A recurring theme that really struck me as interesting in Black Bourgeoisie was the idea of fake-ness, or inauthenticity. The black middle class is described as emulating many middle class activities, like socializing through formal events, buying nicer clothes, nicer vehicles, etc. However, instead of seeing this as the black middle class achieving, Frazier sees these activities as a way to cut ties with their black underclass roots and just try to emulate white people. He makes some very scathing claims, like the claim that the black middle class buys all these fancy books but never reads them, implying that their attempts to look middle-class are just fake and meaningless. There is the implicit idea in Frazier that these activities are implicitly, “white,” and when the black middle class tries to emulate them, it just comes across as fake.

This idea of people losing their “blackness” is something we still see today. People like CNN’s Gene Seymour describe being criticized as not being black enough if they have too many white friends, talk “whiter,” or like “white” things. Charles Barkley goes as far to say that black people are criticized not just for acting white, but for being successful in general. Commenting on how Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson was seen as being “not black enough” by his teammates, Barkley went on the attack, claiming, “For some reason we are brainwashed to think, if you’re not a thug or an idiot, you’re not black enough. If you go to school, make good grades, speak intelligent, and don’t break the law, you’re not a good black person. It’s a dirty, dark secret in the black community.” Barkley seems to think that “being black” is tied with the underclass, so much so that having mainstream success, or even intelligence is seen as “white.”

While Barkley’s view is on a very controversial end of the spectrum, and has been heavily criticized, the idea of black people losing their blackness has been a real issue for many people, which we can see in pop culture. In the sitcom Black-ish, Anthony Anderson’s character feels like his kids are losing their black roots since they start to emulate the culture and behavior of their predominantly white friends at school. In the movie Dear White People, a character feels alienated because he likes “white” things like Mumford and Sons.

What does it mean to retain one’s blackness in the middle class? If one adopts middle class behaviors, is this being middle class, or is this just emulating a “white middle class”? If white people have shaped the American power structure, are “middle class values” and “white middle class values” inherently tied? When a black person acts differently in the middle class, is this a natural process that occurs with anyone moving up the social ladder, or is it losing a sense of identity, and what is that identity? Is that identity tied to the underclass, like Barkley seems to believe, and thus is it desirable to hold onto that identity? Frazier seems to think that the middle class activities black people were emulating were inherently white, and not just middle class behaviors in general. In that case, what would a more “authentic” black middle class look like?