Through an in-depth case study of the black professional middle class in Oakland, this book provides an analysis of the experiences of black professionals in the workplace, community, and local politics. Brown shows how overlapping dynamics of class formation and racial formation have produced historically powerful processes of what he terms "racialized class formation," resulting in a distinct (and internally differentiated) entity, not merely a subset of a larger professional middle class.

First published in 1999, Mary Pattillo’s Black Picket Fences explores an American demographic group too often ignored by both scholars and the media: the black middle class. Nearly fifteen years later, this book remains a groundbreaking study of a group still underrepresented in the academic and public spheres. The result of living for three years in “Groveland,” a black middle-class neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, Black Picket Fences explored both the advantages the black middle class has and the boundaries they still face. Despite arguments that race no longer matters, Pattillo showed a different reality, one where black and white middle classes remain separate and unequal. Stark, moving, and still timely, the book is updated for this edition with a new epilogue by the author that details how the neighborhood and its residents fared in the recession of 2008, as well as new interviews with many of the same neighborhood residents featured in the original. Also included is a new foreword by acclaimed University of Pennsylvania sociologist Annette Lareau.

How do race and class intersect to shape the identities and experiences of Black middle-class parents and their children? What are Black middle-class parents’ strategies for supporting their children through school? What role do the educational histories of Black middle-class parents play in their decision-making about their children’s education? There is now an extensive body of research on the educational strategies of the white middle classes but a silence exists around the emergence of the Black middle classes and their experiences, priorities, and actions in relation to education. This book focuses on middle-class families of Black Caribbean heritage. Drawing on rich qualitative data from nearly 80 in-depth interviews with Black Caribbean middle-class parents, the internationally renowned contributors reveal how these parents attempt to navigate their children successfully through the school system, and defend them against low expectations and other manifestations of discrimination. Chapters identify when, how and to what extent parents deploy the financial, cultural and social resources available to them as professional, middle class individuals in support of their children’s academic success and emotional well-being. The book sheds light on the complex, and relatively neglected relations, between race, social class and education, and in addition, poses wider questions about the experiences of social mobility, and the intersection of race and class in forming the identity of the parents and their children. The Colour of Class: The educational strategies of the Black middle classes will appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates on education, sociology and social policy courses, as well as academics with an interest in Critical Race Theory and Bourdieu. The Colour of Class was awarded 2nd prize by the Society for Educational Studies: Book Prize 2016.

Through an in-depth case study of the black professional middle class in Oakland, this book provides an analysis of the experiences of black professionals in the workplace, community, and local politics. Brown shows how overlapping dynamics of class formation and racial formation have produced historically powerful processes of what he terms "racialized class formation," resulting in a distinct (and internally differentiated) entity, not merely a subset of a larger professional middle class.

“[A] compelling ethnographic account of middle class Blacks in New York City. . . . A major contribution to race, consumption, class, and urban studies.” —Juliet Schor, author of After the Gig In their own words, the subjects of this book present a rich portrait of the modern black middle-class, examining how cultural consumption is a critical tool for enjoying material comforts as well as challenging racism. New York City has the largest population of black Americans out of any metropolitan area in the United States. It is home to a steadily rising number of socio-economically privileged blacks. In Black Privilege, Cassi Pittman Claytor examines how this economically advantaged group experiences privilege, having credentials that grant them access to elite spaces and resources with which they can purchase luxuries, while still confronting persistent anti-black bias and racial stigma. Drawing on the everyday experiences of black middle-class individuals, Pittman Claytor offers vivid accounts of their consumer experiences and cultural flexibility in the places where they live, work, and play. Whether it is the majority-white Wall Street firm where they’re employed, or the majority-black Baptist church where they worship, questions of class and racial identity are equally on their minds. They navigate divergent social worlds that demand, at times, middle-class sensibilities, pedigree, and cultural acumen, and at other times pride in and connection with other blacks. Rich qualitative data and original analysis help account for this special kind of privilege and the entitlements it affords—materially in terms of the things they consume, as well as symbolically, as they strive to be unapologetically black in a society where a racial consumer hierarchy prevails.

