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Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3716
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 4 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 - 02:27 pm: | 
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Why do I speak as I do?
Shouldn't one want to be middle class?
No.
One should want to be upper class. In America we strive for the middle--mediocrity.
This is cowardly and puisillanimous.
But, sometimes it is the best we can do. Isn't this Nirvana?
Let me tell you about some Middle Class Negroes.
Let's call her Ann. She was married to a lawyer. He filed for divorce. He knew how to work the courts. He took everything. The last time I saw her she was a bag lady.
Let's call him Bill. He had wife, house in suburbs, job with upper five figures. Got hooked on crack. Lost it all.
Look at O.J. Simpson.
We like to be all self congratulatory about movin on up. Few of us are more than one paycheck away from disaster. Few of us have had more than one generation enjoying the bounty of the middle class.
Few of us are independently wealthy. Most of us have what we have based on some white man's WHIM.
This is ok. But you ought to know it.
You ought to be on your knees thanking God you are not having to do what the underclass got to do to survive.
But instead I see you all slappping yourselves on your fat bellies, stuffing your minds with petty ass bull, talking down on someobyd who could be you.
I said that Negroes ain't ready. They ain't. It's not as bad as it was, but most Negroes hate their own personal black face.
Ain't nothing sillier, because you can't do nothing about it. And it is in a way blasphemous. God made you that way. Did God err?
I ought to be one of those Negroes, mortgaged to the hilt, wearing clothes I can't afford, driving a car I can't afford, wearing a rolex, trying to keep a mistress--
I ought to be seconding the emotions of people like Bill Cosby and Juan Williams. I gots no loyalty to them because they gots none for me. Screw them coons til they put some dough in my pocket.
That's what irks you so much about these street Negroes, ain't it? They won't put on a suit just to please you. Their attitude is if you ain't givin' me no money get the f*** out of my face.
All you got is some talk that the white folks will treat them better if they do what you say. How you gonna bind massa to what YOU say? He'll give it to them if he feels like it, and does.
Make no mistake I am not full of self congratulation that I am not. Maybe it just is that nobody has offered me enough money to do it yet.
If I do, I will still know enough to be humble about it.
Folks, most of us got what we got sellling out, sucking up, backstabbing, giving booty and eating booty. You ought to have enough sense to go on about your business and not try to be proud of it.
And quit talking about"us". Ain't no "us". Soon as you get yours you are gone. And that's the bottom line. |
Latina_wi
Regular Poster
Username: Latina_wi
Post Number: 176
Registered: 08-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 - 02:41 pm: |
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Is the class system a new thing in black america (and even america has a whole)....?
I have met people from Finland et cetera who have expressed great dismay about the British class system. Hope america isn't fallen for the same thing and trapping people with 'class stereotypes'.
Though I don't think having an african-american middle class is too terrible a thing. |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3720
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 - 02:48 pm: |
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have met people from Finland et cetera who have expressed great dismay about the British class system. Hope america isn't fallen for the same thing and trapping people with 'class stereotypes"
(Too late. We are already there. We have an aristocracy of money that is sealing in it's positon by closing off access to good paying jobs, business opportunities and higher education. It is stratified. That is, we have blacks in that upper 10% but their money has not translated to real power probably because they are usually isolated and they are not represented in proportion to total numbers of blacks in this society--which is by design)
Though I don't think having an african-american middle class is too terrible a thing.
(Of course it is not--unless it is a self loathing, self deluding class that is overly dependent upon overseer positions and not independent wealth) |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3721
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 - 02:49 pm: |
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By the way it ain't gonna happen until most of the Negroes around today are dead. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7454
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 - 02:56 pm: |
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It would be different if you were omniscient but you are not, chrishayden. Your arguments are anecdotal and your mind-set maudlin and your approach prejudiced because you have tunnel vision. But just keep on empathizing with the "street people" you romanticize. Keep on concocting the distorted image of the middle class, a stereotype which you insist is a microcosm of this large segment of the black population. You consider yourself a visionary. I consider you myopic. |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 3588
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 - 03:05 pm: |
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Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3722
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 - 04:08 pm: |
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By the way,if I had to, I would say I am of the artist class. A rather classless bunch with members from all levels of the spectrum. Of course, there are economic gradations, why deny it. But all are members of the class by dint of their efforts and identity. |
Serenasailor
Veteran Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 1302
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 - 05:57 pm: |
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Chrishayden you sound like my Boy Michael Eric Dyson. Whazup!!
