Living with Racism: The Black Middle-Class Experience

Pervasive white racism--often subtle and covert, at times blatant--is a daily reality for African Americans, according to the 209 middle-class blacks interviewed for this important and disturbing report. The respondents tell of discrimination on the job in salary, evaluations and promotions; prejudice against black renters and homebuyers by white landlords, real estate agents, homeowners and neighbors; the channeling of black students into vocational ``tracks''; physical assaults and institutionalized racism on college campuses; and daily hostility blacks face in restaurants, stores and other public places. Feagin, a white sociologist at the University of Florida, and Sikes, a black psychologist who conducts anti-racism workshops, call for much more multiculturalism in U.S. schooling, aggressive enforcement of affirmative action and initiatives by white leaders to eradicate widespread racial prejudice and stereotyping by the white majority. (May)