Before I get started, let me comment on the asterisk I placed beside Black America. For the purposes of this note, I’m not talking about all of Black America or even most of Black America. I’m primarily focused on a certain segment of our culture that has found itself regailed in its own vainglory and accomplishment, albeit marginal, while folding to pretense and seeking to separate themselves from the rest. Get Lawrence Otis Graham on the phone, I’m about to talk about Our Kind Of People.
Bourgie Black Folks, if Barack Obama wins, you’re screwed.
I want you to read that line again and really let it sink in. Because its a truth we haven’t much talked about at our dinner parties and brunches. It doesn’t get brought up much at alumni association meetings or on the golf course, but its floating out there and its about time someone brings it to the light.
You see, while we’ve been whooping it up and having a great time thinking about the possibility of having a black president, we haven’t given much thought to who the black president is going to be, where he came from, where he’s going, and what that means to you. Out of post-civil rights black America, we’ve been fortunate enough to have reaped the benefits of Affirmitive Action and, by virtue of a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, carved out and created a new niche for the black middle class. But we’ve been able to do so with the help of certain black organizations and institutions that have benefitted from our collective desire to still have insular contact with one another while also acclimating ourselves into broader white society.
Fraternities, Sororities, Black Churches, HBCU’s, The NAACP, Urban League, etc.. All monoliths in the African American community standing on a platform of service that all too often mask the social function of maintaining a higher order of accomplished blacks vs. those considered unaccomplished. These were all organizations created by African Americans seeking to create something of their own in a greater society that had essentiall shut them out. Its a point of pride to speak of one’s membership and also a matter of earning your stripes and ascending into the next strata of American blackness by gaining acceptance.
But see, this guy Obama… he ain’t come from that.
He’s not an Alpha, Kappa, Sigma, Omega, or an Iota. He didn’t go to Howard, Morehouse, Hampton, Fisk, or FAMU. Hell, the one black organization he was closely aligned with, his church, almost brought him down. Fact is, he lived the first 18 years of his life as a white person (and that’s not a knock on his family, calm down), and it wasn’t until he was an adult that he accepted his blackness and explored what that meant. But even THAT is different for Sen. Obama.
He’s not burdened by the personal legacy of slavery because his father was Kenyan and his mother was white. His entrance into black American culture was voluntary and, as such, he circumnavigated his way through a lot of the social hurdles that we as black people place on one another.
“Where’d he go to school?”
“Did he pledge?”
“Who’s his daddy?”
All of these questions mean nothing when referring to Obama because, while the bourgie black community accepted him, they did not make him.
That’s the reason why he can viably run for president and, if he wins, it will be one of the main reasons why.
And if you’re caught up in being a member of the black elite, stop reading now because the news is about to get really grim.
Black folks, you’re on notice. The moment Barack Obama become president, the old normal goes out the window and these organizations that we have relied upon to create our elite black identities will be redefined because their purposes will be in question. There will always be a need for black institutions, but what will that need look like post-Obama?
Black colleges are going to have to figure out a new marketing strategy because they’ll no longer hold the exclusive right to claim that they make black leaders.
Fraternities and sororities are going to have to really redouble their efforts to be efficatious because their monopoly on black networking will be essentially broken.
And God only know what the NAACP will do on November 5th once a colored person done advanced like a muhfucka and got into the White House.
Oh yes, bourgie negroes, the clock is ticking and our time holding the reigns of the social, political, and cultural strings of black America is drawing nigh. The message is loud and clear, just as white America will have to change and rexamine how it views black America, we will have to introspect and view exactly how we view ourselves.
Personally, I’m happy to see the hierarchy get shaken up, I never much cared for the pretense of “our kind of people” anyway.
