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DOI: 10.1177/1468796808097075

2008 8: 492Ethnicities

Kesha S. MooreClass formations : Competing forms of black middle-class identity

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Class formations

Competing forms of black middle-class identity

KESHA S. MOORE

Drew University, USA

ABSTRACT Although some scholars continue to debate the relative significanceof race versus class, others have argued for an analysis that underscores the inter-locking nature of these stratification systems. This research builds upon the inter-sectionality perspective to investigate the importance of culture in understandingracial and class stratification and identity. By describing a racialized class structure,

this research challenges race scholars to rethink the meanings of socioeconomicclass. It also identifies ways in which class shapes the articulation of a black racialidentity. The article presents two competing forms of black middle-class identity(multi-class and middle-class minded) in the USA that highlight the intersections of race, class and culture. The data is based on a three-year community ethnography,including interviews with 35 residents. Results show the centrality of morality anda racial ideology of resistance as prominent resistance strategies of action with ablack middle-class habitus. This article describes two competing forms of blackmiddle-class identity and the tensions that emerge between them. It concludes witha discussion of the necessity for a more emic understanding of class stratification.

KEYWORDS African-Americans ● Black middle class ● culture ● habitus ●racial identity ● stratification

INTRODUCTION

Black empowerment focuses on the control of land in urban communities,emphasizing the cultural strengthening of African American communities

in the USA (Jennings,1990). The locus of black empowerment is often inurban communities because of the large numbers of African Americansliving in US cities and the heated dissension around issues such as gentrifi-cation and urban renewal. The centrality of a racialized class identity to

A R T I C L E

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urban community development has been documented in Harlem(Foderaro, 1998; Freeman, 2006; Jackson, 2003; Taylor, 2002), Queens(Gregory, 1998; Owens, 1997), Chicago (Boyd, 2000; Pattillo, 2007) and

Philadelphia (Moore, 2005). More black middle-class residents are return-ing to urban neighborhoods that hold historical importance for the blackcommunity. Moreover, the racial legacy of these communities is being usedas a guiding force for neighborhood development (Boyd, 2000; Moore,2005; Taylor, 2002). Thus, it is useful to chart the influence of a black middle-class identity in these and other black political activities. This articlecontributes to our understanding of the intersections of race and classstratification by presenting a more nuanced understanding of the blackmiddle class in the USA. Using ethnographic data from a three-year

community study of class and community identity, I describe the presenceof two distinct versions of black middle-class identity. These subgroupsreveal the symbolic dimensions of race and class identities and the complex-ity of the question about the relationship between the black middle classand the black poor.

Race and class stratification have been intertwined since the creation of the modern idea of race (DuBois, 2003[1946]; Williams, 1966; Winant,2001).The transatlantic slave trade played a critical role in the growth andentrenchment of capitalism in Europe and the New World. DuBois

(2003[1946]) writes:this then was the history of the slave trade, of that extraordinary movementwhich made investment in human flesh the first experiment in organizedmodern capitalism; which indeed made capitalism possible. (2003[1946]: 68)

While during slavery, the boundaries and processes of racial and classstratification were virtually the same, abolition and the struggle for racial

justice have created patterns where racial and class inequalities are relatedbut not reducible to each other. This article acknowledges the processesproducing the overlap between racial and class stratification without

suggesting that all racial inequality is the result of class stratification or viceversa. In fact, by looking at the unique social location of the black middleclass, we can observe the ways in which racial stratification shapes theexperience of being middle class as well as the way in which class privilegeshapes the experience of race in contemporary US society.

RACE AND CL ASS STR ATIFIC ATION

Racism shapes both the structure and meaning of class in the blackcommunity. Racist practices shape the class structure by limiting the incomeand wealth accumulation for black people (Drake and Cayton, 1962[1945];

MOORE ● CLASS FORMATIONS








DuBois, 1999[1899]; Frazier, 1957; Oliver and Shapiro, 1995). Racialdiscrimination in educational and occupational institutions prevents blackpeople in varying income brackets from maximizing their full earning

potential (Ainsworth and Roscigno, 2005; Bankston and Caldas, 1996;Grodsky and Pager, 2001; Tienda and Lii, 1987). In addition, racist practicesshape the social environments in which people experience their class status,particularly the residential neighborhood (Massey and Denton, 1993;Sugrue, 1996). Racial discrimination in the housing market limits the wealthaccumulation of black families in the USA (Oliver and Shapiro, 1995),restricts access to better public schools and quality public services, andincreases the exposure of black families to poverty, crime and violence(Massey and Denton, 1993; Pattillo, 1999). Even black families with middle-

class incomes often live in communities that are quite different from thoseof the white middle class (Pattillo, 1999). Isabelle Wilkerson (1998) identi-fies two characteristics of the black middle class that distinguish them fromtheir white counterparts in the USA: increased likelihood that morerelatives will rely on them for help and increased likelihood that they arefirst-generation middle class. Both of these characteristics are the result of efforts to suppress the mobility of African Americans, through processessuch as Jim Crow laws, redlining, restrictive covenants, as well as separatebut equal education and social services.

Yet the increased economic and social opportunities that accompaniedthe US Civil Rights Movement have created a more dynamic and expandedblack class structure. As a result of the Civil Rights Movement and abooming economy, the size of the black middle class doubled over the 1960s.By 1970, 27 percent of all black workers could be considered middle class(Landry, 1988). This increase in occupational mobility also correspondedwith an increase in the geographic mobility of the black middle class. Therewas an increase in the rates of black suburbanization and a black presencein predominately white neighborhoods (Landry, 1988).

