The broad blade and the little hump in the top edge are the identifying signs. It goes inside the soup spoon and outside the dinner knife.
Posted on 08/21/2009 6:31:51 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
As the first family departs for Martha’s Vineyard, Patricia Williams says the trip illuminates their delicate relationship with the black upper class—a clubby world of debutantes and BMWs.
When President Barack Obama appointed Valerie Jarrett as his senior advisor and Desiree Rogers as White House social secretary, there was, among the mainstream media, a bit of muffled gasping about from where on earth such designer-clad doyennes might have emerged. In what hidden universe do black people exist who can actually distinguish a fish knife from a shoe horn? And are there more of them?
| In what hidden universe do black people exist who can actually distinguish a fish knife from a shoe horn? |
The phenomenon of a black upper class has always been complicated, ambivalent. Often the descendents of “house slaves,” some significant percentage grew up imitating the manners, mores, and various condescensions of white plantation society—including setting up private clubs and exclusionary networks. More recently, the ranks of the black upper middle class have been increased with beneficiaries of the civil rights movement–with people such as Barack and Michelle Obama, who represent a generation able to take advantage of increased access to jobs and schools once off limits. This new mobility has not altogether erased some of the clubbishness and snob appeal of older black organizations, however. There are still fault lines and hidden hierarchies within black social life.
For those whose only exposure to upper class African American social organizations may be the black student organization on one’s college or grad school campus, well, brace yourselves: there’s a world of black debutantes out there, and they mean to do serious, social-climbing business, the wheels of their black BMWs and silver Mercedes Benzes sinking up to their plantinum hubcaps in the soft white sand of the beaches on Martha’s Vineyard, the North Fork of Long Island, and the islands off the coast of South Carolina.
Colson Whitehead’s novel, Sag Harbor, reveals a glimpse of this Cosby-inflected world of strivers, arrivistes and “black boys with summer houses.” These relatively well-off African Americans come largely from the ranks of what the novel’s narrator describes as “the magic seven”: doctors, dentists, lawyers, preachers, teachers, nurses, and undertakers. This is the world that those African Americans not part of such networks sometimes refer to, with a dismissive sad sigh, as “boogie, ” which is a class reference seemingly unknown to most white people. The New York Times, writing about Whitehead, spelled the word, with utter, and utterly cringe-worthy, uninitiated innocence: “bourgie.”
So, a little background for those terrified that the ship of state is about to be steered toward the shoals of Rush Limbaugh’s wildest fears : it may come as a surprise that the black middle class is just that, middle class. It is conformist, pleasantly centrist, relatively conservatively Christian, overweeningly upwardly mobile and generally better (if more anxiously) dressed than its white counterparts.
The media often speaks of “the black middle class” as though it were a solid singularity that includes any dark-skinned person with a job or an education—from bicycle messengers to Oprah Winfrey. Likewise, any black person without a permanent 9-5 job is tossed into “the underclass.” This is in stark contrast to the way “middle class” is applied to white citizens, where it connotes a specific income level lodged above the “temporarily unemployed” and the working class and just beneath the upper-middle class, with the wealthy and the super-rich above that. In other words, popular depictions frequently suppress the political presence of a large black working class, as well as a black upper-middle class, to say nothing of those wealthy African Americans who are bankers or industrialists or computer geeks rather than just movie stars or sports figures.
Hard as it might be to imagine if your head is filled with the Hollywood haze of Gone With the Wind, whatever Miss Scarlett yearned for, so did succeeding generations of her ex-slaves—who in real life were as resolute and deeply ambitious as she was. And so, after the Civil War, African Americans arranged themselves into all manner of self-help groups patterned upon the gilded hierarchies of Tara.Most Americans are at least aware of the role of the black church in this effort at uplift, as well as of the NAACP, of the Tuskegee Institute, and of the Urban League. Thanks to Spike Lee’s movie, School Daze, perhaps a few more are even aware of the contribution of historically black colleges—as well as the function of segregated Greek fraternities and sororities—in coalescing fairly conservative, life-long networking circles.
