Mainstream Black American Middle Class
One of the most positive effects of this campaign I have witnessed is that people are noticing that there are hard working black Americans that care for their families. I was born in wedlock. My parents are still married after 36 years. I know several other families that are the same, but these stories are largely either invisible or considered to be “Uncle Tomish”. That is quickly coming to an end.
I feel that with an Obama Presidency, we can finally enter a new era of a commitment to excellence in our nation as a whole (and blacks in particular) sees more examples of hard work and sacrifice and being examples of the best that America has to offer. I am hearing stories of young adults being inspired to return to college and do better. All the excuses are done. We can no longer make excuses and hide behind false fantasies. The angry anti-American rhetoric and sorry excuses will not pass any more. There is a strong message to take responsibility for one’s own life. This is potentially the beginning of a new era. The Christian Science Monitor has an article on this phenomenon
These tidy streets of well-manicured lawns and hedges gracing modest, but well-appointed California-style bungalow homes are Richard Nixon country, home to his alma mater and next door to his birth and burial place, Yorba Linda.
This has long been a bastion of conservative, white American Republicanism, says resident Lonnie Jordan, an African-American musician who lives in the Friendly Hills district of town. Married to a mixed-race wife whose mother was white and father black, Mr. Jordan says this was not always a comfortable place for a mixed-race couple. But, that has begun to change, he adds. The reason? The presidential aspirations of candidate Barack Obama.
“He’s put the image of black families on the national dialogue,” says Jordan. “Now I walk around and I don’t feel odd or out of place. It’s come out of the shadows and into the everyday light.”
Middle-class, African-American life has been invisible to mainstream America for most of the 20th century, says American University professor Leonard Steinhorn, coauthor of “By the Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of Integration and the Reality of Race.” This derives largely from what he calls the sin of decades of segregation in the suburbs, the traditional home of the middle class.
[...]
“Americans are auditioning their next president,” he says, adding that this is what he calls a very intimate process. “They are trying to determine who will be in their living rooms for the next four years. As a result, they are engaging in a deeply personal way with Obama’s biography. This is normalizing the middle-class African-American story, one that may be unfamiliar to many white Americans.”
[...]
The appearance of such athletes as Tiger Woods and Serena and Venus Williams in traditionally white sports such as golf and tennis were more such moments, agrees Smokey Fontaine, chief content officer for the social-networking site, Black Planet. The biggest is of course Oprah, who represents not just affluent but powerful black America, he adds.
This is an important shift in awareness of black middle-class life as well as the roughly 10 percent of the 40 million black Americans whose income exceeds $75,000, says Len Burnett, editor of Uptown, the nation’s only glossy magazine targeting affluent blacks.
“Sitcoms and movies are not really all that representative of actual black life,” says Mr. Burnett, even though they certainly raised the profile of African-Americans in the prime-time media. We are definitely seeing more now of the real African-American middle class – the educated and affluent – “but not so much from the popular culture as from the news,” he explains. This is happening naturally, he says, as news outlets across the spectrum, from CNN to MSNBC and countless local affiliates, engage everyone from black churchgoers to potential voters and Obama family members to discuss the candidate.
Suddenly, he says, “we are very naturally seeing a much broader cross section of daily black life coming into the national discussion.”
This is an important adjustment in the conventional media portrait of blacks, which – say many African-American pundits – tends to be the gritty, urban street experience glorified by countless hip-hop and rap artists.
“Everyone knows the ‘crack to glory’ story of the rappers,” says Sakiya Sandifer, a black entrepreneur who co-wrote “Thank You and You’re Welcome,” an inspirational book, with musician Kanye West. “But Obama offers a different story,” he adds, “and now the rest of the world is seeing that more is possible for blacks than they had seen before.”
