Citation

Hayes FW. J. Afr. Am. Stud. 2018; 22(1): 1-16.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s12111-017-9389-x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Conventional studies of urban poverty largely blame African Americans for their impoverished situation and the consequent social difficulties that arise there from. This paper confronts and indicts that perspective. Examining the historic dehumanization process that shaped African America, the present study argues that it served as the framework for how whites justified their racist and violent treatment of slaves and their African American descendants. It was this same racist theory and practice that led to the construction of racialized oppressive urban ghettos that became the economically impoverished domicile for urban black people. Therefore, poor African Americans have been caught in a cauldron of circumstances not of their own making, but with which they have had to cope and struggle.

Language: en

Keywords

Anti-black racism; Black elected officials; Black power movement; Civil rights movement; Crack cocaine epidemic; Dehumanization process; Economic exploitation; Killer-kop terrorism; Neo-slavery; Political oppression; Postindustrial-managerial cities and societies; Ronald Reagan administration drug dumping; Scholarship of indictment; Slavery; Social movements; The great migration; Urban black impoverishment; Urban underclass; White supremacy