As with white fraternities, hazing rituals can be snobbish, or bullying. And as with white country clubs, exclusivity can have its ugly edge: some black social groups have the reputation of discriminating based on “connections” of ancestry or education or income, or, in the not-so-recent past, skin color (must be “lighter than a brown paper bag”) and texture of hair (a comb would have to move flowingly through smooth and therefore presumptively not-kinky hair). As for those debutante cotillions…well, what can I say?
Oh brother.
do they also say “wee-wee’d”?
This is stupid - we know plenty of blacks that live in upper middle and high class society. We go to church with several black doctors, lawyers and business owners. Things are more equal then Jesse and Al want the world to believe.
Another arrogant racist twit commenting with significant envy about other buppie racist twits.
i’m not really following this thread but that quote is a hoot.
These circles are no secret to most people with the least bit of social awareness. On some levels, the social-climbing classes of black and white cross . . . even in the South. And the authoress is dead wrong when she surmises that the black socially aware class is descended from house slaves. Nonsense. One of the most polished set of siblings I knew (a dentist, a teacher, and a nurse) were the children of a laborer at Chattahoochee Brick Company and the daughter of a sharecropper from Troup County.
But most of those who are well bred -- black or white -- don't have the TIME to mess with all the social climbing nonsense. When my daughter went to the local prep school (which is a good school but has way too many of the social climbers haunting its halls) she was worried because so many of the girls came from much more wealthy families than ours. I reminded her that she was as well bred as ANYONE at the school, and that she had my permission if any of the BMW set gave her a hard time to remark (with a smile) that the one thing that money can't buy is a grandfather.
Shuts 'em up every time, at least in the South, I don't know if it would work elsewhere.
If one wants to meet the black upper class, it is not necessary to travel to Martha's Vineyard, you have only to come to the Atlanta area, Roswell, Alpharetta etc. I don't know if they are familiar with fish knives, but they are well-educated and carry Blackberries and drive lots nicer cars than I do. I have never, ever heard the class-warfare term "boogie" used to describe them. It sounds like a Chicago term that community organizers might use to whip up the projects.
Tuskegee Institute is one of the most EXPENSIVE (outrageously) unis in the US.
This is a fascinating article. Ms Williams should use caution since publicity of a long established black upper class does tend to tamp down the “African American as the proverbial victim” stereotype.
I looked quickly through the article and didn’t see a mention of the exclusive beaches the upper-crust blacks have carved out in Oak Bluffs on Marthas Vineyard. The New York Times did an article on this a few weeks ago and mentioned Inkwell Beach, the beach that is for the exclusive use of the black affirmative-action Wall Street elite and Harvard professors, such as Henry Louis Gates, the friend of 0 who threatened the Cambridge cop who behaved “stupidly”.
The broad blade and the little hump in the top edge are the identifying signs. It goes inside the soup spoon and outside the dinner knife.
Who would those be? They certainly aren't the Obamas!
Patricia J. Williams, a professor of law at Columbia University, was born in Boston in 1951 and holds a BA from Wellesley College and a JD from Harvard Law School.
A law critic and a proponent of critical race theory, an offshoot of 1960s social movements that emphasizes race as a fundamental determinant of the American legal system.
The relationship between planters and free blacks in ante-bellum South is fascinating sociology. Planters would sign complicated contracts with free black women to keep them as mistresses, providing support for children and frequently sending the offspring from "placage" to France to be educated.
BTW they do cut fish quite excellently. I generally place them outside of the beer and inside of the Cholula :)
I don’t understand the phrase, “one thing that money can’t buy is a grandfather”
We just don't have great big dinner parties with service a la Russe and multiple courses. Our social set, such as it is, runs to potluck suppers and barbeques. About the only time I drag out the silver and china is for older relatives in town or something like having the priest to dinner.
