Since the day Martin Luther King was killed, the black middle classes have almost quadrupled, but the percentage of black children living on or below the poverty line is almost the same.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The black population now consists of two distinct classes-the middle class and the poor.
Rich kids work hard. Most black kids aren't working hard enough.
What I think is different today is the lack of political connection between the black middle class and the increasing numbers of black people who are more impoverished than ever before.
At present, black children are more segregated in their public schools than at any time since 1968. In the inner-city schools I visit, minority children typically represent 95 percent to 99 percent of class enrollment.
In real life there are indeed black people who have been in the middle class for generations, but in entertainment it's as if they don't exist.
Blacks are about seven times more likely to live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty than whites.
The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending discrimination, by itself, would not eradicate black poverty and dysfunction. We also need intervention to promulgate a middle-class ethic of success among the poor, while expanding opportunities for economic betterment.
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.
Progress for black Americans depends on good schools because education is the last great equalizer.
Well, certainly one of the ironies of the success of affirmative action is that the middle class within the black community no longer lives within 'black community' by and large.
No opposing quotes found.