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7458
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 - 08:42 pm: |
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When you classify yourself, Chrishayden, then your existentialistic view of the world is more acceptable. You should stick to being artistic instead of political. You waste your writing talent on bitchin. |
Yukio
Veteran Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1905
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 - 08:53 pm: |
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hmmm....middle class, especially as you have relayed it here, is both an economic and an ideological class. Within this class, ChrisHayden, you would still be considered, especially by 19th c. standards, bourgeois...LOL! As such, as is clear from reading tastes as well as your basic aloofness, you are an elitist, embracing the poor people from above...LOL! |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4545
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 03:29 am: |
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Yukio, I agree with you and Frazier that the exact, precise term for affiliates of this group is "The Black bourgeoisie". The Black middle class is a more adequate description of ppl like Ellison and Hughes and Baldwin and so forth and the Jazz and Blues greats from back in those days (who were originally belittled, mocked and frowned upon by the bulk of this group, The Black bourgeoisie, I also read). |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 1868
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 10:49 am: |
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"A rather classless bunch with members from all levels of the spectrum. Of course, there are economic gradations, why deny it. But all are members of the class by dint of their efforts and identity."
Uh huh.....I see. So what is your point? What is that you want us know...?
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Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3728
Registered: 03-2004
Rating:
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 11:36 am: |
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Chrishayden you sound like my Boy Michael Eric Dyson. Whazup!!
(He's a hip MF!)
You waste your writing talent on bitchin.
(Not until I have finally purified your soul)
LOL! As such, as is clear from reading tastes as well as your basic aloofness, you are an elitist, embracing the poor people from above...LOL!
(I embrace no one. I despise everyone equally, especially sophists like yourself)
Yukio, I agree with you and Frazier that the exact, precise term for affiliates of this group is "The Black bourgeoisie
(I like the term coined by local talk show host Richard "Onion" Horton--Coons in Suits--but to each his own)
Uh huh.....I see. So what is your point? What is that you want us know...?
(In the words of my homeboy, Redd Foxx "You GOTS to wash yo' ass!)
http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:You%20Gotta%20Wash%20Your%20Ass:1921632454
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Yukio
Veteran Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1907
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 12:24 pm: |
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Tonya, precision is only a goal. Bourgeois is really about capitalists, those who owned the means of production, and the middle people [different from middle-class, though not always], such as lawyers, bankers and the like who facilitated the work of the capitalists.
E. Franklin Frazier's book was primarily a scathing analysis of those black folk who assimilated the leisure practices of the 'real' or should i say white bourgeois, or should I even say 'elite.'
Middle class, however, is suppose to refer to those folk like myself and others w/'advanced' degrees, but do not own the means of production [perhaps a home or some kind of property, but not contributing to the growth of a capitalists society].
Chrishayden belongs to that intellectual class, that Harold Cruse discussed in the Crisis of the Negro Intellectual.
In the past, what held these classes together was shard language, deportment, and dress, although the artist or intellectual could often be, as expected, more creative. And, of course, the bourgeois or even the artist set the style; whereas, the middle class tried to do some of the same things w/a considerably lower budget. The artist or intellectual did not have the money like the bourgeois, of couse. But they, that is the artist or intellectua, were often financed by the bourgeois.
The differences among them would be that the true bourgeois had all the money and power, the middling classes were, more or less, strivers, and more interested in garnering wealth for the family, and the intellectuals' goal was to produce beauty and partake in the life of the mind. The first and last are usually the most political, the middling classes, however, are the ones with whom the bourgeois are concerned with, for the middling classes are generally not 'the masses' but they do comprise a significant number of the voting and politically conscious population. And the middling classes generally listen, because while the middling will never become bourgeois, as much as they strive to, they do like their tastes, which they have access to, through a significantly lower budget...LOL!
In the 20th and 21c, while we have some folk with good salaries, as Chrishayden limned above, they are middle class one check from poverty, and like to partake in really low budget bourgeois leisure activities, so they'll go skiing, drink an $100 bottle of wine, etc....and look down upon some cats in the hood[though like Chrishayden this is a gross generalization].
These folk watch oprah, but they'll never be oprah. Oprah owns the means of production, in this case not an industrial plant, but studios, equipment, copy rights, etc....and she sells it to us and we purchase at 4pm, her magazines, etc...she is part of the bourgeois class... |
Tonya
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Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4549
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 01:49 pm: |
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Bourgeois is really about capitalists, those who owned the means of production, and the middle people [different from middle-class, though not always], such as lawyers, bankers and the like who facilitated the work of the capitalists.
