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The Power of a Single Story shows how media can play a huge role in race in society. Books with white characters based out of the U.S.A. can make others believe that the whole country is full of the same people. Movies with all the main characters being white can cause the black community to feel unaccepted and unappreciated. This can also create stereotypes, most that'll be seen as racist in a way. It shows that there needs to be more than one story, so that everyone has a story. As a society, everyone needs to come together, and show the ability to respect each other. We can't have stories that separate us from each other.

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White Privilege is a tough subject to discuss because the two ways people are usually thinking about it. Most people think there is white privilege 100%, or there is no such thing as white privilege. I'm more behind that there is none, however whites do have more of an advantage in society. We see, mostly with police, certain beliefs and stereotypes used against blacks in America. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, we see Janie have more advantages, and is also seen as more beautiful, because she is a lighter skin tone compared to others. However, It's not like whites don't have life struggles, or blacks don't find success. It's not that whites have a special privilege, it's that blacks face racial discrimination to an extent that almost no other race has dealt with before.

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This poem discusses how black women feel in society, and how they want to speak up. They want to speak, but are afraid because of what others think of them. They're afraid because they think they aren't seen as equal, due to their gender and the color of their skin. It shows similarities to Their Eyes Were Watching God because Janie is a black woman in the same country. In the book, black women are seen as the mule in society, and we still see some of that idea today.  Black women are definitely more accepted in America, but not everyone feels that blacks or women should have rights, like in the book. We need to encourage women, blacks, and other minorities to speak out, and be open with society.

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This story shows a concept not yet picked up in society. Black men are afraid to get anywhere near the KKK because they're afraid of getting injured or killed. Racist white men are afraid to associate with black men because of their personal beliefs. However, these two were able to meet privately, converse, and listen to each other, with no harm to either. This led to Daryl Davis, the black men, going to local KKK rallies to speak with other members. Eventually, the grand wizard walked away from the KKK because of Davis. This led to a newfound respect among them all. This show that with people who have some amount of hate between them can still communicate and find some type of peace, which means other can too. With a black man and a white klansman being able to talk and openly show respect to each other, it shows a step in the right direction.

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This article from The New York Times deals with the idea of what makes a person white, or makes them considered to have some amount of "whiteness". It discusses the early origins back from the 19th century, but it doesn't need to go that far back. Honestly, I don't think it has anything to do with the Saxons and the Celts. It's a modern day issue that has to deal with an idea that all whites are mass murderers and serial killers, or that they have traits that are seen as them trying to be black. It could be considered a type of racism, but nothing compared to the racism blacks receive daily. This is also a way to divide whites and blacks from each other, because it is a bad thing to be "too white" or "too black". We shouldn't focus on someone being too much of whatever their skin color is. We cannot control something that we are born with.

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This study deals with how race is a factor to black men in different social classes. It showed that lower class blacks are more race conscious than class conscious. Middle class blacks are slightly more race conscious. It showed that blacks believe that race can prevent them from opportunities in life that can lead to success. I agree with the thinking that race plays a factor in the minds of society. It shows that discrimination is still a top priority in society. Even when lower or middle class blacks get opportunities, they still see significantly less wealth, power, and prestige with the position. Blacks know that race plays more of a role in opportunities, rather than social class.

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Women of the World Poetry Slam 2016 - iCon "Black Woman Steps Up to Mic"

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Why I, as a black man, attend KKK rallies. | Daryl Davis | TEDxNaperville

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The location of where a woman lives is a key factor in the class they are put in. An area with a population of more white people is more likely to put a black woman in a lower class with less rights. This is something that can be found in Their Eyes Were Watching God when Janie moves down to the Everglades in a society with a large population of blacks. This is a problem that needs to be addressed, as well as the idea that women should have less power and rights. There is the thinking that women don't face as many problems as men, but I believe they face more. There needs to be an idea that women and men are equal in society.