Nobody complains. Set good food and plenty of it before your guests and they don't really care about the silver service.
In other words, it doesn't matter how much money said social-climbing person may have to spend on clothes, expensive cars, etc., because no matter how much money they spend they cannot create an ancestry.
This is probably mostly a Southern thing, because Southerners care more about having Revolutionary Ancestors, First Families of Virginia, Colonial Dames, and so forth on the family tree than how much money you have. Old Blood is always superior to New Blood, in fact there's a certain cachet about Old Blood and No Money that is inferior only to Old Blood and Old Money (Old Blood and New Money running half a length behind). I do understand that in New England the Mayflower Descendants have sort of the same ideas.
I’ll be using that information real soon. Thanx.
If I ever have to attend a formal dinner party, a la City, I will be in trouble like Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman", but I will eat more than them, and I'll drink them under the table too.
Actually in the protocol of Southern Gentlemen, I frequently carry an "eating knife". I am never without a pocketknife of some sort, but there are several that I value as particularly suited to the culinary arts. I have two from Provence France that are built for eating, and another two from a master cutler in Hungary for eating and meat slicing that fit nicely in my left front pocket. This is etiquette from another world, and yet I am blissfully ignorant of that world as well, but I'm getting the hang of it. I am not above eating with my well-designed pocketknife. Daily. I'm not sure how that relates to the salad fork and the fish knife, but it's a comfortable weight to carry every day and quite useful too. Every Southern Gentleman carries his silver service in his left front pocket.
Inkwell? Isn’t that the name of Skippy’s black DNA foundation? How cute.
Some of the old Scottish dirks had a little knife and fork fitted into the front of the knife sheath. Obviously you can't carry it in your pocket, but it's pretty neat.
Boogie isn’t like the dance. Soft “g”.
Q: What does a Scot wear under his kilt?
A: Ask him, he'll show you.
What is the correct implement for a haggis? It's in yer left front pocket, laddie. Or in yer sock. Just eat the damn thing.
“one thing that money can’t buy is a grandfather”
Where I come from, Detroit, if you said that to someone they wouldn’t get it, as I didn’t.
If you said instead, “one thing that money can’t buy is a father”, well you had better be fast on your feet.
Thank you for the explanation. My grandparents were southern, Hot Springs, Arkansas and my great Uncle Ben always said the only kind of people in HS are poor people and gangsters. Apparently we were on the poor side of that ledger and ended up in the Ford factory up north.
For my birthday this year I took the family to “Medieval Times”, where there are no implements. Hey, it’s the 14th century, eat with your hands, or your sword. I really enjoyed my chicken with tomato bisque, and there are so few good restaurants that feature dozens of stallions and sword fighting. I felt inadequate with the contents of my left front pocket, but I was ahead of most. What does not kill us makes us stronger.
looks an awful lot like a “master” butter knife.
Funny, I was under the impression that the Revolution was won, in large part, in the Carolinas, and finished off well and for good in Virginia, with no small nod of thanks to "Over The Mountain Men" from the wildest backcountry of NC, soon to become the fine state of Tennessee, who were instrumental at King's Mountain.
Those "Over The Mountain Men" were largely former Regulators, from the failed Regulator War in NC, preceding the Revolution, but now credited by some scholars as being the first salvos in that Revolution. They'd fled over the mountains to avoid being arrested, tried and in some cases, hanged for their nascent revolt against British authority.
British Commander Patrick Ferguson no doubt reminded these men of Edmund Fanning, an arrogant, British fop with a penchant for graft, high living and fancy clothes, acquired on the backs of people scrabbling to survive in what was then wild backcountry, in the NC Piedmont region.
