Sociologist Cassi Pittman Claytor provides a nuanced portrayal of the Black middle class
Cassi Pittman Claytor is an increasingly influential scholar of contemporary African American life. She did her first sociological research as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, when she interviewed Black families in West Philadelphia about their educational choices for their children. Later, at Harvard University, she wrote her master's thesis on the concentration of subprime loans among middle-class Black homeowners. In her first book, which expands on her doctoral dissertation, she examines social and cultural drivers influencing the economic behavior of Black professionals.
Pittman Claytor, the Climo Junior Professor in the Department of Sociology, says her early life inspires her research. She grew up in East Cleveland, Ohio, a majority-Black suburb adjacent to University Circle and Case Western Reserve. When the Pittmans moved to East Cleveland in the 1980s, it had a large Black middle and working class. But over the years, institutions and employers left the city. Depopulation and disinvestment created areas of concentrated poverty, and the local government struggled to provide its citizens with basic services. The subprime mortgage crisis only added to the devastation.
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