Bokelskere.no

For the casual visitor Baltimore holds many attractions, such as Baltimore Harbor and its fine museums. The Long Shadow takes on the less favorable aspects for the people who actually live there, documenting how the "reproduction of social advantage and disadvantage across generations" favors high-income, white males at one end and disadvantages low-income black women at the other end. Poor schools, segregated housing, and racial bias in hiring contribute to this result. This may not be news in itself, but The Long Shadow documents in careful detail how this outcome comes about, and how it is being maintained over time. All in all the authors reject the often repeated mantra that the poor African American should just help themselves. The authors have striven to make their documentation, analysis, and prescriptions accessible to the reader, by inserting enlivening quotes from the young people taking part in the longitudinal survey. The book gives a rewarding insight into the complexities of disadvantaged inner cities in America, not only Baltimore.