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An interesting fact from this story was the net worth of a white family in the area compared to a black family. A white family's is $247,500 and a black family's is $8. The economic inequality leads to many separating factors. This causes  more housing segregation, social isolation, and unequal education opportunities. This is similar to Their Eyes Were Watching God because we see Janie grow up in an area that had more white people. Boston is known for being one of the more racist cities in the world, and this is not a good sign of progress. Even with a big, multiple story series, there hasn't been a lot of changes made in local society. This shows that major cities need to step forward in the movement of racial inequality.

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Is it getting any easier to live as an African-American in Boston?

I was prompted to ponder that question upon realizing that exactly one year has passed since the Boston Globe Spotlight Team reported on the issue. The seven-part series " Boston. Race. Image. Reality, " explored the many ways that the city's reputation for racism plays out in the lives of people who live in the city. I was one of the reporters on the series, along with Akilah Johnson, Andrew Ryan, Nicole Dungca, Todd Wallack, Liz Kowalczyk, and Spotlight editor Patty Wen.

We hoped the series would prompt a robust conversation, and it certainly did that. We gave dozens of talks to civic groups, companies, law firms, and college classes. Everyone wanted to talk about it.

But now what?

One change we suggested happened quickly. The city renamed Yawkey Way (over the strong objections of the Yawkey Foundation). It has reverted to its old name of Jersey Street, and I don't think anyone misses the old moniker.

One day of the series explored at length the way that power is concentrated in the hands of a nearly all-white old guard, which we found to be true both of the political world and the equally insular business community.

This, of course, is the area that has seen tangible change that even the biggest optimists wouldn't have predicted a year ago. Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley will become Congresswoman Pressley in a couple of weeks, following her resounding defeat of 20-year incumbent Michael Capuano. Rachael Rollins was elected Suffolk County district attorney, and will become the first African-American woman to hold the job.

When I met candidate Nika Elugardo at a panel on the Race series last winter, I thought her chances of ousting House Ways and Means chairman Jeffrey Sanchez were slim. Well, I was wrong about her prospects and Representative-elect Elugardo was entirely right about the progressive groundswell that she said would carry her to victory.

All of these impressive wins came despite the tacit opposition of the traditional political infrastructure. Most - not all - of the incumbent power brokers in town instinctively backed the same people they had supported for years. But voters are moving to the left and demanding more inclusive leadership, even as traditional politicians cling to their old alliances.

Leaving electoral politics aside, on other issues it would be hard to argue that the needle has moved much.

The single most memorable fact in the series, the one that everyone noted repeatedly, was financial: the net worth of white families in the area was $247,500, compared with $8 for African-American families. That number was so shocking that we had to do a second story explaining that it wasn't a typo or a math error.

Here's the significance of that number to me. The economic inequality it reflects was a huge factor in nearly every ill the series talked about. That wealth gap drives housing segregation, social isolation, unequal educational opportunity, and so much more.

Obviously, this is far more complicated than renaming a street. But not nearly enough is being done to address the huge disparity in economic opportunity. Massport, surprisingly, is the agency that has made the greatest effort, insisting on opening up development in the Seaport to real estate teams that include people of color in meaningful roles.

The city has leverage over developers and others who need approvals that it could use as well, but seems unwilling to address the issue of inequality as forthrightly as its peers at the state. Mayor Marty Walsh has said the right things, but where's the boldness?

Boston is eager to do more than just talk about issues of race. But truly moving the city where it wants to go will take more than declarations of solidarity. This is the moment to begin to tackle thorny issues of racial equality, and missing it would be a tragedy.

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at adrian.walker@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Adrian_Walker.

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A year after a groundbreaking series on race in Boston, has anything gotten better? - The Boston Globe

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Is it getting any easier to live as an African-American in Boston? I was prompted to ponder that question upon realizing that exactly one year has passed since the Boston Globe Spotlight Team reported on the issue. The seven-part series " Boston. Race. Image.

