Talking Past Each Other

Abstract

Born in Chicago to Jewish lower middle class parents, Bob Blauner studied at the University of Chicago and received his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley, where he has been a professor of sociology since 1963. His first major scholarly work was Alienation and Freedom: The Factory Worker and His Industry (1964). His later works, include Racial Oppression in America (1972) and Black Lives, White Lives: Three Decades of Race Relations in America (1989). In the following essay, Blauner reflects on some of the borders to be negotiated if black and white Americans are to achieve a permanent understanding.