Despite this trend, historical invisibility can still cause serious problems, says Sheryl Salomon, managing editor of BlackVoices .com. She points to the recent YouTube video created by a Missouri schoolteacher. In it, a group of young black men, all dressed alike, do a call-and-response routine extolling Obama’s virtues with a “Yes, we can” refrain.
The video ignited a furor, the teacher was suspended, and online, conservative groups called it an example of Obama-style, Nazi youth indoctrination.
Ms. Salomon calls it a deep cultural divide, pointing out that the drill team and step show routines that this video draws upon are deeply rooted in black, middle-class traditions.
“This is a celebration of something very routine in middle-class black life, not something scary,” she says.
At the same time, she says she has seen a marked increase in traffic from nonblacks to the Black Voices site from people “looking for more information about who we are.”
Signage along the neat streets of Whittier also show increased awareness of Obama, says one white resident, who declines to give his name. As his two golden retrievers play through the pile of leaves he is raking in his yard, he says, “There are a lot more Obama signs on front lawns.” As he looks up and down the block, he adds, “A lot more people are aware of him.”
This can’t come a moment too soon, suggests Salomon, who notes that ignorance of white culture was never an option for blacks. “Most whites can go cradle to grave with no awareness or understanding of black life,” she says.
“For us that cradle-to-grave journey is not possible,” she says. “We have to be fluent in all the perspectives of white culture, from speech inflection to corporate culture.”
“Unfortunately,” adds Steinhorn, cultural blindness in the US extends beyond the black/white divide. “I’m Jewish,” he says, “and I still have people ask me in great surprise, ‘You don’t celebrate Christmas?’ “
Filed under: Race
This is good. For the past 15 years of my life I have been (mis)led to believe the worse of African Americans. I was a Social Worker in Chicago and only saw the worse of the worse. Then when I started practicing Islam, it seemed that most of the African American and were poor and under educated. with the exception usually being the sister with the degree and job causing un equally yolked marriages ending in divorce when she realized that selling oils and carpet couldn’t always pay the rent.
recently, thanks to the many Social Networking sites - i have reconnected with my classmates from Kindergarten to University. I am so impressed with many of them (and not surprised by others). I have seem classmates that ‘were no good’ back in the day grow into mature and family oriented individuals. Some of the fathers on the group are amazing! Even the single moms are raising their children ‘above the norm’. I have so many Huxtable/Obama Classmates. May Allah guide them.
Reading this caused me to ponder upon my own upbringing. I feel Allaah blessed me to be black dude who came from a suburban, middle class, 2 professional parent home; as well as a good college education, and have what people caught up in the dunyah would consider a good, well-paying job which is just a means to an end.
I could care less about black people because most of them are kuffar who reject the da’wah to Tawheed, while choosing to sit in churches and commit shirk with Allaah.
I know that Allaah will not ask me about anything related to being black on the Day of Resurrection. He will ask me about my Deen.
O Muslims, those of you who still view the world through black colored nationalistic/afro-centric glasses; have been deceived by the ignorant ones ones who call to this haraam partisanship. They outwardly resemble us, but they are nothing but shayaateen who called you to misguidance.
This seems to be an overly optimistic picture of life in black America. For one, it does not show the way in which trends generally flow in black America. Trends tend to go from the black ghetto/lower class to the black middle class. Afterall, rap music pretty much defines the values of black youth. Consequently, many black middle class kids get caught up in ghetto culture. You can go to many an elite college and see black kids acting like (or pretending to be) like the thugs from North Philly–but you won’t find to many black males (homos aside) preppied out in the hood.
Also, the moral infrastructure of black America has been steadily degenerating. Afterall, the black illegitimacy rate is hovering around 70%, in addition to the high abortion rates; homosexuality, simarly, has become increasingly “normal” in black America. The lack of sexual morality, along with phenomenally high incarceration rates of black males in the trend setting slums does not bode well for the mass of black folks–males in particular.
