Challenges of The Black Middle Class
Empirical evidence demonstrates that blacks have less upward mobility than whites. A report done by the Pew Research Center in 2007 says that of the sons and daughters of the black middle class, 45% of black children end up "near poor", and the comparable rate for white families is 16%. The trend of downward mobility has caused the overall majority of middle-class-black children to end up with lower incomes than their parents. While 68% of white children earn incomes above their parents, 31% of black children earn incomes more than their parents did. The lower rate of upward mobility could be caused by the lack of married blacks, and the number of blacks born out of wedlock. In 2009, 72% of black babies are born out of wedlock, compared with 28% of white women.
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Famous quotes containing the words middle class, challenges, black, middle and/or class:
“Planning ahead is a measure of class. The rich and even the middle class plan for future generations, but the poor can plan ahead only a few weeks or days.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
“A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“It’s not like I was out there running and not knowing what’s going on in the country. I knew what was going on, but I felt this is not something that is going to bog me down and not let me participate. The only way I was going to make a difference for myself or any other black person is to say the hurdles were there and do what I had to do.”
—Wyomia Tyus (b. 1945)
“The middle years are ones in which children increasingly face conflicts on their own,... One of the truths to be faced by parents during this period is that they cannot do the work of living and relating for their children. They can be sounding boards and they can probe with the children the consequences of alternative actions.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Much of the wisdom of the world is not wisdom, and the most illuminated class of men are no doubt superior to literary fame, and are not writers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)