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The middle class has always been associated with white America because the majority of the population has been white. However, we are seeing the population majority become more and more black and brown. There are many ways to define the middle class, but we are seeing it become more equal from a race standpoint. We see that in Their Eyes Were Watching God when Janie marries Jody. They not only have money, but they are either in or above the middle class. This is a positive step towards racial economic equality. This could lead to more opportunity chances for wealth, success, and equality for everybody in America.

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For more than half a century, the term "the American middle-class," has served as a political reference to white American upward mobility. This was less an artifact of particular calculations than one of historical experiences and demographic realities. Since at least the 1950s, Americans who were neither wealthy nor "disadvantaged" were, by default, middle class. Who fell into this category? With most African-Americans and Latinos frequently restricted in their access to high quality education, jobs, or homes and because, over the last 50 years, the U.S. has had a majority white population, it could be assumed that the majority of middle-class Americans were white. So, the term "American middle class," while not historically and intentionally located in a discourse about race, has always inherently been about race, specifically about white Americans. Fast forward to 2016 and two trends have emerged which highlight the degree to which the "American middle class" can no longer serve as an implicit proxy for a group that is predominantly white. First, the demography of the nation is changing rapidly. As our colleague Bill Frey has demonstrated, the U.S. is well on its way to becoming a country where black and brown diversity predominates. In 2017, for the first time, the majority of American children under 10 were black and/or brown. From a purely mathematical perspective, this implies that at some point in the not too distant future, the composition of the American middle class will begin to mirror that of American society as a whole. Second, in the context of greater economic inequality in the U.S., a recent recession, and a 2016 Presidential election outcome that highlighted the plight of low-income white Americans, there is a heightened general public awareness that some previously middle-class whites are no longer "middle class." We are then at a political inflection point. Who is the middle class? What does the changing racial composition of the middle class mean for politics, or policy? Our goal here is to provide some empirical grounding to this debate. We describe the changing racial composition of a group we define as the middle class: those between the 20th and 60th percentiles of the income distribution. The middle class according to this definition was predominantly white in 1980, but is only just majority white (56 percent) today, and will be race-plural (what some label "majority minority," a phrase we dislike) by 2042 (see Note 1). Within the next quarter century, we estimate that whites will no longer be the majority of the middle class, as Hispanics and other minority groups age into the adult population (see Note 2).

who are the middle class?

To say that there are many definitions of the "middle class" would be an understatement. Politicians, understandably enough, avoid being too specific in their use of the term: they want as many people as possible to believe they will benefit from a " tax cut for the middle class" or " raising the living standards of middle class" - that is, by ensuring that middle class families achieve common aspirations like home and car ownership, higher education, health and retirement security and time for leisure. This is not especially helpful, given that most Americans, of all backgrounds, share these aspirations. Most Americans define themselves as middle class, although the number varies significantly depending on how the survey question is constructed. Most polling organizations end up dividing the middle class into sub-categories, usually "lower middle class", "middle middle class" and "upper middle class." Even then, the "middle middle" is always the most popular choice. Scholars define the middle class in a number of different ways. Many emphasize cultural factors including values and aspirations; others highlight power relations. Researchers with an empirical bent might delineate class by absolute or relative income, or household wealth. For an excellent overview of these definitional questions, see Income Inequality: Economic Disparities and the Middle Class in Affluent Countries, edited by CUNY's Janet Gornick and Markus Jantii. (We'll have more to say on this definitional issue in a later piece). For the purposes of this analysis, we consider families whose "head of household" is prime-age (ages 25 to 54) as "middle class" if they fall within the second and third household income quintiles (i.e. between the 20th and 60th percentiles). This group broadly consists of people who are above the official poverty line, but far from prosperous - with incomes ranging between about $30,000 and $86,000. It is important to acknowledge that there is nothing magical about any particular definition. Each comes with advantages and disadvantages. One reason we focus here on this 40 percent of the population is that this group has seen the slowest income growth in recent decades:

To repeat: we do not claim that our definition of the middle class is the definition. We should also be clear that, in part, our definition is influenced by the economic trends described above, rather than being constructed in splendid isolation.

