Elana Levin

Mark Winston Griffith on the black middle-class, on NPR, on your computer too

Because an op-ed in the past weekend's New York Times isn't nearly enough Mark Winston Griffith for us progressive-types (I mean who else knows that much about community economic justice?) you've got to listen to his Weds. appearance on NPR.
He was on News and Notes with Ed Gordon talking about the Black Middle-Class.

From the NPR website:

"As a series of discussions on class issues continues, the conversation focuses on the tenuous nature of the African-American middle class. Farai Chideya's guests include economist and author Julianne Malveaux; Mark Winston Griffith, founder of the non-profit Central Brooklyn Partnership and a fellow at the Drum Major Institute; and Lester Spence, political science professor at Johns Hopkins University."

He hits on the important point that historically, middle-class parents could assume their children would be better off than them and there is no guarantee of that anymore. Also how so many people are middle-class by virtue of education but not by their actual financial situation.

I couldn't agree more.

The other guests Julianne Malveaux and Lester Spence have great insight in to some historic aspects of the state of affairs too.

You can listen to the segment on the NPR site

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Posted at 11:59 AM, Oct 13, 2005 in Civil Rights | Middle-class squeeze
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