These increased economic and geographic opportunities of the blackmiddle class produced an increase in class stratification within the blackcommunity that often took on spatial dimensions. Wilson (1987, 1996)describes the urban poverty of the post-Civil Rights Era as new urban

poverty to highlight the distinctive demographic and cultural shifts broughtabout by these social and economic changes. For Wilson, the ‘exodus’ of theblack middle class from low-income urban neighborhoods helped to createa concentration of urban poverty and social isolation of low-income blackresidents. Unlike previous eras of urban poverty, new urban poverty is char-acterized by high levels of joblessness and, as a result, high levels of social

disorganization and ghetto-related behaviors. According to Wilson, thespatial and social separation of the black middle class from the black poorcontributes to the entrenchment of cultural practices among poor AfricanAmericans that restrict their opportunities for social mobility.

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This transition from a more caste-like system of racial stratification to amore class-based system (Anderson, 2000) suggests a change in both themeaning and experience of blackness in US society. To what extent are the

beneficiaries of the expanded opportunities of the post-Civil Rights Eraable to extricate themselves from the historical inequalities of the racializedclass system and enact a more mainstream class identity and lifestyle? Towhat extent do the black middle class continue to have a perception of ‘shared fate’ with less economically advantaged members of the blackcommunity?

Instead of engaging in the futile debate of which is more important, raceor class, in structuring the lives and experiences of black people in contem-porary US society (Thomas and Hughes, 1986; Wilson, 1980), this article

employs a multi-dimensionality (Mutua, 2006) framework to elucidate theways in which the systems of race and class stratification shape one anotherthrough culture. This research describes how the experiences and meaningsattached to blackness are influenced by one’s position within the class struc-ture. Likewise, it explores how the understanding and expression of amiddle-class identity is influenced by an ascriptive black identity. This isaccomplished by a detailed analysis of black habitus, especially as it isexpressed among black middle-class residents.

The habitus of the black middle class is theoretically important because

it represents a group that experiences non-concordance on the systems of racial and class stratification. In the class system of stratification, themiddle-class strata represent a higher status group; while in the racialsystem of identification, blackness represents a lower status category. Suchincongruence situates middle-class blacks in a functional position to explorethe relationship between the two systems of stratification.

BLACK HABITUS

Racial and class categories and their associated identities are sociallyconstructed (Bourdieu, 1984; Cornell and Hartman, 1998; Steinberg, 1989).Racial and class categories are always understood relative to other groupswithin the system and are influenced by one’s social location and identity(Bourdieu, 1984; Cornell and Hartman, 1998). Embedded in a descriptionof a particular race or class group is the principle by which all the othergroups are also evaluated. The groups furthest apart on the social hierarchygenerally represent the oppositional cultural orientations from which the

principles and practices of the entire continuum are constructed. Thus, theconstruction of a classification system embodies the valued cultural symbolsand the distribution of power within the society. The boundaries andcontent of racial and class identities will vary according to the context,









particularly the social, economic and cultural resources that groups haveavailable to them.

Black habitus1 embodies the cultural reservoir that informs the perform-

ance of race and class identities among African Americans in the USA. Areview of the social science literature on race shows increasing attention tothe performative nature of race and class identities (Austin, 2004). Austinuses a typology of black/white bi-racial identities to suggest that all peoplehave the ability to assert one of these identities based on their symbolicmeaning system rather than their biological ancestry or physical appear-ance. This emphasis on performing race with social interactions allows one’sracial identity to be challenged, based on class differences. Because of thecommon association in popular culture of blackness with the social and

cultural experiences of the black lower-class, middle-class blacks may havetheir blackness interpreted as inauthentic. Based on his readings of thetexts,Austin concludes that both blacks and whites in the USA define black-ness as the social world of lower-class blacks. This class-based interpretationof blackness restricts the ability of middle-income blacks to perform theirblack identities in a way that will be socially accepted by others (Austin,2000; Jhally and Lewis, 1992).

Here we see the interlocking nature of race, class and culture. AsCrenshaw (1992) suggests in her explanation of the disproportionate

representation of black women in sexual harassment cases, the addition of race into the analysis can at times make the cultural assumptions moreapparent. Crenshaw writes:

Racism may well provide the clarity to see that sexual harassment is neither aflattering gesture nor a misguided social overture but an act of intentionaldiscrimination that is insulting, threatening, and debilitating. (1992: 412)

By adding race to our analysis of gender interactions, we can more clearlyperceive the cultural assumptions embedded in our understanding of ‘normative’ gender dynamics. Likewise, by adding race to our analysis of class identity and social interactions, the normative cultural assumptionsembedded in notions of class will become more obvious as well. Thus,habitus is class and race based. The habitus of the black middle-classinforms the actions they perceive as ‘reasonable’ and enhancing their‘self-interest’.

Bourdieu’s (1984) concept of habitus encapsulates the importance of culture and cultural identity in both class identity and the process of class stratification. Habitus is defined as the relationship between twocapacities: the capacity to produce culturally specified products and actions,

and the capacity to differentiate and appreciate these culturally specifiedproducts and actions. Thus, members of the elite are able to make theircultural capital the most highly valued economically and socially. In thisperspective, culture is both a product and creative force of the economic

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stratification process. Individuals may use cultural capital to acquireeconomic and social resources and vice versa. By identifying habitus with aracial descriptor, I am asserting that all forms of habitus exist within, and

are informed by, racial stratification.One of the unique characteristics of black habitus is that it is generated

in racially segregated spaces and generally rejects the idea that the currentracial order is natural or just (Craig, 2002). Thus, a critique of the currentracial order and discussion of appropriate responses are common culturalproducts of black public discourse in the USA. Melissa Harris-Lacewell(2004) describes this discourse as black counterpublics and demonstratesthe centrality of such racialized spaces in structuring black politicalideology. This ability to reflect critically on the racial logic of America

reflects the ‘gift of second-sight’ or double-consciousness that DuBois(2003[1903]) describes as a fundamental aspect of African American social-ization. Craig describes this phenomenon as the ‘disposition to resist racialdomination’ and identifies it as an enduring component of the black habitus(2002: 11).