Furthermore, there is a difference between making lame excuses and understanding the nature of America’s most influential institutions. Anyone who has been on the other side of the law quickly understands how unjust the system is. And the more one researches (or experiences) how things work the more corrupt and dirty he realizes it is. For instance, did Malcolm X ever talk about “succeeding” in America (of course, “success” as defined by corporate propaganda)–or did he devote himself to challenging America, its institutions, and its policies?
The fact of the matter is that there will probably always be a considerable element of black men who will feel their manhood is frustrated by life in this country–and justifiably so. A lot of time that frustration morphs into various pathologies (and consequently, we hear the lame excuses), but there will, God-willing, be black men, who will “wake up and straighten up”, and they will speak “truth to power”. And if they truly learn the Deen, practice and preach it courageously, they will quickly come to see what America is all about.
@ Swarth moor
I am certainly not saying that the situation is good by any stretch of the imagination. I am saying that I think that we are heading into a new era in which it is “cool” to be smart and achieve. The anger and excuse era will come to an abrupt halt. I am hearing a TON of talk about even being proud to be American. But this is still pending an election victory tomorrow.
@Tariq
Yes, i do agree with you that Barrack Hussein can/will (assuming he wins) make a difference in the minds of many black youth. And those who are still caught up in the excuse-syndrome will no longer have legitimate excuses for their dysfunctions. However, the DEPTH of pathology in the black ghetto class is so profound that i don’t think a Barrack Hussein presidency is going to give them much relief. Also, you are assuming that Barrack Hussein doesn’t get assassinated–and if that happens, then you can imagine the sort of ensuing fallout in black America. There are a lot of folks like this inhabiting the country:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6123157&page=1
And they tend to have better aim than the untrained thugs in the hood.
Now this is the stuff that I like to see about African-Americans.
There have been lots of Black people that I’ve admired, but I admired Obama and his family. He’s not a statistic. He represents the other truth about the Black community–the positive side that the world never gets to see, the hardworking Black people who are trying to make differences with their families and their communities.
Too often we hear about the negative things about our community and the critics will basically say that there is no hope for them. Obama has shown the opposite.
During my ” School sucks” days, people doubted my success. Even a couple of my relatives did,but if it wasn’t for my transfer to another school and hanging around more enlightened people, I do not know where I would be. I had a teacher who was teen mom. People doubted her(I imagines that it was worse for her since teen pregnancy wasn’t the thing in the seventies) her success, but she became a teacher , principal and was recommended running for to the school board, but she didn’t want to do that. I got some motivation from her.
I was slow about going to college because I did it for the wrong reasons. I didn’t see myself being accepted in there. I mean, my grades we’re bad and I didn’t have the money, plus I was going through the” i don’t’ care” mode. I was sure that I was going to get Black balled from going to that school –NOT! Surprisingly, I was accepted and I was able to afford it.Gradually things turned for the best.
If all goes right I’ll have my Bachelors in December. I will look at his in awe. It wasn’t something that people like me is supposed to have . There are many students who go to college to gain a better position and more money. Both sounds good, but my reason in coming there was jealousy- turned- milestone. For me , it’s a reminder, a dream come true. Yes, I’m old( compared to my younger peers), but I did it. I had to do it. God lead me to do it because he has a plan for me. I could be wrong , but i do not think that he would have me go through this for nothing.
God also has a plan for some of the doubted ones. I remembered visiting my nephews school and talking with one of his teachers. My youngest nephews teacher was boasting about is work,but one thing that bothered me about her was that she downed one of her students because he was not into his studies an honor roll student and basically said that the guy wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t say anything,but the first question I wanted to ask her was that if you made it, how come he can’t? There has been too many from the darkness to lightness type of situations. If he wakes up, and put his mind to it , he will be able to achieve what he wants no matter what background the students derive from.
@ Daud,
That’s very unkind of you. Did you forget that I am a human-being, like you I breath, I’m capable of having children, I’m capable of loving, feeling pain and crying. I am not less than human, treat me fairly with dignity and respect, those are basic human rights. Daud we are part of a shared human community, I am deserving of the same moral consideration as you.
