On Race and Money

In a 2003 interview, Toni Morrison remarked about finally having financial security, "It's nice. Don't let anybody tell you it's not. Particularly for somebody who's been really poor, it's great. Nouveau riche is the best riche there is" (Weaver, 2019> A year later, in another interview, the Nobel-prizing winning author whose humble beginnings in Lorain, Ohio, are frequently part of the story told about her, repeated her point about being nouveau riche. I read both Morrison interviews after I proposed this special issue of Critical Sociology, but her enthusiasm for being nouveau riche resonates with a theme I wanted to explore: people's relationship with money and the meaning of money in our lives. I was particularly interested in how we assess the money we have or don't have in regard to race and racism.