On this edition of Parallax Views, freelancer writer Bertrand Russell joins me to discuss the issue of black poverty, which he grew up in, and his article for The Atlantic entitled "The Failure of Affirmative Action". This article has led to Bertrand appearing on media outlets like MSNBC and Slate. It doesn't argue that Affirmative Action didn't help black Americans, but rather that Affirmative Action didn't adequately address the plight of the black poor in America.

In this discussion we'll discuss how black America isn't a monolith, specifically socioeconomically. This'll lead us to talking about the black poor, black middle, and black upper class. We'll also talk about "class reductionism" and "race reductionism", Bertrand's criticism of black intellectual thought leaders like Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ibram X. Kendi, class interests in the black community, the Netflix show Beef and how it deals with the class in relationship to the Asian-American experience, the racial wealth gap and the work of scholar William "Sandy" Darity, the ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) movement, Ibram X. Kendi's recent piece "'Working Class' Does Not Equal 'White'", acknowledging the human elements when discussing class as well race, the "Ambassador" model of having someone from the upper echelons of a marginalized group represent the rest of that marginalized, class tensions in the black community, lack of representation of the black poor in media and academia, Bertrand's personal experience in University as someone who came from a background of poverty, cultural appropriation of the black poor and their experiences, "authenticity" as a social currency and the potential problems with it, and much, much more!

Sources:

Pew Research (2007) surveying value differences among black folks

Pew Research on black intra-group commonality