Facing Up to the American Dream - Ch. 2-4

The Main Theme

How the discrepancies in perception between whites and blacks, as well internal discrepancies existing within higher and lower classes of two races (particularly the blacks) regarding the views on race, achievement, mobility and status may threaten the ideal of "American Dream" as one of the organizational principle of the country. That is, put very crudely (so that this article, which is a collection of a heap of vast quantity of data collected from survey questions, can be summarized in some short sentences), blacks see far more greater level of discrimination existing in this country than the whites, and the gap is getting wider. Meanwhile, among the blacks, while the higher class has objectively made a good deal of advance in terms of material conditions and social status, they are "enjoying it less" as they are in general more pessimistic and have become disillusioned with the "American Dream" creed. On the other hand, while suprisingly the lower class blacks are more optimistic than their better-off counterparts, their objective condition is not getting any better and it is doubtful as to how long this disadvantaged class can "hold" to their current ideals.
 

Chapter 2

Before going to the issue of perception of the American Dream ideal in chapters 3 and 4, this chapter first reviews the objective conditions blacks and whites find themselves in currently. Blacks have made, absolutely and relatively, unambiguous gains in terms of job status, educational attainment and political participation. Indicators for income, wealth and mobility show mixed results. On the other hand, in the realms of home ownership, residential segregation (especially the chance to live in suburbs), and unemployment, blacks are unambiguously losing ground.

Even more relevant in the context of this work is the polarization of blacks into fairly well-off middle class and the poor with unchanging or deteriorating conditions. The author notes that income gap between rich blacks and poor blacks has always been larger than that of the whites and, even worse, this gap is increasing. The trend of polarization is also occurring in other realms, like likelihood to be a victim of crime, and propensity to vote (with the recent trend that poorer blacks are losing in political influence and level of mobilization to the richer counterparts than they had previously).
 

Chapter 3

Investigates into the beliefs and perceptions of blacks and whites regarding the "American Dream", which according to Hochschild consists of: "fair treatment of all" (tenet 1), "economic success" (tenet 2), "self-reliance" (tenet 3), and "helping the less fortunate" (tenet 4).

Basically, the finding is that excepting in the domain of tenet 1 (here blacks report of persistent battle against the daily life experience of experiencing discrimination), there is no serious disagreement between blacks and whites regarding adherence to the American Dream ideal, if the question is about one's own chance to achieve that dream. Both blacks and whites tend to think that it is the matter of one's own ability and hard work that they themselves can achieve the dream or not. In fact, when future prospects of their own are concerned, blacks are actually significantly more optimistic than whites on average. It is the question regarding the others' chances to achieve their dreams - that is, whether their own race as the collectivity fare off better than the other group or no - on which blacks and whites come to sharply disagree. Here, blacks consistently perceive of the far greater level of discrimination. Further, while whites tend to be convinced of the rapid black economic progress, blacks have traditionally felt and continue to feel frustrated of the future prospects of their own race. Whites are also far more likely to attribute racial inequality to the flaws of individual blacks or the black community.

Now, we can see that both black's and white's perceptions embody some puzzle, or dilemma, whatever you may call it, here. Combining the fact that blacks tend to be more optimistic regarding their own prospects while having worse perception when the future of their race as a collectivity is concerned, with the opposite trend for the whites who have worse perceptions for their own prospects, we can see that both races would be facing a "quandary" as to why their own lot may not be improving in the context of their own race. For whites, this may take the form of hostility to the affirmative action movements that to them raises the opportunity level of blacks better than theirs, for blacks this may take the form of frustrated expectation.
 

Chapter 4

This chapter investigates the issue of intra-race discrepancy in adherence to the American Dream ideal, dividing races into higher and lower class.

The crucial finding is that of the "reversal" of higher and lower class blacks' perception of the American Dream between the 1960s and the 1980s. That is, while both classes were more optimistic back in the 60s, as the perception of the higher class deteriorated far more rapidly since then we now have a somewhat paradoxical situation that higher class blacks are more pessimistic in their views of the American Dream. Further, findings regarding the tenet 3 (self-reliance) is especially interesting. That is, the higher the status, less likely one is to attribute the current situation of blacks to their own actions - in another word, the higher the status they explain the current racial disparity in achievement in terms of the discrimination, and other collective factors out of the control of individual actions. On the other hand, the lower class blacks seem in this regard to display extraordinary loyalty to the American Dream, as they are more likely to explain the success of better-off blacks in terms of the tenet 3. So here we see the particularly dramatic effect of the "reversal" that has taken place sometime after the 60s.