ABSTRACT
Race relations in America have undergone fundamental changes in recent years, so much so that the life chances of individual blacks have more to do with their economic class position than with their day-to-day encounters with whites. This chapter provides an analytical framework for examining the shifting areas of racial conflict and the changing experiences of American blacks. It attempts to explain why the economic class theories are not very relevant to the modern industrial stage of American race relations. It is true that the low economic position of blacks has helped to shape the categorical social definitions attached to blacks as a racial group, but it is true that the more blacks become segmented in terms of economic class position, the more their concerns about the social significance of race will vary. In the preindustrial period of American race relations there was of course very little variation in the economic class position of blacks.