The second distinguishing feature of black habitus is the discourse of race

and respectability (Craig, 2002). This notion of ‘respectability’ emphasizesmorality and positive self-presentation as a form of social status. Perhapsthis is a product of the artificially flat occupational structure in the black

community created by racial discrimination. Regardless, pre-Civil Rights, agreat deal of social status was gained (or lost) based on one’s ability to‘represent’ the black race well, which usually involved a public demonstra-tion of black talent and high moral character. For the race man or race

woman, high importance was placed on publicly representing the black racein a positive light – even more so, when white people were present. For therace men and women, proper self-presentation was an essential componentof the assertion of black humanity and the struggle for political rights(Drake and Cayton, 1962 [45]). Grooming was an important component of demonstrating morality and respectability within the black community(Craig, 2002). This emphasis on grooming reveals the intricate relationshipbetween individual acts of self-presentation and racial politics that isembodied in the habitus of the pre-Civil Rights community of black elites.

This commitment to morality and positive self-presentation found withinthe black habitus represents strategies of action related to racial resistance.Swidler’s (1986) theory of culture explains how individuals and groups skill-fully use culture to negotiate the structural conditions of their daily life.According to Swidler, socialization within our respective social locationequips us with a cultural ‘tool kit of symbols, stories, rituals and worldviews’

that is useful in addressing the varied problems of daily life (1986: 273).Social location shapes behavior and outcomes by varying the ‘tools’ avail-able for implementation. During settled times, there is a close connectionbetween cultural practices and structural circumstances. The cultural tools









transmitted through socialization have been developed to respond to thecurrent social context, and structure, and culture seem to reinforce oneanother. However, during unsettled times, times of social (or personal)

transformation, cultural toolkits may be consciously reorganized to addressthe problems faced in the new social context. In unsettled times, cultureexerts an independent causal force in shaping human behavior by creating‘new strategies of action’: new organizations of units of action, new stylesand skills of action, and modeling new forms of relationships in action. Indi-viduals are able to develop new cultural competencies that may help themto navigate through the new social context more successfully.

However, the new cultural toolkit is never entirely new, but rather areformulation or alteration of existing symbols, strategies and skill sets. The

structural changes that occur during unsettled times allow for theexpression and wide adoption of ideas and cultural strategies that may havepreviously been marginalized. Yet the adoption of new cultural strategiesof action requires a self-conscious belief and ritual system (ideology). Theideology that generates new strategies of action is usually produced andsupported by a social movement. Social movements help to create the struc-tural changes that make new opportunities for action, as well as to serve asincubators for new and revised cultural strategies. However, the long-termsuccess of such new strategies of action depends on the structural

constraints and historical circumstances of the social movement’s battle forinstitutionalization.Craig’s (2002) research reveals that the social movements of the 1960s

and 1970s in the USA produced multiple new ideologies and strategies of actions around a black identity. For Craig, the 1968 creation of a Miss BlackAmerica pageant represented a racial rearticulation (Omni and Winant,1994) of the meaning of race produced from a black middle-class habitus.She discusses how the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s can beunderstood as unsettled times that created new symbolic meanings andactions associated with blackness (i.e. ‘black is beautiful’). However, thisracial rearticulation drew upon existing concepts and ideologies that chal-lenged the racial hierarchy, while simultaneously reifying class and genderhierarchies. The Miss Black America pageant was a challenge to the pre-existing racial symbology that represented white women as chaste, sexual-ized beauties and black women as ugly and sexually available. This racialinequality, coupled with middle-class black habitus, focused on exposing thefalsities of racism by always representing oneself (and the race) as wellgroomed and moral, and thus rendered the creation of a Miss BlackAmerica beauty pageant a ‘reasonable’ strategy for challenging white

supremacy. Here the habitus of black middle-class culture produced astrategy that challenged the pre-existing racial hierarchy while alsoreproducing the pre-existing gender hierarchy.

The final unique feature of black habitus is its limited exchange value.

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Racial stratification significantly restricts African Americans’ ability tosuccessfully convert one form of capital (economic, social and cultural) intoanother. For example, the accumulation of income does not automatically

grant economically advantaged African Americans social honor orsufficiently protect them from the indignities of racism. Also, the continuedpatterns of racial segregation in home, school and work environments, evenamong the black middle class, weaken the ability of all African Americansto translate social capital into economic capital. Finally, the cultural knowl-edge of black history and black culture is rarely rewarded within the largermainstream US society. These are just a few of the myriad of ways in whichracial stratification limits the ability of black individuals to easily exchangeforms of capital to strengthen their social position.

Craig’s research demonstrates that racial rearticulations are not onlyproduced from the top down but can also be generated from the bottom upby ‘the remaking of racial meaning in day to day life’ (2002: 9). Thus, it isimportant to investigate to what extent (if any) the new cultural strategiesdeveloped during this unsettled time have been embedded in current blackidentities. Her work also points to the importance of conducting ethno-graphic analysis of race and class identities to observe the ways in whichthese identities are generated from and performed within daily, mundaneinteractions.

The black middle class provide an informative view into the relationshipbetween social structure and identity in the USA. Historically, black habitushas been distinguished by three characteristics: critical resistance to thelogic and practices of racial domination, an emphasis on morality andrespectable self-presentation as a strategy of racial resistance, and itslimited ability to successfully exchange one form of capital for another. Thisethnographic study of one black middle-class community examines thehabitus and specific strategies of action found within this community inorder to enhance our understanding of the contemporary interactionsbetween systems of racial and class stratification and culture. Here, we canobserve the extent to which the cultural strategies of the pre-Civil RightsEra in the US have been repurposed or replaced to address the unique chal-lenges of the present day. By exploring the cultural strategies of residentsin this neighborhood, we can gain insight into the multiple ways in whichsystems of racial and class stratification inform each other in structuring theidentity and behavior of the black middle class.

METHODS

This analysis is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 1997and 2000. Although the small scale of the research raises concerns of









generalizability, the methodology was appropriate for building an empiri-cally informed theory on the micro-processes of identity construction as itrelates to race and class stratification. The openness and strong attention to

context implicit in community ethnographic methodology allowed respon-dents to portray their own system of categorization. The site selected formy community ethnography was a low-income black neighborhood, withthe pseudonym of Brickton, close to downtown Philadelphia. This neigh-borhood was selected because it was predominately low income butcontained an active community development agenda of attracting blackmiddle-class residents. The data presented in this article come mostly fromformal interviews with 35 residents. These interviews ranged from 90minutes to three hours and often occurred over two settings.

Twenty-seven of the respondents interviewed were female and eightwere male. The over-representation of women in the sample can beattributed to both the fact that my original key informants were women onwelfare and many of the staff and volunteers in the community institutionswere female. Even when I was referred to a married household, the wifeusually conducted the interview. I would arrange to speak with the coupletogether, but often the husband would be ‘away’ when I arrived. Twelve of the respondents were listed as low-income and selected based on theircurrent or past welfare usage. Fifteen of the respondents were listed as

middle class based on either their admission or their demographic infor-mation (college education and annual income above $35,000). Ironically,although some of the individuals in this category would not use the term‘middle class’ to describe themselves, when I informed people I was lookingfor middle-class residents to interview, the referring parties had no doubtsabout their appropriateness. The remaining eight respondents were identi-fied as working class because they fell within the two other categories.

All of the interviews were conducted within the homes of the respon-dents. I explained to the respondents that I was interested in understand-ing ‘what life is like in this neighborhood’. The interviews weresemi-structured with an interview guide that contained questions about thecommunity of their childhood, how the respondent came to live in theneighborhood, the degree to which the respondent participated in neigh-borhood life (shopping, social institutions, communal life), positive andnegative experiences in the neighborhood, their class identity, cross-classinteractions and predictions/proscriptions for the future of the neighbor-hood. At some point in the interview, I usually had the respondent rankorder a set of index cards containing names of local communities from mostdesirable to least desirable. I then asked them to talk about the reasons for

their selection. The entire interview was tape-recorded and transcribed.Erik Olin Wright (1997) organizes class analysis into two broad

categories: structural and processual. The structural approach focuses onclass locations as defined by the economic power relations between groups.

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In contrast, the processual approach emphasizes the role of class in shapingthe subjective experiences of individuals, particularly their identity andmeaning system. Individual biography and collective history are integral

aspects of the processual class analysis. Of course, these various dimensionsof class exist in relation to each other. The processual concept of classcannot exist without the material differences in opportunities and resourcesthat are embodied in the structural dimension of class. Likewise the class-interest that so many structural theories take as a given depends as muchon class identity as it does on class location (Wright, 1997). Since thisresearch is most concerned with relationship between community and indi-vidual’s identity, as seen through community development practices, I havechosen to utilize the processual approach to studying social class. My

analysis highlights the way that the collective history of urban blacks andindividual experiences of social mobility intersect to form class identities.

As a qualitative study, this research is best able to inform our under-standing of the experiences, material conditions and conceptual frame-works that construct class and racial identities. Thus, my analysis will use aprocessual approach to these identities with the understanding that theseidentities are grounded in material inequalities. The class typology that Ihave constructed is based on my conversations with the residents of thecommunity study site. All of the categorical names were used by the resi-

dents that I interviewed during my fieldwork. Although this class typologyrepresents ideal types, it is useful because it helps us to conceptualize theunderpinnings of class status and various constellations of class in the blackcommunity. In reality, the boundaries between the class groupings may bemore blurred. Based on my discussions with neighborhood residents, I haveidentified six distinct class identities: ghetto, poor,‘working class,multi-class,middle class minded and rich/upper-class (see Figure 1). These categoriesreflect distinctions made by respondents about who belongs in which class.For both the low-income and middle-income categories, respondents identi-fied distinctive cultural subgroups. All of the labels for the class categoriesreflect terminology used by at least some of the respondents during theinterviews. As discussed earlier, these class identities are related but notidentical to traditional structural analyses of class locations.

RESULTS

Blackness does not have to be associated with ignorance. (Valerie)The above quote is an excerpt from a conversation in which one of the resi-dents, Valerie, explains how she responds to criticism about her insistencethat her family speak standard English at home. Valerie is a successful









financial planner and mother of three who resides in a low-income neigh-borhood of Philadelphia. Unlike some of her similarly educated neighborswho codeswitch (Anderson, 1990), Valerie continues to speak standardized

English when at home and insists that her children do the same. When herchildren are teased by other children in the neighborhood for ‘talkingwhite’, Valerie uses the situation as an opportunity to teach her childrenwhat it means to be black and the appropriate behaviors associated withthis identity. Such assertions are her way of claiming cultural space, in thiscase language, as authentically black that had previously been identifiedonly with white people. This interaction exemplifies the ‘cultural work’ thatmiddle-class blacks must do on a daily basis. The conscious and sub-conscious effort involved in articulating blackness as a middle-class person

makes this group theoretically important to our discussions of the changingstructure and meanings of race and class in the USA.

Valerie represents the middle-class minded group: one of the two distinctversions of black middle-class identity documented through this research.

Figure 1 outlines the class typology as described by the residents I inter-viewed. Although each respondent did not use all of the terms, thecategories presented here were identified by most of the respondents whenasked to describe the black class structure and their position in it. Thecategories that are most theoretically interesting and distinct from common

discussions of class are the distinctions between ghetto/poor and multi-class/middle-class minded. These distinctions are important because theyrepresent unique cultural orientations within the same economic class. Thedistinctions that separate these groups are based on values, particularly theextent to which they conform to traditional white, middle-class American

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Classlocation

Low income

Ghetto

Ghetto cultural influence

(counter culture

Middle-class minded

cultural influence (mainstream)

Poor Workingclass

Middle-class

Multi-class

Middle-classminded

Rich/Upper-class

Upper-class

Classidentity

Culturalorientation

Figure 1 Class structure of African American community








503

values. These class categories contribute to a growing body of literature thathighlights the continued importance of morality and propriety in under-standing the black class structure and the influence of white mainstream

society on the intra-group dynamics of the black community (Anderson,1999a, 2000; Cohen, 1999; Kaplan, 1997).

The analysis begins with a discussion of these class categories and thecompeting cultural orientations that they represent. The remainder of thearticle focuses on the multi-class identity because this is the primary identitythat is driving the current community development efforts within thiscommunity. Many of the individuals involved in community developmentare multi-class and the marketing activities of these redevelopment effortsare designed to attract other multi-class individuals. Finally, I explore the

class tensions that exist within this community and its role in the communitydevelopment activities.

Class typology

The distinction between ghetto and poor is based primarily on morality.Both groups are low income and are only marginally connected to the paidlabor force. The ghetto class identity usually corresponds to people whoseincome places them in the poor or working-class category and whose

behavior is inconsistent with middle-class cultural and social norms.Residents often made a point to distinguish between the moral poor andthose individuals classified as ghetto. The residents I interviewed explainedthat some people are poor through no fault of their own. Racism andeconomic forces beyond their control prevent them from experiencingmaterial success. Thus, there are two types of poor people: those who faceexternal hardship through no fault of their own and those who help tocreate their own poverty.

When describing the poverty she witnesses in her neighborhood, Zorastates: ‘it wasn’t just the material things, it was internal’. As Zora suggests,there is a difference between being materially/economically poor andculturally poor. Those in the category of ‘poor’ are believed to be similar tothe middle-class black residents except for the economic resources theylack. However, those in the ‘ghetto’ category are believed to be economi-cally and culturally poor because they lack financial resources as well as amiddle-class value orientation. While community residents didn’t believethat poor people should be blamed for their economic disadvantages, theyare blamed for their social behavior.

The connection between poverty and morality is a prominent theme in

residents’ discussions of class. According to my respondents, racism can beused to explain the pervasive unemployment and poverty but not to justifyimmoral or anti-social behavior. As the conversation with Robert belowexemplifies, racism causes African-Americans to experience financial









hardships but class (i.e. cultural orientation) structures how one respondsto those hardships.

Interviewer: How important is racism?Robert: Ninety-five percent. No question about that. I think there’s a lot

of denial but racism is still a big part of our lives. Redlining, racialsteering, lack of jobs, hindrances to get a decent education earlyon and up to college, arrests rates of blacks – especially blackmales.

I: How important is class?R: Between African Americans class plays a large role. Having more

money and more influence provides a greater sense of privilege.Black-on-black crime. African Americans look at it and otherAfrican Americans doing the crime as ghetto.

According to Robert, crime (black-on-black crime in particular) is not alegitimate response to the economic constraints resulting from living in aracist society. Those who engaged in such behavior are considered to be adistinct ‘class’ of black people: ghetto. In contrast to the ‘ghetto’, the poorare often described as good moral people who value cleanliness and hardwork. When describing the community of her childhood a multi-classresident recalls:

Keith Steward [college president], I grew up with him. I ain’t gonna say too

many things but I did grow up with him. He’s from a family of 13. And poor. Wewere all poor so who knows. His mother was a rock of Gibraltar woman. Shekept them all clean and orderly.

In the preceding quote, we again see the importance of good grooming andmorality as a component of the black habitus. Keith’s mother was able tocommunicate a positive social status, in spite of her poverty, through thegood presentation of herself and her family. The poor and ghetto live withinthe same neighborhoods, same families and at times within the same indi-vidual. The degree of adherence to norms of morality and self-presentationembodied in the black habitus is what distinguished ghetto individuals frompoor individuals. These categories represent behavioral differences andsupposedly value orientations.

Similarly, the distinction between the multi-class and middle-classminded is based on values and the degree of acceptance of white middle-class ideology. The multi-class and middle-class minded categories arecomposed of professionals, middle managers and business entrepreneurs.Thirteen of the 15 middle-class residents interviewed had college degrees.Their annual salaries range from $35,000 to $80,000. Many of them work in

public institutions, which service neighborhood residents, such as neighbor-hood schools and the local welfare office. Although both the multi-class andmiddle-class minded residents share the same structural position (like thepoor and ghetto residents), they are distinguished from each other based

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on their cultural orientation. The multi-class and middle-class minded resi-dents draw upon different strategies of action from their black middle-classhabitus. These differing cultural strategies place them in different social

positions within the black community and this neighborhood.The middle-class minded category is composed of individuals who are

the more traditional black middle class. Whether they are first-generationmiddle class or come from a line of middle-class families, their class identityis solidly middle class. Middle-class minded is an appropriate label for thisgroup because the reference points for their status symbols are the blackand white middle classes. Middle-class minded African Americans are moreaware of or accepting of the class differences between them and less privi-leged blacks. They generally surround themselves with environments in

which most of their peers are also middle class. Middle-class mindedindividuals may also adhere to an integrationist ideology.

While there are first-generation middle-class members of the middle-class minded category, individuals within the multi-class category are almostalways first-generation middle-class. They have experienced social mobilitywithin their lifetime and search for a means to maintain and reconcile theclass identity formed during childhood and the one they have acquired inadulthood. This experience affords them an outsider-within perspective

(Collins, 1998) in both low- and middle-income black communities. Diver-

sity and versatility are the esteemed values of individuals with multi-classstatus. The multi-class residents I interviewed discussed with great pride thefact that they had traveled to many different places, had many differenttypes of friends and spoke different cultural languages – ‘code switched’(Anderson, 1990). Multi-class residents see such experiences as a badge of honor that privileges them over their peers, who are only able to operatecomfortably within one social context. Paulette discusses the value sheplaces on being able to bridge many cultural communities:

When I am around certain white and black people, I talk about my time in

Europe, my travels. I talk about Merrill Lynch. It’s very boring but you need tobe able to do that around certain people. When I’m sitting on the step and myclientele walks by – I work for the department of public welfare and I livewithin my geographical work area. When they come up and ask something, I say‘yes baby . . . no honey . . . mmhhmm’.

