Prometheus 6

Is it just me or are some white folks becoming more subliminal in their appeals to racial solidarity? Excluding the choice of narrator, I stumbled over the close where the congressman with bloodhound at hand cites "runaway spending" and exhorts "we'll find him."

And I have a serious problem with the "black and upscale and racist" description.

I think Mr. Finley is being a little bit too glib and jocular in his response. The black people that he describes are probably not racist. The reality is that they choose not to socialize with whites while vacationing at Martha's Vineyard. They may socialize with whites at other times and at other places. It is difficult for me to believe that African Americans who have attained a level of affluence that allows them to vacation at Martha's Vineyard during the "season" don't, from time to time, socialize with whites. It is considered de rigueur for their class and level of accomplishment and education. How and who they choose to spend their vacations with is altogether another matter. They may view socializing with whites in these circumstances as too much like work. They don't want to be on or feel as if they have to be on.

There are generations of blacks who have shared spaces like Martha's Vineyard and Sag Harbor with whites while keeping their distance. A black poet who was born and raised in New York City and is a close friend of mine and could pass for white (P6 knows him, too.) told me once that his maternal grandfather had to sit on his porch at Sag Harbor on one occasion with a shotgun while proclaiming over and over again, "I ain't a nigger."

afford a house at Martha's Vineyard without having to deal with White folks.

the money quote for me though--and why i used the phrase "black class politics"--was:

“Obama is more a man of the people,” says a Vineyarder who’s part of black high society. “He doesn’t seem to identify with affluent black people. His wife definitely doesn’t; she is basically a ghetto girl. That’s what she says—I’m just being sociological. She grew up in the same place Jennifer Hudson did. She hasn’t reached out to the social community of Washington, and people are waiting to see what they’ll do about that.”

this and the tactics they used to keep "the element" from hanging out there during the july 4th weekend....

Is there a reason why we don't usually see black people born into affluence dominate the political arena? I've never heard of political aspirations coming from the children of  Earl Graves, Dick Parsons, or Ken Chenault.

Is there a reason why we don't usually see black people born into affluence dominate the political arena?

They also don't play any significant role in the intellectual and cultural life of Black folks either.

I think that's why I don't sweat Black Class Politics. I literally have no contact with Black affluent class, and you can't miss what you can't measure.

They aspired to affluence, not influence. Their families have no tradition of seeking or wielding power like, say, the McCain family does.

You think the local Jack and Jill will invite Sasha and Malia?

You think the absurdity of the Black Affluent Class waiting for the President of the United States of America to approach them has sunk in yet?

I think Obama's crew is creating a minority political class that is as distinct from the moneyed class (which is to say, not very) as the mainstream political and moneyed classes are.

@submariner good question. what do you mean by "dominate"? if you mean hold political positions, there are a few different things going on. Not sure they live in locations favorable to running. Not sure they are particularly interested in running. There are exceptions--the Ford family out of Tennessee were a well-to-do funeral family I believe, as were the Diggs in Detrtoit.

But if you mean something else, I would suggest that they exhibit a far more powerful influence on black politics than most think. The issues we tend to think of when we think of "linked fate" for example are ones that I believe skew towards benefitting well off black folk sometimes at the expense of the rest of us.

@p6 i'm thinking they are already in jack and jill. even given michelle's "ghetto girl" status. And no...the absurdity of wealthy blacks waiting for the President to bow down hasn't sunk in yet. And yes I'd agree on that third point. This was bound to happen sooner or later.

"They also don't play any significant role in the intellectual and cultural life of Black folks either."

Why do you think that is?

"They also don't play any significant role in the intellectual and cultural life of Black folks either."

 

Why do you think that is?

 

Historically, this class has always looked askance at the artifacts of African American and Negro popular culture. They considered the blues, for example, to be low-class and primitive and of a decidedly lesser artistic achievement than, say, European classical music. Since they see themselves as somehow different from other blacks the issues and problems affecting the masses of black people are generally considered to be of little significance to them. Consider, again for example, the behavior and attitude of former Secretary of State Condi Rice's parents. They rejected the Civil Rights Movement and all that it implied and intentionally steered their only child toward activities that were more Euro-centric than Afro-centric.

They also don't play any significant role in the intellectual and cultural life of Black folks either.

Interesting. I think this deserves its own thread. It looks like you're applying an intellectual and cultural "paper bag" test of sorts, maybe in reverse. How can affluent Black folk not play a significant role in Black intellectual and cultural life? Especially if they're Black and they hang out with each other?

I propose that there may be affluent Blacks who neither toil nor spin, but also affluent Blacks who may have influence in a way that doesn't pass the test.