If the equally and purely arrogant Ferguson had been able to keep his gums from flapping so, regarding these rough men with a grudge, who did not and do not take such threats lightly, he might not only have survived King's Mountain, but the course of the war might have been quite different, with Cornwallis not having to plod on solo, to be sorely weakened, even in so-called "victory" at Guilford Courhouse, just a few miles south of where I'm sitting.
Ferguson's affected, fancy dress and weird, even more affected and silly whistle-blowing made him quite obvious, and he was fairly easily shot off the back of his horse and killed.
That's my theory, at least. Historical documentation supports it, but there's still a fair amount of conjecture on my part.
Too bad Banastre Tarleton didn't represent such easy pickings. He needed killing, too.
*Yawn*. I’ve met black people like this before(Magic VIi). They seem to think they are rich because they’re highly paid employees (which are what doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc are.) They’ve never heard the old addage of “You never get rich working for other people nor by cleaning up their crap”. Obama comes from this same employee mentality.
Exactly. The wanna-bes and would-bes never understand it’s all about the breeding. You never hear of the really best families in the news, “wearing designer clothing”. They wouldn’t be caught dead.
This article reminds me of an amusing cartoon from circa early 1800s showing the lower classes attempting to mimic their betters. Strangely enough, it depicted them at their idea of a “cotillion”. I believe that was the name of the cartoon. It was one of those Cruikshank-style depictions. The thing that stands out in my memory is that the cartoonist caricatured their large feet. (Aristocratic people were assumed to have dainty hands and
feet.)
Ferguson was a man ahead of his time with his clever breech-loading rifle. He also was a gentleman and refrained from shooting from behind an officer who may have been Gen'l Washington (but was probably Pulaski).
When you said "large feet", I thought immediately of Hogarth's sketch of a country dance for his proposed "Happy Marriage" series - the contrast intended against his "Marriage a la Mode" series - just because I like it and I love Mr. Hogarth.
What a splendid eye he had - and what a gift for a likeness.
The ultimatums and threats Ferguson made against those “Over The Mountain Men” weren’t gentlemanly. At all.
As a result, he stirred up a bigger hornet’s nest at King’s Mountain, than that other well known hornet’s nest of Revolutionary War lore, a little ways up the road, imho.
HG Robertson or Beverly Bremer or someplace else?
I have a set of fish knives, they were my grandmother’s.
Now that you say that, I’m not sure which cartoonist it was—the print was black and white, and the artist was the one who drew those absurdly fleshy people-very round arms and legs, usually roundish bellies, etc. The people always looked very robust and rambunctious. Which one does that sound like? I’m about positive that the cartoon had “Cotillion” in the title. (Thanks for the pic :) I love those old cartoons)
Family name matters more that wealth.
You are right. Oak Bluffs and Sag Harbor.
There was enough stupidity and cruelty to go around for everyone, as there usually is.
I have (at least) seven R.A.s, one of whom fought at King's Mountain, but the war in the South got ugly.
We drove by there today on our way to take eldest to college.
I’ve always understood that, historically, proportionate and well formed features, of every kind, were considered the mark of good breeding. Clumsy, oafish, overly large facial features, or outsized feet, etcetera, were considered “common.”
Overly fine features were considered a mark of “thin” blood; excessive breeding with the implication of inbreeding. That would include men with disproportionately small feet or hands, but not necessarily women, in whom such a trait was deemed desireable.
It was all about aesthetics, in other words. Proportion, balance, form ... the same as any captive, bred animal would be assessed, as harsh as that sounds.
Odd coincidence, I’ve got seven proved Revolutionary War ancestors, myself, many of whom were at King’s Mountain.
Maybe they fought alonside one another.
Or perhaps Rowlandson (although he's often just frankly pornographic).
I don't like what the AKC is doing to the show type Labs though -- mine are field bred for health and performance, not mere looks, so they don't look like beer barrels on casters . . . . < /snark >
Our RAs are Longs (3!) Wooten, Apperson, Jackson, Dent. Wooten was at Kings Mountain iirc.
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