{"id":233,"date":"2015-10-04T20:38:03","date_gmt":"2015-10-04T20:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/?p=233"},"modified":"2015-10-04T20:38:03","modified_gmt":"2015-10-04T20:38:03","slug":"the-middle-class-vs-the-masses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/2015\/10\/04\/the-middle-class-vs-the-masses\/","title":{"rendered":"The Middle Class vs. The Masses"},"content":{"rendered":"

One idea that I brought up in my reaction paper for last week was self-segregation between the black elite and \u2018the masses\u2019. Because the black bourgeoisie stemmed from free mulatto men and women during slavery, wealth and status within the black community were originally tied to an intrinsic quality within the elite individuals: their partial \u2018whiteness\u2019. Because of this they saw themselves as innately superior and did not wish to be associated with the greater black community. Each of the readings last week spoke to middle class black communities distancing themselves from poorer blacks, whether they did so by aligning themselves with white communities or just sticking close to other wealthy blacks. This interesting phenomenon has been widely observed and proven empirically, and it highlights the (often detrimental) focus on class disinfection within the black community. I think it is important to consider what effect this practice of self-segregation and distinction has on the black community at large. I, for one, see the rift between black people from different classes as a large problem for the black community. It impedes progress for the whole group by preventing the unity that the black community needs to find solutions for its problems. When, as we mentioned in class, prominent and\/or wealthy black individuals disparage movements like Black Lives Matter, it makes it that much easier for others outside of the movements to discredit and dismiss them. It justifies inaction on the part of people in power and adds doubt to the validity of the movement. After all, if something like Black Lives Matter was really that important to black people, wouldn\u2019t they all agree about it? Further, self-segregation and the like within the community contribute to the narrative of the homogenous monolith of the black masses. This mindset is extremely harmful because of how dehumanizing it is – it stops \u2018outsiders\u2019 from seeing individual poor black Americans as humans and seeing their issues as real human issues. Instead, they are ignorable. Further, it can give a \u2018pass\u2019 to people outside of the community (who do not bother to learn its roots or the injustices inflicted upon it) to blindly criticize poor blacks for laziness or other undesirable traits. If certain black people can make it into the white mainstream, shouldn\u2019t the rest of them be able to? This inaccurate argument is made to seem less inaccurate when the very black people who have made it into the white mainstream endorse this kind of thought.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One idea that I brought up in my reaction paper for last week was self-segregation between the black elite and \u2018the masses\u2019. Because the black bourgeoisie stemmed from free mulatto men and women during slavery, wealth and status within the black community were originally tied to an intrinsic quality within the elite individuals: their partial … Continue reading The Middle Class vs. The Masses<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[142770],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-black-middle-class-week-4"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aaas16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}