Abstract
When Wilson argued back in 1978 that by the mid-twentieth century social class mattered more for getting ahead than race, he launched a rigorous scholarly debate about the relative importance of race and class that continues to this day. Since the 1970s, the gap between the black middle class and the black poor has widened, lending credibility to Wilson's claim, but also raising new research questions for scholars to ponder. In this essay, I suggest that extending Wilson's model to include a new period, encompassing the last twenty-five years, would help to illuminate more recent structural advantages that contribute to class privilege in American society as well an emerging fault line within the black middle class.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
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Notes on contributors
Karyn Lacy
KARYN LACY is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan.