Week 4

In the article "Living in a class apart: The separate world of America's Black elite," the author Lawrence Graham addresses the issues of the Black elites and the African Americans who are not part of that social class, and how it impacts the African American community in general. Firstly, this article was informational for me because I never really thought about this gap within the African American community (upper-class vs. lower class African Americans), and also learning about the history of the Black Elite and where it stems from was surprising for me. It was shocking to know how critical skin color really was - slaves being divided into two separate groups, "house slaves" and "field slaves" based off whether they were light-skinned or dark-skinned. It really brought to light for me the issue of colorism and how it extremely coincides with classism. The issues Graham discusses are the pride and guilt among the Black elite. He states that Black elites are sort of torn between different emotions and feelings regarding their wealth and success. Some he says, understand that they should use their status to help build equality for the rest of the African American community, others he says "feel embarrassed by our less-accomplished black brethren" (Graham), and finally those who feel guilty about being successful and wealthy. I do believe these emotions and feelings amongst the African American community are prevalent today, and it also has a lot to with identity...having to constantly battle between "afrocentricity" and being "authentic" within the African American community, but at the same time battling society's norm and "whiteness." I am not of African American descent, I identify myself as Mexican-American, but I can relate to this issue as well within my own community. Coming to a predominantly white institution,and being a first-generation Mexican-American, friends and family back home believe that somehow it has changed me, thinking that it has made me "arrogant", better than them, or that I am not in tune with my own Mexican culture and roots, but at the same time my background and the fact that I am a minority also do not fit the social norm in America. With this being said, I can only imagine how this issue impacts African Americans today.

The explanations that Offner addresses in my opinion seem reasonable. The dramatic increase of African American women attending college and earning degrees has caused an imbalance in the Black Family. I agree with the author that a start to fixing the bigger issue would be increase college attendance among African American men. 

    

In response to the editorial "Successful women who are childless," 55% of African women between 28-55 years old whom earn $55,000+ a year are married. Cornel West believes that in 1970 the male/female ratio among African Americans was almost equivalent, however today the ratio has drastically changed to "9-1 female." 

In reference to “Studies sound alarm on plight of black males”, in the last 2 decades, there have been more high school drop outs, higher incarceration rates, and more African American men without jobs. The 2 factors Holzer cites are first, the high incarceration rates and second the strict enforcement of child support towards African American men.