I'm influenced in this by a University of Washington scholar, Quintard Taylor, who (my version) got fed up with folks from the South or from Harlem claiming their experience was more authentic. For several decades, he's been documenting our experience in the West and, being a Midwest baby myself, I admit bias towards his view that it's just as authentic a Black experience. I'm also influenced by Wynton Marsalis, who definitely understands jazz and blues, yet chose to openly decry rap and hip-hop. (I don't agree with his take, but I'm acknowledging influence.) If he were to drop jazz tomorrow and devote the rest of his life to classical, I wouldn't boot him out of the club, saying he no longer played a significant role. It would just be a different role.

BTW I'm "not one" in that most of my family is in the range from poor to middle class, and I'm in that great unwashed middle class.

Interesting. I think this deserves its own thread. It looks like you're applying an intellectual and cultural "paper bag" test of sorts, maybe in reverse. How can affluent Black folk not play a significant role in Black intellectual and cultural life? Especially if they're Black and they hang out with each other?

No paper bag tests here. I may be mistaken but I thought we were discussing blacks who defined themselves as members of an elite class, not blacks who are affluent. There is a difference.

I propose that there may be affluent Blacks who neither toil nor spin, but also affluent Blacks who may have influence in a way that doesn't pass the test.

True.

I'm influenced in this by a University of Washington scholar, Quintard Taylor, who (my version) got fed up with folks from the South or from Harlem claiming their experience was more authentic. For several decades, he's been documenting our experience in the West and, being a Midwest baby myself, I admit bias towards his view that it's just as authentic a Black experience.

I am quite familiar with Dr. Taylor's work and I agree wholeheartedly with his views on this and other related matters. There is no single authentic black experience and we have often failed to look closely at how black folks' experiences and cultural activities and patterns are shaped by differences in geographical locations.

I'm also influenced by Wynton Marsalis, who definitely understands jazz and blues, yet chose to openly decry rap and hip-hop. (I don't agree with his take, but I'm acknowledging influence.) If he were to drop jazz tomorrow and devote the rest of his life to classical, I wouldn't boot him out of the club, saying he no longer played a significant role. It would just be a different role.

I understand your point but I wasn't arguing that listening to and appreciating the grandeur of European classical music is a problem. The problem is the denigration of forms of black musical expression while holding up, for example, European classical music as the absolute apex of musical achievement. BTW, Wynton says that he is done doing classical concerts and recordings.

No paper bag tests here. I may be mistaken but I thought we were discussing blacks who defined themselves as members of an elite class, not blacks who are affluent. There is a difference.

I think it started there, but migrated about halfway down the comments to become more about affluence per se. On second read, I'm not even sure I'd question pigeonholing the affluent as a "class" if the concept got fleshed out a little more.

The problem is the denigration of forms of black cultural expression while holding up, for example, European classical music as the absolute apex of musical achievement.

OK, got it. I do, as stated, give some deference to Marsalis because he so obviously knows his s#!%. He doesn't put European classical at the apex, but he does denigrate certain Black music, which has the effect of elevating other forms. I think he accepts the sex-and-drugs of the blues, but not that of current music. So it's not all cut and dried.

P.S. - I was born in San Francisco on California Street and lived continuously in the city until 1993 when I moved to Boston. As a product of the west coast, I have long thought that many of the descriptions I read of black life did not fully capture what I had experienced growing up in the west. In fact, I lived for years in a particular section of San Francisco - Visitacion Valley - that caused, in some significant ways, the life experiences of many of my black friends and I to be quite different from our black friends who lived in the Bay View-Hunters Point, Fillmore and Ingleside neighborhoods. I don't mean just in terms of white people because racism was a problem everywhere but in terms of our outlook on the world and our place in it. We lived, for example, surrounded by hundreds of acres of undeveloped land populated by raccoons, skunks, garter snakes, frogs, owls, hawks, turtles and stabled horses that we could rent and ride. Our experience of urban life was markedly different from what other black people lived through.

I thought we were discussing blacks who defined themselves as members of an elite class, not blacks who are affluent. There is a difference

Like there's a difference between the political and affluent classes in the mainstream. Not very much, but it's there.

There's a term I'm not going to use properly, drylongso, that is taken to mean the everyday life of everyday Black folks.

In writing his "Self-Portrait of Black America," anthropologist, folklorist, and humanist John Gwaltney went in search of "Core Black People"-the ordinary men and women who make up black America-and asked them to define their culture. Their responses, recorded in Drylongso, are to American oral history what blues and jazz are to American music. If the people in William H. Johnson's and Jacob Lawrence's paintings could talk, this is what they would say.

A huge chunk of this is the folkways by which Black folks cope with the stress of racism, exclusion and how they adapt, making what they could get into what they need. The affluent and the elite do not participate in this very much because they buy rather than adapt.

“They also don't play any significant role in the intellectual and cultural life of Black folks either.”

“Since they see themselves as somehow different from other blacks the issues and problems affecting the masses of black people are generally considered to be of little significance to them.”

