He did not use it as a term of derision. He considered himself such a BASP. Prior to the 60s the black portion of the population was largely striving to enter the middle class mainstream, that WASP culture, which the immigrant Italians &c had already assimilated to and was succeeding rapidly form a low base but was largely shut off by LBJs War on Poverty and the massive cascade of Welfare onto the black community and the family disintegration and destruction that followed therefrom. The Southern black population had, since WWII become “immigrants’ to the industrial North and were reinforcing the base for and spurring the industrial takeoff that was occurring then. The Great Society put an end to all that.
I see. I interpreted it as derision.
Few things are that simple anyway.