Remember Zakaat (pratice of charitable giving) is a pillar of Islam, so please as a human being show me some empathy.
@ Daud “I could care less about black people because most of them are kuffar ” weren’t all the sahabah kuffar before Allah guided them towards Islam? Didn’t people like Abu Sufyan and Khalid ibn Walid kill muslims before becoming muslims? What have non-muslim black folk done that outstrips fighting against Allah & his messenger? Has Allah looked upon Abu Suyfan & Khaild Ibn Walid with scorn forever and ever because of what they once did? Did not the prophet say those who show no mercy shouldn’t expect any mercy? You can’t say you love Allah but hate one of his beloved creation (human beings). If you hate what Allah loves how you think Allah will judge you at your death?
Indeed Allah will not ask you about your racial identity but he will take account how treat other people.
@ Hamza21
“…What have non-muslim black folk done that outstrips fighting against Allah & his messenger?…”
They commit SHIRK with Allaah; which is the WORST crime anyone can ever commit. Allaah said in His Book that He will not forgive anyone who dies while not having repented from Shirk.
i highly suggest you read the history of how Umar treated non-muslims or the prophet treated his uncle Abu Talib.
The Sahabah have always accepted people and overlooked people’s faults and lack of knowledge because they understood others didn’t know what they know. They understood people were a product of what they were taught and were a product of their environment. The people were ignorant to what Allah has commanded and it was the sahabah job to to do dawa. Dawa by word and action.
I find it harsh and ignorant of you to hate people who no fault of their own disobey Allah. You expect people who never heard an ayah of Quran to have the understanding,beliefs and practices of one has knowledge of what Allah has commanded in Quran. This is sign of hypocrite. You set a standard so high nobody can reasonable meet it and then you criticize those who can not meet your exacting standard. I suspect you make excuse for oneself but are very harsh upon others. You have no hilm,which the Prophet taught by actions many times over.
You attitude is what’s wrong with Muslims. You have not gratitude to Allah for bringing Islam to the world. Instead you act as though you’re Allah and you know what the future beholds. How do you know that the person you shun today will not become a good muslim tomorrow?
Beware Daud Allah will indeed humble you one way or another and then you will know understand how your thinking is misguided.
You say they commit shirk well in a sense they do but another sense they don’t. If you were stop judging these people and talk to them you would understand many don’t think they are worshiping a false ideology. Many believe they are worshiping The creator correctly. And why shouldn’t they believe that when nobody has explained to them why they are wrong? If a person is ignorant you educate them you don’t hate them for their ignorance.
When a believer meets a ignorant person the first response should be gratitude that they them self are like that person and then sadness that the person is a state of ignorance. A believer shouldn’t be filled hatred and pride.
21,
It seems you are mixing up issues here. One can be kind and well-mannered with the kuffaar, but that doesn’t preclude what Allah revealed about them, and their condition in this dunya or the Hereafter. Also, it is not arrogant to say that the kaafir is condemned to Hell for perpetuity, for this is what the Qur’an says, and this is what the Prophet taught. There is no getting around this fact. As a matter of fact, speaking the truth about Islam is a means of expressing gratitude to Allah, for it shows that the person is desirous of defending what Allah revealed.
What Muslims need to do–to show our concern for those around us–is to share with the non-Muslims the intellectually irrefutable Islamic creed, and to be exemplars of behavior to attract people to the Religion. At the same time, we do not lie or distort the Religion in an effort to attract converts. This is what the Christians did to the teachings of Prophet Jesus (for example, in allowing hog meat consumption and abolishing circumcission), and this is what these so-called “Muslim” reformists are attempting to do to the teachings of Prophet Muhammad. They are lying and distorting the Religion in order to be accepted by secular society. This is a grave and kufri error, for it entails belying what Allah revealed.
