depth, the perceptions of blacks about these issues have been largely ignored. This book is a path-breaking analysis of black opinions about the sources of their inequality in American society and the appropriate means for redressing this imbalance. Using the results of a variety of national surveys of blacks conducted during the past decade, Sigelman and Welch describe the range of opinion within the black population and account for different views by identifying key influences on opinion formation. They examine correlations among various personal characteristics, such as gender, age, socio-economic status, and educational attainment, and different explanations of inequality, focusing either on conditions within the black community or on exogenous factors, such as discrimination.