Marlene, another multi-class resident, describes herself as having the versa-tility of a chameleon:

When I’m with them [her professional status-seeking peers], I talk like them, eatlike them, dress like them. But I prefer to think of myself as classless.

Finally,Tanya highlights the way in which the apparent discrepancy betweenher income and neighborhood status reflect her choice to connect to manydifferent class communities:









I live in a lower-class situation [neighborhood]. My income would be consideredlow, middle income – but I don’t show it. That’s why, you know, physically I livein a lower-class environment. Even though I recognize that it’s changing to what

some people will consider middle-class black people. Financially, I make a verygood salary and I don’t drive new cars or buy new clothes and all that stuff.Mentally I can be either lower class, middle or upper class.

Although they recognize their privileged middle-class status, multi-classindividuals intentionally work to maintain a symbolic and personal connec-tion to low-income African Americans. Choosing to reside in this neighbor-hood over more middle-class neighborhoods is one way in which theyconnect themselves with less economically advantaged African Americans.

As a part of the interview, I asked respondents to rank local neighbor-

hoods on the basis of desirability and discussed the rationale for suchrankings. Although suburban middle-class communities have more statusand amenities than their current community, many multi-class residentssuggest that they do not identify with the ‘image’ of these communities.They also acknowledge that the current image of their neighborhood doesnot reflect their identity. However, they are attracted to what this neighbor-hood could become and the role that they could play in that process. Theexcerpt below from my interview with Marlene shows the mistaken assump-tion that many people make about her class identity based on her residence

in the neighborhood. In the minds of the people she interacts with, onlypoor black people live in the neighborhood of Brickton and all of theupwardly mobile black people live in the outer rings or suburbs of the city:

Marlene: But I must confess that all of these years I’ve lived in Brickton, Ido become sort of a shock thing when people come in [to theneighborhood] and they’re afraid. And they see a person who’s,I’ll use that word, ‘cultured’. She’s cultured, she’s intelligent. Youknow she’s civilized. Yeah so in a way I do carry that. You know Irecognize that, I really recognize that. I’ve had a couple of whitepeople come into my house and they be like [makes gestures of shock and amazement].

Interviewer: So you’re not the average person people would think of whenthey think of Brickton?

Marlene: ‘No. No. mm,mm. No. But I wish I was. I wish I was sort of likethat. See they think of Germantown, Willingboro. Now where’sthe other spot at? Along the Main Line. ‘I live in Bryn Mar’[mockingly states in high pitched voice with over exaggeratedgestures]. And I be like yeah, okay.

The incongruence between Marlene’s perceived class identity and

community identity shocks many of her friends and colleagues. The neigh-borhoods that Marlene identifies as communities where she ‘should’ live areall either racially integrated or solidly black middle-class communities.Marlene’s mocking comments at the end of the excerpt demonstrate her

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disdain for the images associated with those neighborhoods. Instead of following the trend of the black middle-class to move into higher status andclass segregated neighborhoods, Marlene chooses to use her personal status

to help change the image of Brickton.Like Marlene, many of the multi-class residents in her neighborhood

view their presence in the neighborhood as a means to help transform theimages and experiences of black people in poor urban neighborhoods.Paulette explains her rationale for choosing this neighborhood:

So why do I live in the black community? Because it is the only culture, in thisparticular area . . . It is a culture that I am part of. I love it. I wish it to grow.And maybe what I’m really saying is that sometimes I think I’m setting someexample or something. I’ve come to realize that sometimes people say ‘well I

saw you do it’ or ‘I watched you do it’.

Multi-class residents demonstrated a high racial solidarity cosmology. Thatis part of the reason they are so committed to remaining connected to low-income blacks. Some of the multi-class residents participated in the BlackNationalist movements of the 1960s/1970s and discuss their involvement inthe community as a continuation of their political agenda. Meanwhile, othermulti-class persons embed their racial solidarity views through symbolismof commitment to family. Both frameworks served to connect the identity,loyalty and responsibility of these middle-class residents to the entire black

community, rather than a small segment. For these individuals, theirphysical and social connections to low-income black residents affirm thatthey are in fact living out their racial ideals. Individuals with multi-classstatus speak as if their political ideology removes them from a class systementirely. Bobbie suggests that her former activist friends have ‘becomeclassed’ by exchanging a political identity for a professional identity.

I’m trying to think of some of the ex-panthers who have become doctors,lawyers and Indian chiefs. And the SNCC workers and CORE workers. Theyhave become classed. And it’s all right. It’s all right because they have to

support their families. I don’t have a problem if you don’t want to remembersome things. I don’t have a problem with that. And if you just can’t walk in ataproom and have a beer. And if you can’t sit on the steps.

