The declining social and economic fortunes of African American males: A critical assessment of four perspectives

This paper provides a general overview of four competing perspectives on "t he African American male problem": the spatial isolation hypothesis; the cu ltural capital/employer preference hypothesis; the search and destroy hypot hesis; and the social capital hypothesis. Following the discussion of the t heoretical underpinnings of each of these schools of thought, we review rec ent empirical studies that attempt to evaluate the relative weight of the v arious factors undergirding these competing perspectives. We conclude that the weight of the empirical evidence lends support to the search and destro y hypothesis: that black men are systematically targeted for discriminatory treatment in the public school system, the labor market, and especially th e criminal justice system.