Exploring the forces that keep black people vulnerable even amid economically privileged lives At a moment in U.S. history with repeated reminders of the vulnerability of African Americans to state and extralegal violence, Black Bourgeois is the first book to consider the contradiction of privileged, presumably protected black bodies that nonetheless remain racially vulnerable. Examining disruptions around race and class status in literary texts, Candice M. Jenkins reminds us that the conflicted relation of the black subject to privilege is not, solely, a recent phenomenon. Focusing on works by Toni Morrison, Spike Lee, Danzy Senna, Rebecca Walker, Reginald McKnight, Percival Everett, Colson Whitehead, and Michael Thomas, Jenkins shows that the seemingly abrupt discursive shift from post–Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter, from an emphasis on privilege and progress to an emphasis on vulnerability and precariousness, suggests a pendulum swing between two interrelated positions still in tension. By analyzing how these narratives stage the fraught interaction between the black and the bourgeois, Jenkins offers renewed attention to class as a framework for the study of black life—a necessary shift in an age of rapidly increasing income inequality and societal stratification. Black Bourgeois thus challenges the assumed link between blackness and poverty that has become so ingrained in the United States, reminding us that privileged subjects, too, are “classed.” This book offers, finally, a rigorous and nuanced grasp of how African Americans live within complex, intersecting identities.

Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with people all across America,(Not) Keeping Up with Our Parentsexplores how stagnant wages, debt, and escalating costs for tuition, health care, and home ownership are jeopardizing the finances and futures of today's educated middle class. Despite this sobering reality, Nan Mooney offers concrete ideas on how we can arrest this downward spiral.

“One step from suicide” was the first response to Joe Feagin and Mel Sikes’ question about how it feels to be middle-class and African-American. Despite the prevalent white view that racism is diminishing, this groundbreaking study exposes the depth and relentlessness of the racism that middle-class Black Americans face every day. From the supermarket to the office, the authors show, African Americans are routinely subjected to subtle humiliations and overt hostility across white America. Based on the sometimes harrowing testimony of more than 200 Black respondents, Living with Racism shows how discrimination targets middle-class African Americans, impeding their economic and social progress, and wearying their spirit. A man is refused service in a restaurant. A woman is harassed while shopping. A little girl is taunted in a public pool by white children. These are everyday incidents encountered by millions of African Americans. But beyond presenting a litany of abuse, the authors argue that racism is deeply imbedded in American institutions and that the cumulative effect of these episodes is profoundly damaging. They argue that discrimination is experienced by their interviewees not as separate incidents, but as a process demanding their constant vigilance and shaping their personal, professional, and psychological lives. With powerful insight into the daily workings of discrimination, this important study can help all Americans confront the racism of our institutions and our culture.

Publisher description

Black Middle-Class Women and Pregnancy Loss: A Qualitative Inquiry is the first qualitative research case study of its kind on Black Infant Mortality (BIM) to focus on a target group of black American-born middle-class professional married women who have all lived through the experience of infant loss. This target group allows Lisa Paisley-Cleveland to examine the BIM phenomenon outside the poverty paradigm and issues attached to teenage pregnancy, as well as to explore contributing factors attached to the persistent black and white disparity in infant mortality rates, which according to CDC’s January 2013 report are 12.40 and 5.35 respectively. This book raised the following question: given the disparity in the infant mortality rates among middle-class black and white women, are there factors attached to the pregnancy experience of middle-class black women that could help us understand the adverse birth outcomes for this target group?While investigating the answer to this question, Paisley-Cleveland provides readers entry into the pregnancy experiences of eight women from pregnancy planning to infant loss, and the book examines feelings, events, circumstances, interactions, behaviors, culture and history embedded in their pregnancy stories to explicate possible factors connected to adverse birth outcomes. It links the women’s personal stories to clinical, and psychosocial factors, placing their experiences at the center of the research, and demystifying assumptions. The study’s narratives and conclusions are built into a literary structure which helps to make a complex subject relatable and understandable to a wide audience. Black Middle-Class Women and Pregnancy Loss will be an invaluable resource for medical professionals; professionals in public health, mental health, and social work; sociologists; and anyone working or invested in women's health.