Statements such as these suggest an interesting relationship betweenpolitics and class. As long as these individuals were involved in the politi-cal movements, they were seen as outside of the class system. But now thatthey have professional careers, they have become classed. Bobbie describesthese individuals as exchanging a political identity for an identity based onsocioeconomic class. This perspective assumes that class identities are

apolitical and that political movements have no class basis. The inability tounderstand the intersectionality (Collins, 1998) of race and class preventspeople from observing the class bias in many of the racial movements(Kelly, 1994) and the continued salience of race in the experiences of









upwardly mobile African Americans (Cose, 1993). What Bobbie dis-approves of here is not the adoption of a class identity but rather theadoption of a class identity that prevents middle-class black people from

interacting on equal footing with low-income black residents.The multi-class people in this ethnography are very similar to the histori-

cal black elite image of the race man/woman. They experience a higherdegree of economic security than the majority of the black community andthey feel a responsibility to use their education and financial resources towork towards the betterment of the race. A member of the Philadelphiablack elite during the antebellum period, Joseph Wilson, defined this classas people who were ‘socially committed, responsible, determined to workfor the betterment of the whole community’ (Winch, 2000: 40). Although

he denied that membership in the elite category had anything to do withwhite ancestry, Wilson acknowledged that a certain degree of economicsecurity and comfort was necessary to afford a lifestyle committed to socialchange. The multi-class is a contemporary embodiment of Wilson’s concep-tion of the black elite and Drake and Cayton’s (1945) conception of the‘race’ man/woman.

Middle-class minded individuals may also possess a strong racialsolidarity ideology that may be expressed in less extreme forms from thoseof the multi-class group. Organizations such as 100 Concerned Black Men

(Women) or mentoring activities of black sororities and fraternities providean opportunity for middle-class minded African-Americans to demonstrateracial solidarity and engage in activities designed to help those blackresidents who are less fortunate. Middle-class minded blacks can alsoexpress their racial solidarity through individual acts such as supportingblack businesses by ‘buying black’ whenever possible. Activities such asthese enable middle-class minded African Americans to express an ideo-logical commitment to racial solidarity while maintaining limited contactwith African-Americans from the lower classes.

Competing perspectives on the neighborhood

A major difference between the multi-class and middle-class minded resi-dents’ expression of black habitus emerged in the reasons given for movingto the neighborhood. While the multi-class residents offered explanationsthat appealed to the glory days of life under racial segregation and theopportunity to invest in the black community, the middle-class minded resi-dents were more likely to discuss their decision to move into the communityin terms of economic opportunities. They were attracted by the prospect of

buying large, newly remodeled brownstone houses at a fraction of the cost.The neighborhood is close to Center City and many middle-class mindedresidents stated that they were looking forward to the neighboringuniversity and private developers ‘changing’ the community. These

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residents bought into the neighborhood because they believed it was intransition to becoming one of the new gentrified communities in Phila-delphia. The following excerpts of conversations with Robert, Terry and

Vanessa highlight the contrasting motivations of middle-class minded andmulti-class residents:

Robert: I moved into the neighborhood because I liked the housing stockand I was attending the local university at the time. I learnedabout the house from a co-worker of mine who also lived in theneighborhood. He told me that the CDC was trying to bring inprofessionals.

Interviewer: Where else were you considering moving at the time?Robert: Powellton Village and South Street. I chose this neighborhood

because I liked the new housing and I thought that theneighborhood would be similar to University City but composedof African Americans. I was hoping for more affluence.

Robert was attracted to this neighborhood because it appeared to be aneighborhood on the verge on gentrification. The other neighborhoods heconsidered moving to were already established gentrified communities andhe was hoping that it would experience a similar transition except with ablack middle-class gentry instead of a white one. Like Robert, Terry alsowas familiar with gentrified neighborhoods in Boston. She desired to live in

such neighborhoods but was not economically able at the time. This neigh-borhood presented her with the opportunity to move into a gentrifyingcommunity on the ground floor of development. She states:

I love old houses. I lived in Boston and always loved the houses in Back Bay –beautiful, old Victorian houses. And gentrification had really started at thattime. Urban life became en vogue again and I wanted to buy one of thosehouses but couldn’t afford it. Law school brought me to Philly and I had drivenby and noticed those gorgeous brownstones and never dreamed that I couldown one. For me it was not only a beautiful place to live but I saw it as a way tohelp me economically. I thought it would be a nice economic base.

Vanessa also states that she was anticipating gentrification when decidingto move:

Interviewer: Did you know much about the neighborhood before you movedhere?

Vanessa: I knew what it was. I knew that the house was in the ghetto but itwas close enough to the university to be open for development.

While Vanessa and other middle-class minded residents moved to thisneighborhood in spite of it being the ‘ghetto’, Bobbie, Paulette and many

of the other multi-class residents moved here because it was a ‘ghetto’. Mostof the current middle-class residents in this community would be consideredmulti-class. They were born into a poor or working-class black family andhad experienced individual social mobility within their lifetime. While they









are very committed to remaining connected (socially and symbolically) totheir poor and working-class roots, in income, education and culturalcapital, they are also very much middle-class. The multi-class view their

position of straddling two worlds as a privilege. The neighborhood activi-ties are their attempt to affirm and articulate their class position (Moore,2005).

Class tensions

Although the goal of these community development activities is to createa unified class integrated black community, class tensions frustrate thesuccess of these efforts. The middle-class minded and ghetto status group

exists on polar ends of this cultural continuum. The middle-class mindedgroup seems stuffy and conservative compared to the extravagance andflamboyance of the ghetto group. The ghetto status group utilizes urbanstreet culture norms and status symbols while the middle-class mindedgroup utilizes mainstream middle-class norms and status symbols. Bothgroups embody competing cultural forces shaping the contemporaryexpression of black habitus. In this way, the cultural tensions between indi-viduals in the ghetto and middle-class categories are manifestations of thestruggle to determine which lifestyle gets to authentically represent the

black experience to the larger society. The middle-class minded grouprepresents acceptance of mainstream white society’s values and culturalorientation, while the ghetto status group represents a reactionary stancetowards mainstream society, often termed counterculture. Both forces exerta pull on African Americans across the class spectrum (Anderson, 1999b,2000). The competing desire to embrace and reject mainstream society is aproduct of US society’s conflicting messages to black people. The rhetoricof social equality, democracy and meritocracy co-exists with everydayexperiences of overt and covert racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2003; Dawson, 2003).The competition of a ghetto cultural orientation and middle-class culturalorientation structure social interaction in the neighborhood and limit thesuccess of the community development efforts.

