From Bourgeois to Boojie: Black Middle-Class Performances

Acknowledgments

xxiii The cultural critic and sociologist E. Franklin Frazier published the original edition of his controversial text Black Bourgeoisie in 1955. Fiy years later Bridget Harris Tsemo and I organized a panel— “From Bourgeois to Boogie: Mapping the Economics of Identity and the Black Middle Class”—for the annual conference of the Modern Language Association. We wanted to reassess the influence of Black Bourgeoisie on humanities scholars and to explore the current relevance of Frazier’s argument that “the black bourgeoisie has been uprooted from its ‘racial’ tradition and as a consequence has no cultural roots in either the Negro or the white world.” Bridget headed the panel and asked Dwight McBride, Charles Nero, and me to address Frazier’s view that the middle class uses its economic and social success as a way to foster a false sense of superiority over the black underclass and as a result experiences some insecurity, anxiety, and self-hatred in its unfulfilled quest to become “American” or “white” in the same way that, say, Jews, Italians, Polish, and other ethnic minorities arguably have. These contentious points were dealt with dely, not only by the speakers but by the audience, which included Angelo Rich Robinson, who Acknowledgments xxiv Acknowledgments has since become a good friend and promoter of this project, and Candice Jenkins, who became a contributor to this collection. The American edition of Frazier’s book was published in 1957. In 2007 the Obermann Center for the Humanities at the University of Iowa, headed by Jay Semel, provided a large grant to Bridget and me to direct a major symposium. We modified the theme to “From Bourgeois to Boojie: Black Middle-Class Performances.” Our conference, which took place in the community of Iowa City, featured Amiri Baraka and Michele Wallace as keynote speakers and included these artists, writers, and scholars: Bryant Keith Alexander , Nancy Cheryll Davis-Bellamy, Signithia Fordham, E. Patrick Johnson, Angela Mae Kupenda, Mary Pattillo, Greg Tate, and Lisa B. Thompson. Some of our colleagues from the American Studies and African American Studies departments were also intricately involved: Venise Berry, Michael Hill, Tisch Jones, Kim Marra, and Sydne Mahone. My idea to do a book on the topic was inspired by both the MLA panel and the Obermann symposium. Both LeAnn Fields from the University of Michigan Press and Ken Wissoker at Duke University Press provided developmental assistance. But it was Wayne State University Press’s acquisitions editor, Kathryn Wildfong, and African American Life Series editor Melba Boyd who skillfully and smartly helped turn an idea into the book before you. They were aided by the adept work of the Press’s staff and by freelance copy editor Polly Kummel. I save the best for last—family. Everybody knows that blood is thicker than water. But, as I learned after the publication of my first book, blood gets thicker in print—as I’m now convinced it should be. I thought when I wrote the acknowledgments for my first book, Your Average Nigga (2007), that I should only nod to those family members who directly influenced the publication of the book, to those who had read and commented on the book in part or in whole. My oldest sister, Annie Rine Newman Tart, aka Bell, disagreed. An avid reader, Bell devoured the book cover to cover in a day or two, bought copies for her friends, and called to tell me her mostly favorable opinion and to debate others. In the course of our conversation, she asked why I had listed only half of my siblings , leaving her name out and omitting the names of all my brothers and one other sister. My rationale did not assuage the unintended injury. No Acknowledgments xxv matter who, what, when, where, or how, my family has always been there. When I need a meal, a loan, some encouragement, whatever, they are there, and Bell stands, proudly and happily, at the head of the line. So from her perspective (and now mine), that first book, as well as this and any others, should nod to the fam: My parents, Dorothy Jean Young and Richard Moore; my siblings and their partners, Robert L. Young and his wife, Marsha; Bell and her husband, Wayne; Anthony “Wolf” Newman and his former wife, Sherita; James “Teddy Man” Jones and his wife, Carol; Latonya Smith and her husband, Tony; Katrina Young and...