The racial pluralism of the middle class

In 1980, non-Hispanic whites composed over three-quarters of the middle class - 23 percentage points more than they do today. Some of this change is simply due to the increasing size of racial and ethnic minorities across all income groups, some is due to rising incomes, and some due to differing age compositions: the median age of non-Hispanic whites is 43, compared to 29 among Hispanics. The white share of the middle class fell to 55 percent in 2017, and will drop below half to 49 percent within the next quarter-century, according to our calculations:

A note on the projection. We have assumed that the relationship between relative income status and race remains unchanged between 2017 and 2042. The increased racial diversity of the middle class in 2042 is, then, the mechanical result of a broader demographic shift. Many fewer Americans aged between 25 and 54 in 2042 will be white, and many more will be other races and ethnicities, especially Hispanic (see Note 3). These specific estimates should be taken with a few large grains of salt - we did not account for divergent income trajectories, possible changes to immigration policy, or differing life expectancies by race. But predicting such changes would be a difficult undertaking, so we have adopted a simpler strategy.

identity politics versus the middle class: a false choice

There is an important political debate taking place over the plight of the so-called "forgotten Americans" (look out for an important new book from Isabel Sawhill on this topic later this year). Scholars and politicians on both left and right, and in bipartisan groups such as the AEI/Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity, have wrestled with the challenges facing middle- and lower-income households. Among Democrats in particular, there is a particularly robust argument over the balance between "identity politics" - focusing on the specific challenges faced by groups such as women, racial and ethnic minorities, or LGBTQ Americans - and the white middle or working class. As Columbia Professor Mark Lilla writes:

In recent years American liberalism has slipped into a kind of moral panic about racial, gender and sexual identity that has distorted liberalism's message and prevented it from becoming a unifying force capable of governing.

On the other side of the debate, Matthew Yglesias of Vox writes (in part in response to Lilla) writes:

People have identities, and people are mobilized politically around those identities. There is no other way to do politics than to do identity politics.

These are important discussions. But we should be careful not to set up arbitrary distinctions. The middle class, at least defined in economic terms, is not white: it is racially diverse; and whites will make up less than half the middle class within a few decades. Any policies that help the middle class will therefore help black and Hispanic Americans as much as whites. The choice between identity-based and class-based politics is, to this extent, a false one.

1. The term "majority minority," while common, is unhelpful. First, when there is no single racial group in the majority, there is by definition no majority. Second, the phrase lumps together all minorities who are not white into a single category (non-whites), which is inappropriate given the significant differences between these groups. Hence our preference for the term race-plural.

2. Note that for the purposes of this paper we follow common practice in referring to Hispanic as a racial rather than ethnic category.

3. We look first at the number of individuals within each race/ethnic category under the age of 29 in 2017. We then multiplied these values by the percentage of each race/ethnic category who fell into the prime-age middle class as of 2017. For example, 36 percent of prime-age non-Hispanic whites were middle class in 2017. We multiplied the number of whites ages 0-29 (about 66.2 million) by 36 percent to estimate the number of prime-age whites who would be middle class in 25 years. We then divided this number by the total size of the prime-age middle class (126.2 million) to obtain our final figure of 49 percent.

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hispanic household wealth standards majority minority middle class american disadvantaged lower upper black white

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The middle class is becoming race-plural, just like the rest of America

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For more than half a century, the term "the American middle-class" has served as a political reference to white American upward mobility. But Reeves and Busette find that the middle class is not white, but racially diverse, and minorities will compose the majority of the middle class by 2042.

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This article discusses the differences about class and race being in the same conversation. The main reason for a kid's future success comes from their situation growing up. How their environment at home and in their town/city are the leading factors. A study used in this article shows that black women are just as likely to be successful as their white counterparts. We see that in Their Eyes Were Watching God, when Janie is seen as more likely to succeed and more likely to get opportunities in society because she is mixed. However, black men aren't expected to do the same. White men have about a 67% chance of coming out of poverty. The black men's disadvantage comes from society's stereotypes, like they are criminals, uneducated, and more.