Sad. Then what do they think the Civil Rights movement was all about, to be like-white, or to ? That would make integration a waist of time.

“The affluent and the elite do not participate in this very much because they buy rather than adapt.”

I doubt

I doubt that’s how Dr. King envisioned his integration movement to end up.

He doesn't put European classical at the apex, but he does denigrate certain Black music, which has the effect of elevating other forms.

Wynton also doesn't care for the music Miles Davis began recording in 1969 but he and Stanley Crouch can go stuff it on this tip as far as I am concerned. In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, for example, are superb pieces of music. Crouch, by the way, doesn't like Sketches of Spain, Miles Ahead etc. He refers to these recordings as "elevator music."

I don't listen to rap and hip-hop but when I first began hearing some of this music back in the late 1980s I thought it was quite interesting and I enjoyed it. I'm digressing.

Wynton also doesn't care for the music Miles Davis began recording in 1969 but he and Stanley Crouch can go stuff it on this tip as far as I am concerned.

I've been trying not to mention Crouch all day--all thread--!  All right, we're both digressing. Be aware that I'm not an aficionado of rap and hip-hop myself, but I like some individual cuts, and more of the older than the newer.  That's just me.  Something in me  would like not to put Marsalis, Crouch, and (shudder) McWhorter in the same category in their disdain of certain music genres. But if the shoe fits...?

There's a term I'm not going to use properly, drylongso, that is taken to mean the everyday life of everyday Black folks.

Curse you, P6... you'll use it more properly than I would. I only read a little of Drylongso way back, and it's sitting on my to-be-read shelf. Now it's front-burnered on my summer list. Do you mind if I finish the LeGuin essays, The Language of the Night, first?

I haven't finished it yet. Take your time.

...the folkways by which Black folks cope with the stress of racism, exclusion and how they adapt, making what they could get into what they need. The affluent and the elite do not participate in this very much because they buy rather than adapt.

Here there may be a difference in degree, but not necessarily in kind-- between the ultra-poor, the working poor, and others along the spectrum up through the ultra-rich. This is in keeping with your original title for this thread (i.e. "there's no escaping it"). I'm not losing sleep over the angst of being a Johnson (whether Ebony or ex-BET), a Graves, a Parsons, but they're still Black and the concept of the stress of racism seems to apply. [Their particular solution, to form or head a corporation, dovetails nicely with your other concern about corporations vs the individual. That seems to be yet another topic, though!]

You might differentiate between the corporate heads we hear about and the old old money we don't hear about (outside Lawrence Otis Graham treatises and the original linked article). From here, I'm not sure the difference is that great, though.

I can (and will) argue both sides of this one becaue you make your solutions out of the material at hand. Parsons et al have a wholly different set of circumstances they react to and a wholly different toolkit with which to address them. It's like poor Blacks say, "All I got is a hammer" and rich folks have to decide between sledge, claw and ball peen hammers. Oh, and one of those cool new electric ones.

LATER: Just to make sure, I remind you I haven't tried to drum Uncle Clarence out of the club, so both the elite and the affluent are safe from me in that regard.

pt cruiser makes an excellent point--and I agree with many points raised, especially my being "too glib and jocular" which is true and comes from actually being in the media and pretty centered. But, for the record, #1, I stand by what I said, because #2, it's true, but, #3, I should not have said it first because it has caused so many folks to be defensive who have to do business with non-Black people and second, tends to give too easy an out for non-Blacks to justify thier own rascist thoughts. And perhaps rascist is too strong a word for those of us who can be arrested in thier own homes for, essentially, contempt of cop, like Dr. Henry Louis 'Skip' Gates. He's younger and much smarter and while I choose friends multiculturally based on common interests am pretty much a shoot back first type. pt cruiser is also, obviously, smarter and more sensitive than I.

Skip Finley

And perhaps rascist is too strong a word for those of us who can be arrested in thier own homes for, essentially, contempt of cop, like Dr. Henry Louis 'Skip' Gates.

There you go.

for those of us who can be arrested in thier own homes for, essentially, contempt of cop

I'm pretty sure this includes just about anyone in this country. The whole crux of the matter is whether or not there was, indeed, "contempt of cop" (as opposed to "contempt of black guy from said cop").

More generally, there is a clear difference between "racist" and "doesn't want to socialize with people of another race". Being more comfortable with "your own folks" is not the same as active dislike or assumption of inferiority. One just needs to be consistent in applying this distinction across the board.

More generally, there is a clear difference between "racist" and "doesn't want to socialize with people of another race".

I agree. What we call the "social realm" arises directly from our ability to discriminate. In fact, we would not have a "social realm" if we did not discriminate although the discrimination does not have to be based on race.

pt cruiser is also, obviously, smarter and more sensitive than I.

Probably not but thanks. I choose my friends on the same basis that you do. Life is too short to do otherwise.