Class identity in the Black community is complex and often confusing. It cannot be evaluated by using measures identical to those used for whites. If the white upper class is made up of captains of corporations, there is no black equivalent. You might have the person who runs the black insurance company, but that’s not the same as Ford Motor company.
During segregation, education levels did not result in the income level you’d expect. So class had more to do with values and behaviors. I describe myself as coming from a working-class family, based on income level and occupation. Most people in my family were well-educated but did manual and domestic work, not the kind of work their training was for. So your job title didn’t necessarily correlate with your relative status in a community that is economically and racially oppressed. We were lower-middle-class by education and status, even while we were working-class by income.
There were also people who were genuinely middle-class in the black community, black business owners and doctors. The true black bourgeoisie I find problematic, as alien to me as I perhaps am alien to someone working as a hospital orderly. They are generally not radical, because the system worked for them, and when the system works for you, you often don’t question. “I can make it, my family made it, what’s so bad about living in the U.S.?”
— Barbara Smith
There’s a problem of authenticity for anyone who is not, say, sufficiently poor and black. I’ve seen it play out in this way. Some white middle-class foundation officers are not critical at all of certain black organizations or black working-class leaders. Whatever they do, the foundations support because they are an “authentic voice.” Some program officers here in Chicago fund some really bad community organizations because the leaders of those organizations put themselves out as the authentic, black, working-class voice. The foundation person refuses to question that, doesn’t ask “Why are you working on this and that issue?” Authenticity ploys and games are everywhere.
Saying that someone is more oppressed than someone else is used in an opportunistic way. Like if I raise something at a meeting, someone who disagrees may say, “well, you go to Yale,” as a way to win. It’s ubiquitous. So I guess I would not want anyone to relinquish skills of critical analysis. It can be hard, but it at least has to be struggled through.
— Dorian Warren
As a woman of color who does capacity building, training, organizational development, and facilitation work in a variety of communities and contexts, I find that people often ask for a “person of color” to do the work, assuming that I “get it” about class as well — even though I am from the professional middle class. I’ve applied myself to the process of learning to “get it” about class, so it’s fair for a person to assume that I can work effectively and respectfully across income lines. But, that’s only been partly facilitated by race. I find that folks often use race as a proxy for class, and are often less willing to make a generous assumption that a white colleague “gets it” about class, particularly in a community of color. While it’s not always a fair assumption, I have experienced folks over the years who confirm the wisdom of the assumptions. At the same time, I also have experienced folks who challenge the a ssumptions; that is, white colleagues who have really understood the class equation and colleagues of color who have been blind to the way that their own class background contributes to disempowering dynamics when working with low income people of color.
— Cynthia Parker