Disintegration

“There was a time when there were agreed-upon ''black leaders,'' when there was a clear ''black agenda,'' when we could talk confidently about ''the state of black America''—but not anymore.” —from Disintegration The African American population in the United States has always been seen as a single entity: a “Black America” with unified interests and needs. In his groundbreaking book, Disintegration, Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson argues that over decades of desegregation, affirmative action, and immigration, the concept of Black America has shattered. Instead of one black America, now there are four: • a Mainstream middle-class majority with a full ownership stake in American society; • a large, Abandoned minority with less hope of escaping poverty and dysfunction than at any time since Reconstruction’s