Lastly, one has to keep in mind that Allah guides whomever He wills. A kaafir is a kaafir for a reason. The vast majority HAVE NO INTEREST in submitting themselves to Allah or following what the Prophet conveyed. It has nothing to do with “ignorance”–it is simply a matter of Allah creating a block in such people’s hearts so that they have no interest in the Deen of Allah. Some people yearn to know the Truth and they seek it. Others are oblivious to any such yearning–this is the majority of humanity. They merely do what those in positions of influence tell them to. Some are Seekers and some are “Sleepers”. And there are others who are openly hostile to the Truth. Allah created many different types of hearts–Allah did not create people as equals.
With that said, that doesn’t mean we should abandon the kaafir community and leave them in kufr, but we do what we can to invite them with wisdom to believe in God correctly (i.e., not in shirk or tashbih) for their own salvation–without losing sight of what Allah revealed about their condition.
“What Muslims need to do–to show our concern for those around us–is to share with the non-Muslims the intellectually irrefutable Islamic creed, and to be exemplars of behavior to attract people to the Religion.”
You are indeed right there but you’re wrong when you wrote:
“A kaafir is a kaafir for a reason. The vast majority HAVE NO INTEREST in submitting themselves to Allah or following what the Prophet conveyed.”
How do you know? Are you implying Allah has granted YOU the ability to look into hearts of people and as well as the future and know there will never accept Islam? What you wrote above shows arrogance and a lack of hilm. As well as a lack of history. Islam was always spread by good conduct of believers. Not by arrogant people believing they are better than other people. The people who spread Islam accepted non-muslims as there were and slowly taught them Islam.
No man knows what tomorrow brings a person may accept Islam after hearing one ayah of Quran and another person may avoid Islam until just before the moment of death and accept Islam. Your kibr prevents you from seeing this.
However ,Al Hamdu Lillah, the good news is the salafis are dwindling in numbers and their dawah is dying and nearly dead in the US. There are more traditional scholars with an historical grounded approach and knowledge and as a result Islam will spread even more despite how much salafis try to sabotage these efforts with their bad manners and ideology.
21,
No i don’t know what’s in the hearts of the people–but i do hear what comes out of people’s mouths and i see their actions. A person who yearns to know their Lord will seek that knowledge. Most don’t–and you can see the rancor that most people in America have for Islam and Islamic values.
Simply ask yourself why is it that some people will abandon family and friends to seek the Truth and others will reject it regardless of how kind and gently they are treated and how strong the proofs are presented to them? Allah guides whomever He wills–and Allah did not will for the majority of people in this place at this time to incline towards Islam. We hope this will change, and we hope by working in the the da`wah this will take place.
Most people are simple. They follow. This is why the Prophet made da`wah to the leaders of tribes–for people usually follow their leaders. Also, Islam was not spread solely by good manners. Granted the people of tasawwuf were instrumental in the da`wah in places, like the Far East and West Africa. However, Islam also was spread by the sword–and some of the people of tasawwuf were also among the greatest Islamic warriors–who spread the Religion. Afterall, the Prophet did say (in a mutawaatir Hadith–that the apologists can’t deny):
I [the Prophet] was ordered to fight the people until they say ‘Laa ilaaha illallah…’”
Obviously Muslims believe they are superior to other people–and being Muslim is a ni`mah from Allah, for which a Muslim should be humbly grateful for. The QURAN SAYS the kaafir is not equal to the Muslim. The Muslim is a person who has been honored by Allah to believe in Allah correctly and to believe in the Messenger of Allah. And we should be eager to share the Message of Islam–without diluting or twisting it. We should not bely of alter what Allah revealed to make it more palatable to secularized/Christian people–while at the same time, we need not go into every sensitive issue in the Religion.
P.S.
You can leave out the ad hominem attacks–’cause you’re WAAAAAAAAAY OFF base on that.