Perhaps. But Black "bourgeois" has & always has been about sheer materialism (I.e., possessions at the expense of spiritual or intellectual values -- Encarta). And there’s no evidence that real ownership & real wealth as viewed by the US capitalist society was ever a serious goal, if you will, of Blacks from this group.
E. Franklin Frazier's book was primarily a scathing analysis of those black folk who assimilated the leisure practices of the 'real' or should i say white bourgeois, or should I even say 'elite.'
Truth is: in his view this group TRIED hard to assimilate into white elitism but got laughed out of town by whites - here and abroad. Tho, some of his views were infact hardcore at times and downright brutal during others; you're right.
Middle class, however, is suppose to refer to those folk like myself and others w/'advanced' degrees, but do not own the means of production [perhaps a home or some kind of property, but not contributing to the growth of a capitalists society].
Funny. Home ownership seems to be the first thing ppl (in this country) look for when determining whether someone is part of the middle class, Blk or wht. |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4550
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 01:50 pm: |
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Chris, ROTFLMBAO @ you!
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Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4551
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 02:14 pm: |
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To be fair, Frazer also stated that large portions of the white middle class are no different. I agree with that too.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7465
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 02:45 pm: |
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Middle-class people have also been characterized as being "status seekers", people preoccupied with acquiring the symbols of success; a home in the suburbs, 2 cars per family, wardrobes with designer labels, management-position jobs, membership in prestigious organizations, etc. And in the past, what set them apart was what was known as "middle-class values" which were embodied by propriety and respectibility. While the rich and the poor could get away with any kind of behavior, the vast middle-class maintained facades of upstanding morality. |
Yukio
Veteran Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1909
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 03:12 pm: |
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Tonya: In other words, I am saying that the black 'bourgeois' is NOT bourgeois at all but barely even middle-class; and if they are bourgeois, it is in their adherence to an ideology of respectability.
Frazier was wrong, in fact, about the white middle-class. They were/are more economically and politically stable than the socalled black middle-class Frazier attemtped to describe, especially when he wrote the book in 1957. Cynique is accurate, as it stated, it was deportment, language, and dress=respectability. When he wrote this book, being a sleep car porter, stenographer, and working for the post office was considered middle-class position. White people, on the other hand, had managerial positions, supervisory positions, governmental positions, professional positions....we had doctors, lawyers, etc..., but they could only, for the most part, service the black community, while white professionals serviced all people across the socalled 'racial' spectrum.
What he was corrected about was the issue of 'striving' or what Cynique called 'status seekers' and not being capitalists.
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Tonya
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Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4553
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 05:29 pm: |
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quote:Frazier was wrong, in fact, about the white middle-class. They were/are more economically and politically stable than the socalled black middle-class Frazier attemtped to describe, especially when he wrote the book in 1957. Cynique is accurate, as it stated, it was deportment, language, and dress=respectability. When he wrote this book, being a sleep car porter, stenographer, and working for the post office was considered middle-class position. White people, on the other hand, had managerial positions, supervisory positions, governmental positions, professional positions....we had doctors, lawyers, etc..., but they could only, for the most part, service the black community, while white professionals serviced all people across the socalled 'racial' spectrum. What he was corrected about was the issue of 'striving' or what Cynique called 'status seekers' and not being capitalists.
He didn't say the ENTIRE White middle class. He singled out portions of it and explained that those portions are where The Black Bourgeoisie got their taste and morals or lack thereof. In fact HE DID describe the majority of the white middle class--(the white middle class overall)--precisely as Cinnique wrote in the latter part of her post about "middle-class values" and respectability. And, YOU are right only about this, "status seekers" is how he described The Black Bourgeoisie throughout the whole book... he may have even used that term.
Btw, if you go back and read my last post, I said he stated what he did about "large portions" of the white middle class, not the wht middle class as a whole. |
Tonya
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Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4554
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 05:47 pm: |
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The only thing I’d add to the latter part of Cynnique post regarding Frazier is that the arts and culture and education were major parts of wht "middle-class values", in those days, as Frazier noted. And they, the WMC, patronized the Black middle class for their art and literature back then; the Black Bourgeoisie, however, they spared no time for, said Frazier.
