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Review: The Colors of Poverty: Why Racial and Ethnic Disparities Persist

In The Colors of Poverty, editors Ann Chih Lin and David R. Harris assemble a series of essays that address the interrelated factors that sustain the intersection between race and poverty. This ambitious collection explores why, despite more than forty years of progress since the Civil Rights era, 38 percent of African American and 32 percent of Hispanic children live in poverty, compared to 13 percent of NonHispanic white and 13 percent of Asian children (U.S. Census Bureau). The book’s central thesis asserts that, rather than stemming from a single root cause, poverty is self-reinforcing through the cumulative nature of disadvantages that leave people more vulnerable to further disadvantage. At the same time, there is an inseparable link between race and ethnicity and this vulnerability due to “a history of racial relations and racially inflected decision making” (4). Because of this history, race has been a mechanism that shapes the distribution of resources, status, and opportunities and, as a result, our “institutions, practices, and beliefs can foster racial disadvantage without any deliberate effort to discriminate” (4). This book is particularly pertinent as the discussion of a “post racial America” continues in the wave of President Obama’s 2008 election. There has been discussion as to whether discrimination still exists, and some people point to President Obama’s success as evidence that it all comes down to personal responsibility. This book illustrates that the success of a racial group is more complicated and that larger structural issues remain, including intergenerational poverty, physical isolation due to residential segregation and concentrated poverty, and institutional biases that have disparate impacts across racial and ethnic groups despite race and ethnic neutrality at the policy level (see chapter 11 by Soss and Schram). Moreover, in an age where media and politics tend toward oversimplification, this book provides a thorough overview of a complex set of issues with wide-ranging consequences not only for the well-being and success of poor minorities but for the country overall. The forces discussed in this book are crucial for policy makers to understand, particularly as America is projected to be majority minority in the next fifty years (Berg 2012) given these demographic trends, the trajectory of racial and ethnic minorities is tantamount with the trajectory of the country as a whole. The Colors of Poverty is broken into three sections. The first section describes the impact of discrimination, ideological beliefs about inequality, and culture on the dynamic between race and ethnicity and poverty. The first chapter in this section provides evidence that, while discrimination is less overt than in the past, it persists through subtle discrimination in key gatekeepers such as real estate agents, lenders, and employers, which cumulate and directly impede economic opportunities among minorities (chapter 2 by Pager). Chapter 3, by Bullock, describes how the dynamics between race, ethnicity, gender, and class in this country are further shaped by core American ideologies such as individualism, meritocracy, equality of opportunity, and upward mobility. These ideologies often reinforce stereotypes and hierarchies by providing an oversimplified framework by which to set expectations and make judgments. For example, the belief in meritocracy sets up the expectation that those who are poor deserve that fate because of personal failures and neglects to acknowledge the role of structural factors. These ideologies and stereotypes, in turn, influence expectations of institutional support for the poor and policy responses to poverty. For example, one study the author reviewed found that “stereotyping blacks as lazy and the poor as undeserving emerged as the strongest predictors of white opposition to welfare” (61). Chapter 4, by Lamont and Small, explores various theories on culture and their influence on understanding poverty and how individuals respond to their circumstances. The authors conclude that racial disparities in poverty cannot be explained by a homogeneous set of values within a racial, ethnic, or class group. Rather, these disparities can be best understood by exploring the confluence of cultural factors and “how individuals of different racial backgrounds face differential discrimination, access to structural opportunities, wealth advantages, social capital and other opportunities and constraints” (92). The second section examines three areas in which racial and ethnic disparities exist and which have long-term impacts on opportunities and outcomes—education, health, and social capital. These chapters review the existing literature and studies, describe results from original statistical analysis and make recommendations for further study and policy changes. In chapter 5, Farkas describes that differences in 518384 JPEXXX10.1177/0739456X13518384Journal of Planning Education and ResearchBook Reviews book-review2013