The Black Middle Class

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the main theme in "Black Picket Fences" that middle-class African-Americans have far more trouble than their white counterparts because of the inequalities that still plague public schools, standardized testing that may indeed be culturally biased toward whites, income disparities, and a paucity of community services due to the negligence of citizens and public officials to address the race issue. The paper also discusses the point made by the book that many people act as if race no longer matters. It explains that affirmative action programs are being cut and as many more African-Americans assume positions of power and become wealthier in general, the needs of the poorer and struggling blacks become white-washed away.

From the Paper:

"Sharlene looked at me with her big, watery brown eyes. "No," she said emphatically, with a definite doleful tone in her voice. "I have never felt like I fit in here." Sharlene, who is 31 years old and has two children, is a black woman that falls into what Mary Patillo-McCoy calls the "black middle class." However, unlike the men, women, and children that Patillo-McCoy interviews for her book Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class, Sharlene lives in a predominantly white neighborhood. Her neighbors are not all Anglo-Saxon or WASP; some of them are Hispanic-American and Asian as well. However, Sharlene is one of the few people in a two-block radius of African origin. Because of this, Sharlene feels completely disconnected from her community."

More papers on The Black Middle Class:

• Cause and Effect Essay # 106235 : "Expansion of the Black Middle Class"
• Essay # 58090 : "Destructive Culture and the Black Middle Class"
• Essay # 1195 : "The Growth of the Black Middle Class in America"

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