Patricia Williams: Obama And The Black Elite

Williams writes: "The phenomenon of a black upper class has always been complicated, ambivalent. Often the descendants 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."