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Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1913
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 05:54 pm: |
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You probably know better than I. I haven't read that book in about 10yrs or so...
Cynique actually used "status seekers." I was citing her post. LOL.
I dont use his very antedated, by useful text, as a historical interpretation of the black middle class of either the past or the present.
Thus, as I see it, for me to be 'right' is not dependent upon whether I agree with his text or not.
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Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1914
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 06:02 pm: |
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Tonya: Part of this story should include that Frazier was quite disenchanted with his own class, that is the black bourgeois. He wanted his class to be more politically active, considering their education, resources, and the like. So beyond his text being ol, it is, like most things in life, tainted with his own class preoccupations.
In addition, if you read some of the fiction or even the histories during and about the harlem renaissance, it is clear that the black middle class was very much interested in the arts and culture...how else would they demonstrate their respectability...again, he was really disenchanted with his class, especially the younger black elite, who were concerned about automobiles, self-aggrandizement, and the like...A good book to read is Martin Summers, Manliness and Its Discontents: http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-6980.html
It covers an earlier period than when Frazier was writing, but in the conclusion, I believe, he does engage Frazier and his book the black bourgeois. |
Tonya
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Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4556
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 07:17 pm: |
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quote:In addition, if you read some of the fiction or even the histories during and about the harlem renaissance, it is clear that the black middle class was very much interested in the arts and culture...how else would they demonstrate their respectability...
Exactly.
That's why Frazier made a distinction between The Black Middle Class and The Black Bourgeoisie like I am doing. And, as I said in my last post, The Blk Middle Class was respected and patronized by wht America for their art and literature back then. And who can blame America for respecting The Black Middle Class? Our authors and artists were bad as hell back then. The Black bourgeoisie was another story, though, and separate from The Blk Middle Class in Frazier’s view.
Now. You may have a problem with Frazier as a person but as author of The Black Bourgeoisie, you don't seem to disagree with him on this subject, so far. It seems you're simply misinterpreting some of what *I'm* saying regarding his Book/statements. Because he never said the harlem renaissance folk & the Blk middle class were not interested in art, lit and culture and not respected for it. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1917
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 07:41 pm: |
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Tonya:
I don't have a problem as a person. I just told you that own class preoccupations are expressed in his sociological study. In other words, he was speaking from his political views, mainly.
For example, if you read his book on the black family, he is making the same points that Bill Cosby made. In fact, Patrick Moynihan quotes Frazier's study. And as we know, Moynihan's Negro Family: The Case for National Action blamed the poverty of black people on the 'black matriarch' who emasculated the black man. This is the same kind of thinking Frazier expressed in his sociological study of the black family. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1918
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007 - 07:42 pm: |
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Tonya:
I don't have a problem with Frazier as a person. He aint done nuffin to me! LOL!
I'm just explaining that his own class preoccupations are expressed in his sociological study of the black middle class [there is no real distinction in fact, if this is indeed what he is saying]. In other words, he was speaking from his political views, mainly.
For example, if you read his book on the black family, he is making the same points that Bill Cosby made. In fact, Patrick Moynihan quotes Frazier's study. And as we know, Moynihan's Negro Family: The Case for National Action blamed the poverty of black people on the 'black matriarch' who emasculated the black man. This is the same kind of thinking Frazier expressed in his sociological study of the black family. |
Cynique
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Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7470
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 25, 2007 - 12:52 am: |
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You know me, I just remember things I read, but not necessarily who wrote it, and I recall reading that sociologists noted that there is a difference between middle income people and middle class people. Obviously anybody could secure a good job and earn enough money to qualify for the income bracket assigned to the middle class, but such a person may not possess middle class "values." This is comparable to "old money" and "nouveau riche" among the wealthy. And the term "bougeoise" was popularized by Communist Karl Marx who used it to distinguish this group from the proliteriat who were the working class, and the group Marx wanted to organize so they could rise up against the bourgeoise in order to establish an egalatarian society. So it would seem that Frazier may have taken a little license in using this "French" word bourgeoise when applying it to the unique black middleclass. Also the duration of the Harlem Renassiance was only about 8 years since it was cut short by the Depression, and these artists were more patronized and fawned over by the rich white people than the black middle-class who were tradionally more impressed with professions like medicine and law and the clergy and academia. BTW the term "status seekers" comes from the title of a book by Vance Packard who was moreorless a contemporary of Frazier and whose study focused on the white middle class. And of course, Langston Hughes always dismissed the idea of a "harlem renassiance" as being an vacuous term because there were always talented black artists and perfomers around and they didn't need to be validated by some idea that originated in the heads of white folks. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1919
