In Eugene Robinson's latest book, Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America, he says that in the past 40 years, black America has split into four subgroups: the transcendent elite (see Winfrey, Oprah; Beyoncé), the mainstream middle class, an emergent community of mixed-race families and black immigrants, and an abandoned underclass.
Suggested Reading
In the New York Times, Raymond Arsenault unpacks Robinson's thesis that "no one belongs to the black community" and that the problem of the 21st century for all four black Americas is addressing the social and economic problems of the abandoned underclass.
Robinson's laid out the problem. How do we all work toward a solution?
Read the rest of this New York Times book review.
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