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A new study rebuts a widely shared view that racial disparities in social mobility are economic inequalities in disguise - the belief that if we address class issues, we can fix racism.

The report, by the Stanford economist Raj Chetty, the Harvard economist Nathaniel Hendren and colleagues at The Equality of Opportunity Project, provides an empirical basis for an economic susceptibility that black parents like me have sensed: Across generations, we are less likely than whites to rise and when we do, are more likely later to fall. We seem unable to grasp or preserve economic gains as other groups do, including Latinos and Asian-Americans.

The study's findings build on the authors' prior research that has empirically substantiated two insights about intergenerational economic mobility. One is that a child's economic position is sticky: Children from affluent families are many times more likely to maintain their privileged status than children from poor families are to attain it.

The other is that while economic mobility may be individual, the conditions that enable or retard it are social. Wealthy neighborhoods with good schools and strong social ties propel even poor children toward a brighter future.

But the reality for black communities is grim.

Black families trace our economic insecurity in part to a gender divide that we see but often don't discuss. We know that African-American daughters tend to do well. They climb the socioeconomic ladder as high as their white peers, if not higher.

It's the boys who fail. Whether born to a rich family or a poor one, in an impoverished neighborhood or wealthy one, black boys lag behind their white peers as adults. Black boys who grow up rich are twice as likely as their white counterparts to end up poor. And of those black boys who start life poor, nearly half will remain so in adulthood, while more than 2 in 3 of their white peers will escape the poverty of their youth.

Black women may surpass their white counterparts in individual income, but they lag in household income. The men who would be their husbands are missing - incarcerated, unemployed, unable to be the partners that women want. Or the parents that children need.

And so the failings of one generation fall upon the next, as the trajectories of black boys are shaped by the absence of black fathers. Looking beyond the usual focus on how individual children are affected by the presence of their fathers, Mr. Chetty and his colleagues found that the presence of black fathers in the community powerfully shapes boys' trajectories. Black fathers are a social resource.

The two-parent families that don't form perpetuate African-Americans' disadvantage across generations. The economic predicament of black men, which disconnects them from their children, threatens to ripple across families and generations.

All of which raises the question: How do African-Americans in the 21st century confront the prospect of being indefinitely left behind?

The cycle that the research documents had a beginning and it can have an end. A s black women began to take advantage of the opportunities opened by the civil rights movement, black men were hit first with deindustrialization - the loss of well-paying blue-collar jobs throughout large swaths of our nation - and then with a surge in incarceration unlike anything a democratic nation had ever seen. Black children bore the brunt of their parents' suffering. Many well-meaning Americans remained oblivious to a national tragedy.

Black men's disadvantage has shaped not only how they are perceived but the meaning of race as well. Racial disparities - in incarceration, unemployment, school failure - fuel racial bias, which ensnares black boys, rich and poor alike. Boys like my own go from cute and cuddly to strong and manly, and so become a threat in the eyes of many. The bias, subtle yet pervasive, compounds the disparities by undermining the relationships and hope that one needs to get, and stay, ahead. And so the cycle continues.

But it need not. We can disrupt the cycle of black disadvantage. What we've lacked is the will to do so. We act as though economic inequality is inevitable, relegating poor children of all races to schools to which most parents would never choose to send their own children, schools often in neighborhoods where most would never choose to live. We segregate ourselves by race and class, and accept the inequality of opportunity that doing so breeds.

So many Americans profess to be blind to race, which ensures only that it will remain salient. So many worry more about appearing to be racist than working to remove the enduring taint of slavery and segregation.

We will find a way to undo intergenerational racial disparities when we find the will. And to find the will, we need to recognize what's at stake: The conditions that challenge us imperil the future of black boys and black families and the viability of the American dream itself.

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Opinion | An End to the Class vs. Race Debate

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A new study rebuts a widely shared view that racial disparities in social mobility are economic inequalities in disguise - the belief that if we address class issues, we can fix racism.