I think the "middle class white dudes" issue is this: Unless you (like me) had parents who had some bad things happen to them financially, if you're parents kn

I think the "middle class white dudes" issue is this: Unless you (like me) had parents who had some bad things happen to them financially, if you're parents knew what they were doing and had some form of means, you were probably successfully isolated from poverty growing up. This means that you're understanding of poverty will lack nuance. If you're one kind of person, you'll think its just bad parenting and bad culture. If you're another kind of person, you'll think it's external causes from racism, bad schools, etc. The fact of the matter is that most people I've encountered who actually grew up in and around poverty understand that Coates portrayal is heavily biased towards the "external" causes, as opposed to the other forms of literature heavily biased towards the "it's their fault they are poor." Why is this? Because there isn't really a market for the nuanced truth: It's a mix of both. I grew up in an extremely poor county with about 50% white/black, and most of both were poor. I went to the same schools, and watched some of my friends go down one path, while most went down the other, very bad path. The problem is people like you, whose parents did what I'm doing with my kids (keeping them away from these failing schools and bad neighborhoods), have no clue what's going on and are limited in your information to the two extremes of WHY this is happening. Why did two of the extremely smart, black male friends of mine growing up go down such extremely different paths? They both were poor, both highly intelligent, but one decided he wanted to fit in with the overly masculine cultural norms in black youth culture, while the other went down the path of escaping the trap of poverty by getting financial aid and going to a great public university. Their paths diverged in 8th grade. What book out there explains this, and if it exists, is there a market for it? Probably not.