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 25, 2007 - 12:58 am: |
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no, cynique. I mentioned the renaissance because when the literature, for example, nella larsen's work, you can see the life style of the black 'bourgeoisie.' And in fact, if you read, David L. Lewis's When Harlem was in Vogue, he lays out the fact that not only of the artists were'partronized.' And that there was a qualitiative difference between the 'niggerati' and the 'folk,' Langton, Hurston, Thurman belonging to the later. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1920
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 25, 2007 - 12:59 am: |
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cynique...email me your address. |
Tonya
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Post Number: 4557
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 25, 2007 - 01:58 am: |
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Yukio, I don't know what study you're referring to, still, yes, it is clear that he was a social conservative, nevertheless, this book was not political in nature. The people that he assessed were Black liberal elites, fiscal conservatives and even some social conservatives like him. He was all over the political spectrum highlighting a specific group within American and African-American culture. His criticism of The Black Bourgeoisie was akin to someone criticizing the hip-hop culture or to the criticism of Hollywood by liberals and conservatives alike, both Black and white. As for Cosby and co, Frazier neither blamed the poor in this book nor The Black Middle class. Instead he limited his critique to a group he called The Black Bourgeoisie--and he blamed it partly for not giving back to poorer Blacks. So his book could be quoted by someone like Eric Dyson, as well. Finally, despite his obvious social con bias, he presented what he knew to be the facts--which were solid--and to this day those facts were never negated. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1921
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 25, 2007 - 04:39 am: |
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tonya, when I say political, I'm not limiting my comments to formal party politics, but ideology, and all of what you have said pertains to ideology. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7472
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 25, 2007 - 03:33 pm: |
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Yukio, e-mail me your e-mail address because I can't locate it. LOL. |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 1884
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 25, 2007 - 07:36 pm: |
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"........and he blamed it partly for not giving back to poorer Blacks."
And just exactly what are they supposed to give....????
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Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1924
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 26, 2007 - 01:35 pm: |
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Tonya...
There is disagreement here because you are using his book as fact. And, I am looking at his corpus of work, in order to broaden the discussion on his general views of black people.
I know what he wrote, we just have differing interpretations. As I said before you, he was writing about his own people in Black Bourgeoisie.
He wrote other books, you know! Bill Cosby's critique, via Patrick Moynihan's analysis of the black family, was akin to the same points Frazier made in The Negro Family in the U.S.[1939] and the Negro in the U.S. [1949]. And if I remember correctly, Moynihan quoted Frazier...in fact, I'll be back in an hour, so that I can retrieve this from the library... |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1925
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 26, 2007 - 03:57 pm: |
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In The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, Moynihan writes:
"In this situation [slavery and jim crow], the Negro family made but little progress toward middle-class pattern of the present time. Margaret Mead has pointed out that while 'In every known human society, everywhere in the world, the young male learns that when he grows up one of the things which he must do in order to be a full memeber of society is to provide food for some female and her young.' This pattern is not immutable, however: it can be broken, even though it has always eventually reasserted itself:
Within the family, each new generation of young males learn the appropriate nurturing behavior and superimpose upon their biologically given maleness this learned parental role. When the family breaks down--as it does under slavery, under certain forms of indentured labor and serfdom, in periods of extreme social unrest during wars, revolutions, famines, and epidemics, or in periods of abrupt transition from one type of economy to another--this delicate line of transmission is broken. Men flounder badly in these periods, durin which the primary unit may again become the mother and child, the biologically given, and the special conditions under which man has held his social traditions in trust are violated and distorted.
E. Franklin Frazier makes clear that at the time of emancipation Negro women were aleady 'accustomed to playing the dominant role in family relations' and that this role persisted in the decades of rural life tht followed."
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In other words, because of slavery, jim crow, etc...black women are the heads of households and this has contributed to the breakdown of the black family because, Moynihan asserts, even when the economy is teeming w/jobs and discrimination is eradicated, black men can not be the head of the household because they are sociologicall and psychologically emasculated by the preponderance of black women heading the household. Again, this is what Moynhan is obtaining Frazier's book, the Negro Family [1939].
Thus out of Frazier's work, you can pull out 'liberal' critiques of the middle-class and conservative critiques of the black family. |
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