5The African American population in the United States has always been seen as a single entity: a "Black America" with unified interests and needs. In his groundbreaking book, Disintegration, Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson argues that over decades of desegregation, affirmative action, and immigration, the concept of Black America has shattered. Instead of one black America, now there are four:

- a Mainstream middle-class majority with a full ownership stake in American society;

- a large, Abandoned minority with less hope of escaping poverty and dysfunction than at any time since Reconstruction's crushing end;

- a small Transcendent elite with such enormous wealth, power, and influence that even white folks have to genuflect;

- and two newly Emergent groups--individuals of mixed-race heritage and communities of recent black immigrants--that make us wonder what "black" is even supposed to mean.