Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eugene Robinson, the author of a just-published book exploring “the new social and demographic landscape of a disintegrated black America,” spoke last night to a standing room only crowd at Enoch Pratt’s Central Library.

During Robinson’s hour-long talk, centered around his new book, Disintegration, the Washington Post columnist broke down why he believes “one size no longer fits all” when talking about African Americans.

“It was increasingly clear to me there was no one black America, but several, and we have to distinguish among them if we are to talk intelligently about African-Americans in the twenty first century,” he said.

He explained how his research revealed distinct sub-groups within Black America, as well as the problems associated with the diminished solidarity once present in the mid-twentieth century.

Drawing upon demographic data Robinson described the formation of these distinct groups, ranging from Middle-class blacks to well-educated African immigrants  to those trapped in systemic poverty and finally to Obama, and how this fracturing of a once unified whole has had significant and very real consequences among communities throughout the U.S.

“When I was a kid…you could have made generalizations about Black America. You could have said It’s poorer, it’s less educated, it’s this or that. One of the things you could have said, and you would have been right, is where we all lived…We all lived in the black side of town…It was an economically, educationally, socially, and culturally diverse community. A rich intertwined community within the context of segregation. That is one thing that has really been lost. And it is one of the few things that we might even dare to amend.”

This loss of community did more than simply tarnish once vibrant communities. Robinson explained how “African Americans who had the means and opportunity and ability moved away from the old communities…And the result was a kind of gradual and increasing concentration of poverty and disfunction.”

Despite this focus on race, Robinson went on to explain how the root of the problem has to do with systemic poverty that affects millions of black and white Americans and how it is an issue he worries is no longer a priority for politicians today.

He ended his talk warning that “this strikes me as a situation that will become worse before it becomes better unless we recognize it and talk about it and finally to act on it. And that’s what the book is about.”