There exist three options for that persistence, if we assume that culture might play a role.
- There is something about black culture that prevents black Americans from escaping poverty. We'll call this the black culture option.
- There is something about the culture of being poor that prevents the poor, regardless of race, from escaping poverty. We'll call this the culture-of-poverty option.
- There are no internal cultural forces at play. We'll call this, partly for the sake of stirring the pot, the racism exists option.
This distinction isn't simply rhetorical. If there are cultural forces at play, one of those three things must be true. What's more, the political implications of each are different. If the black culture explanation is correct, it suggests that admonishments against the behavior of black Americans — the sort of thing that Coates has consistently objected to — are a proper response to entrenched poverty. If there's a culture of poverty, there needs to be a broader cultural realignment among
all poor people, one that's not limited to the black community. If there are no internal cultural forces at play, then the "racism exists" explanation becomes more significant.
Put more simply, there are three options for why black people continue to experience higher levels of poverty: it's in part black people's fault, it's in part poor people's fault, and it's society's fault. The best answer, without question, is the latter.