Our Kind of People
If you don't live in an area with a large concentration of African Americans, you might be surprised at the level of diversity within the Black community.
Southern Blacks, northeastern Blacks, west coast Blacks, lower class Blacks, middle class, upper class Blacks.
Social conservatives.
Liberals.
Athiests.
Agnostics.
This fact of intraracial diversity gets overlooked far too often in discussions of race.
Recently, I finished reading Lawrence Otis Graham's mildly controversial, "Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class," which comprehensively details the history and character of upper class African Americans throughout the United States.
Graham describes the social organizations, secondary schools, colleges, fraternities, vacation spots, and cities that the Black upper class favor.
The opening lines of "Our Kind of People" establish the nature of the beast: Bryant Gumbel is, but Bill Cosby isn't...
Andrew Young is, but Jesse Jackson isn't...
neither is Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Clarence Thomas, or Quincy Jones.
And even though both of them try extremely hard, neither Diana Ross nor Robin Givens will ever be.
Reading Graham's work brought back hazy memories of my mother and grandmother and the, what I thought at the time, strange responses they gave to certain institutions, people, and behavior.
Howard University was, to my light-skinned grandmother, the epitome of higher education.
So transfixed was my grandmother by Howard that she sent my uncle, a blue chip football prospect, there to establish his football career.
She pushed Howard despite interest from UCLA, USC, and several other big name college football programs.
As a young adult, this astonished me.
Howard? You want to send your kid to play football at Howard? Wouldn't you rather send him somewhere with better facilities and coaches? The choice seemed even more absurd to me after my mother explained that my uncle's football career ended with a severe knee injury on Howard's practice field.
But after reading more about the Black upper class and their affinity for certain Black colleges like Howard, Spellman, and Morehouse, my grandmother's;attraction to Howard makes more sense.
She was emulating the Black upper class of her day.
Howard was and remains a source of great pride for African Americans.
If your family attended a school like Howard or Morehouse for generations, you could jockey your family into abetter position within the Black caste system.
I remember having similar experiences with my mother when subjects like Jack and Jill, or the Links came up; the hand wringing, overwrought attention to dress, behavior, and language that were an issue before visiting some of our friends, but mysteriously not all.
The elation my mother showed when she felt she had been included in some ritual of the Black upper class or when she coyly dropped the name of an exclusive school her own children attended thereby, ostensibly, identifying herself as a member of the class.
This left me perplexed as a child.
Why do you care what I wear to Johnny's house but not Rumal's? Why do you even want me to be friends with Johnny? Johnny's a jerk.
Why do you talk "White" around Johnny's parents but you get all ghetto around Rumal's parents? We're all Black, right? Well, yeah, sort of.
All that said, I don't really harbor animosity toward the Black upper class anymore than you hold animosity for a cousin who voted for Bush or an uncle who wears Crocs.
My main beef is simply that my contemporaries of that class are as Lawrence Otis Graham describes them, "always rather bland and 'safe,' with little interest in testing the authenticity of [my] blackness.
" I'm certainly not angry at anyone for their success.
As for the semi-secret organizations that characterize the Black elite: the Links, Jack and Jill, Sigma Pi Phi, they do contribute to the Black community, primarily through fund raising for organizations like the United Negro College Fund.
But with all the ski trips, cotillions, black-tie events, networking activities, yachting parties, and such, while literacy rates, graduation rates, HIV/AIDS, and out-of-wedlock child birth for lower-income Blacks remain problematic; what is the point? What's the point of organizing high class Blacks for parties while the rest of the community suffers? What's that all about?
Southern Blacks, northeastern Blacks, west coast Blacks, lower class Blacks, middle class, upper class Blacks.
Social conservatives.
Liberals.
Athiests.
Agnostics.
This fact of intraracial diversity gets overlooked far too often in discussions of race.
Recently, I finished reading Lawrence Otis Graham's mildly controversial, "Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class," which comprehensively details the history and character of upper class African Americans throughout the United States.
Graham describes the social organizations, secondary schools, colleges, fraternities, vacation spots, and cities that the Black upper class favor.
The opening lines of "Our Kind of People" establish the nature of the beast: Bryant Gumbel is, but Bill Cosby isn't...
Andrew Young is, but Jesse Jackson isn't...
neither is Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Clarence Thomas, or Quincy Jones.
And even though both of them try extremely hard, neither Diana Ross nor Robin Givens will ever be.
Reading Graham's work brought back hazy memories of my mother and grandmother and the, what I thought at the time, strange responses they gave to certain institutions, people, and behavior.
Howard University was, to my light-skinned grandmother, the epitome of higher education.
So transfixed was my grandmother by Howard that she sent my uncle, a blue chip football prospect, there to establish his football career.
She pushed Howard despite interest from UCLA, USC, and several other big name college football programs.
As a young adult, this astonished me.
Howard? You want to send your kid to play football at Howard? Wouldn't you rather send him somewhere with better facilities and coaches? The choice seemed even more absurd to me after my mother explained that my uncle's football career ended with a severe knee injury on Howard's practice field.
But after reading more about the Black upper class and their affinity for certain Black colleges like Howard, Spellman, and Morehouse, my grandmother's;attraction to Howard makes more sense.
She was emulating the Black upper class of her day.
Howard was and remains a source of great pride for African Americans.
If your family attended a school like Howard or Morehouse for generations, you could jockey your family into abetter position within the Black caste system.
I remember having similar experiences with my mother when subjects like Jack and Jill, or the Links came up; the hand wringing, overwrought attention to dress, behavior, and language that were an issue before visiting some of our friends, but mysteriously not all.
The elation my mother showed when she felt she had been included in some ritual of the Black upper class or when she coyly dropped the name of an exclusive school her own children attended thereby, ostensibly, identifying herself as a member of the class.
This left me perplexed as a child.
Why do you care what I wear to Johnny's house but not Rumal's? Why do you even want me to be friends with Johnny? Johnny's a jerk.
Why do you talk "White" around Johnny's parents but you get all ghetto around Rumal's parents? We're all Black, right? Well, yeah, sort of.
All that said, I don't really harbor animosity toward the Black upper class anymore than you hold animosity for a cousin who voted for Bush or an uncle who wears Crocs.
My main beef is simply that my contemporaries of that class are as Lawrence Otis Graham describes them, "always rather bland and 'safe,' with little interest in testing the authenticity of [my] blackness.
" I'm certainly not angry at anyone for their success.
As for the semi-secret organizations that characterize the Black elite: the Links, Jack and Jill, Sigma Pi Phi, they do contribute to the Black community, primarily through fund raising for organizations like the United Negro College Fund.
But with all the ski trips, cotillions, black-tie events, networking activities, yachting parties, and such, while literacy rates, graduation rates, HIV/AIDS, and out-of-wedlock child birth for lower-income Blacks remain problematic; what is the point? What's the point of organizing high class Blacks for parties while the rest of the community suffers? What's that all about?