Ethnicity and Class Structure in the Contemporary U.S. : Micro and Macro Perspectives

Abstract

William Wilson pointed out in his book : The Declining Significance of Race, that studies of Blacks in the U.S. have placed too much emphasis on the micro perspective, and that the micro analysis loses its grip on reality when it has little reference to the macro social structure. Wilson's point is well taken, but my research leads me to believe that he has gone too far in discounting the importance of the micro perspective. The aim of my paper is to describe how the characteristics of racial and ethnic group relations in the contemporary U.S. society are rooted in the macro structure. My conclusions are based on my field study in the Samoan community in San Francisco 1990-92. The macro structure of contemporary American society is best characterized in socio-political terms as liberal pluralist system ; it is not a racist system ; it has a large degree of inequality. The lower class, excluded from resources as well as from the opportunity for upward mobility, seeks security by organizing into ethnic or racial groups. The lower class ethnicity is very different from that of middle class. It is based on the strategy of the “have-nots” who organize such resources as they have-fellowship, mutual trust- so that they can compete with the “haves”. In contrast, middle class ethnicity is individual ; it does not depend on group affiliation. This difference in life-style creates another source of conflict between the two classes. The lower class tend to fall into a hard-to-understand, sometimes even hostile way of life in the eyes of the middle class. This often gives the middle class a good reason for prejudice against the lower class. It is another aspect of Myrdal's “accumulation of discrimination” which makes upward mobility more difficult for the lower class.