Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VIII. Social Stratification - 32. The Negro Class Structure - 4. The Classes in the Negro Community
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Chapter 32. The JNegro Class Structure 703
to the modern American fashion of being ‘^smart^’ and ‘^sporting.” Conspic-
uous consumption in automobiles, dresses, and parties—carried on with
^^good taste”—is becoming of increasing importance and may even supplant
respectability as the major characteristic of upper class status.
The Negro upper class is most thoroughly assimilated into the national
culture, but it is also most isolated from the whites.* They are the most race
conscious. They provide the leadership and often almost the entire member-
ship of the nationally established Negro defense organizations, such as the
local branches of the N.A.A.C.P.®® But they sometimes feel great difficulty
in identifying themselves with the Negro masses whose spokesmen they
are,^® although, perhaps, no more than the white upper class with the white
lower class. The Negro uffer class is characterized by many of the traits
which are in complete contrast to those of the masses of Negroes in the
lower class. Their social ambitioh is to keep up this distinction. In private
they are often the severest critics of the Negro masses. Their resentment
against the ‘4azy, promiscuous, uneducated, good-for-nothing” lower class
Negro is apparent to every observer. W. E. B, Du Bois talks about the
^4nner problems of contact with their own lower classes with which they
have few or no social institutions capable of dealing.”^®
But their small numbers in rural districts and small cities of the South
and the segregation everywhere enforce physical proximity to the lower
class Negroes and make isolation difficult. The Negro masses, further,
usually form the basis for their economic position and their income: usually
they cannot afford too much exclusiveness. Moreover, they think of
themselves, and are thought of by all other Negroes and by the whites, as
the “Negro elite,” membership in which confers the presumption of local
leadership. This ties them spiritually to the protective Negro community.
“Though the upper class is relatively small in numbers, ... it provides the
standards and values, and symbolizes the aspirations of the Negro commu-
nity 5
being the most articulate element in the community, its outlook and
interests are often regarded as those of the community at large.” Not only
as a basis for its economic livelihood but also as a sounding board for its
role of leadership, the Negro upper class needs contact with the Negro
masses. They have their social status and, indeed, their existence as an upper
class only by virtue of their relationship to the lower classes of Negroes,
The conflict in their attitudes toward the lower class creates a tension and
confusion in the political convictions of the upper class. Their wealth and
security tend to make them conservative^ their extreme dependence on the
lower class forces them to sympathize with reforms which would aid the
• See Chapter 30, Section 2. This fact does not, however, prevent upper class Negroes
from occasionally enjoying class solidarity over the caste line with upper class whites. See
JD!3 k4 Gardner, and Gardner, of, cU,, p, John Dollard, Casu and Class in a SoufAem
Town (1937), p. 83; and Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom (i939)> P* 338.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
