ABSTRACT
In the early 1970s, black people were proportionately much more likely to play working class characters than white people. Crime reporting made blacks look particularly threatening, while coverage of politics exaggerated the degree to which black politicians practice special interest politics. The great majority of black families, in income and housing, are at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum—and the 1980s have seen a general reversal in the economic well-being of black Americans. For black, inner-city males not in prison, the chances of gaining lawful employment are not very good. The number of black men between the ages of 20 and 29 in prison is greater than the number of all black men in college. "The black doctor, lawyer, teacher, minister, businessman, mortician, excluded from the white community, was able to create a niche in the segregated black community".