The multi-class exists within the contentious space between the middle-class minded and ghetto status groups. While they attempt to embrace bothmiddle-class and lower class black culture, the multi-class are often indanger of being too closely identified with lower class culture and labeled‘ghetto’ by their middle-class minded peers. Also, individuals within themulti-class category at times assert their moral superiority over the middle-class minded group because they have achieved social mobility ‘without

forgetting where you came from’. Middle-class minded and multi-classgroups are in an interesting relationship because they are structurallysimilar groups composed of individuals who have different cultural orien-tations. At times, the choices of one of these groups are perceived as a threat

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to the validity of the other group’s choices.Multi-class individuals, who chose non-middle-class spouses, communi-

ties and/or activities, are often ridiculed by their middle-class minded peers

for their close identification with the ghetto. Paulette’s recollection of hermiddle-class minded neighbor’s move highlights some of the tensions thatexist between multi-class neighbors and their status-seeking peers:

My neighbor here [Paulette points to the home to the right of her house], shemoved from her house. Real professional woman. And she had ahousewarming. She lives out in Hamden Township [neighboring suburb]. Allthese little cute houses with grass. You know a real nice little black community,now that the whites have fled. And around the pool, she kept introducing me as‘Paulette from Brickton. Paulette from Pearl Boulevard’. And then her

daughter did it – ‘she lives on Pearl Boulevard’ [while introducing Paulette].And about the fourth time, I made a phone call and I told my friend to pleasecome get me because I didn’t have a car. And then I left. So about a month anda half went by and she [the neighbor who moved] called me to say she hadn’theard from me. I told her something. I said to her ‘you will never, ever’ and I

just relayed how I felt. And the woman started crying, she said ‘but I love you.You know I love you and I didn’t mean it. I’m just so proud of you and . . .’ Butit put a strain on our relationship.

Relationships between the multi-class and middle-class minded are oftenstrained because of the inability to understand and validate the choices of the other group. Even though the multi-class activists need other blackmiddle-class members to help realize their vision for the neighborhood,they are more circumspect of their middle-class minded neighbors. Themulti-class envision themselves rebuilding a unified black neighborhoodthat was lost as a result of the choices of status-seeking middle-class mindedblack residents. According to many of the multi-class residents, middle-classminded individuals are viewed as perpetrators of classism. Multi-class resi-dents understand classism as an alien feature of the black community, aproduct of upward mobility and integration. Paulette discusses classism as

a very recent feature of the black community, spurred on by integration:

Paulette: But classism among black people, when I grew up I didn’t seethat. See I didn’t see that because the school teacher lived aroundthe corner and so did the piano teacher with her collegeeducation. I would go in her house, her children would come inmy house. There was never anything about those people, who are your people. But then it started devolving because we got a littlebit more money and we started moving into other cultural areas,which is all right.

Interviewer: You mean moving into integrated areas?Paulette: Yeah integrated neighborhoods, I should have said that.

These feelings of distrust widen the social distance between the two groupsand hinder the multi-class residents’ ability to be a source of support for









their middle-class minded neighbors. Often, the middle-class residents wholeave the neighborhood to move into more solidly middle-class neighbor-hoods are described by the multi-class as having weaknesses in character

that prevent them from staying. Maya explains:

But the brownstones over there [points across the street], all but one or two of the original owners were all black middle-class people. They’re gone now.They’re gone because they couldn’t even handle it. As big as Pearl Boulevard is,the people across the street [residents in scatter site public housing units] drovethem crazy [laughs]. I used to listen to their complaints [laughs]. And I would

just sit there and go ‘okay’ [laughs].

The lack of trust and understanding between the multi-class and their

middle-class minded neighbors limits the success of the efforts to build aclass integrated community. The middle-class minded residents are lessculturally similar to the low-income residents and it is understandable thatthey would experience some difficulty living within the neighborhood.Without the support of other middle-class neighbors, it is unlikely that theywould continue to invest in the community. In fact many, like Vanessa, choseto leave after a few years.

DISCUSSION

Thisarticle presents two distinct versionsof black middle-class identitydrawnfrom the same habitus. It documents a more nuanced understanding of theexperience of race and class stratification in contemporary US society. Byfocusing on the lived experiences of the black middle class as well as theanalytic frameworks employedby theresidents to understand their racialandclass position, we can observe two separate middle-class identities: middle-

class minded and multi-class. Residents in these two categories share similareconomic and occupational (and sometimes even geographic) positions, yetenact very different cultural strategies from their black middle-classhabitus. Habitus determines what activities and behavior a person wouldfind reasonable. While both the multi-class and the middle-class minded findthe move to this low-income black neighborhood reasonable, they committo this neighborhoodfor twovery differentreasons, representingtwodistinc-tive social locations. While the multi-class residents are interested in theneighborhood as part of a larger project of black self-determination, themiddle-class minded residents are interested in the neighborhood as an

opportunity to amenities of middle-class lifestyles (i.e. urban gentrification)that have historically excluded black people. The differences in habitusinform both the patterns of community development occurring in the neigh-borhood as well as the class dynamics in this community.

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Multi-class identity represents a rearticulation of black middle-classidentity produced as a result of the social and cultural changes of the1960s/1970s struggle for racial justice. Craig (2002) identifies this period as

an ‘unsettled time’ in which new cultural strategies were formed. Thesecultural strategies were a rearticulation of the meaning of black identity andwere informed by a number of black political and cultural movements.Again, this identity is not entirely new; it has connections to the black eliteidentity during the early days of urbanization. The contemporary rearticu-lation of this identity affirms the principles of black self-love and self-determination and questions the legitimacy of any ideology or practice thatmay undermine these principles. The multi-class identity is the contempor-ary embodiment of this legacy within the black middle-class community.

The multi-class identity challenges the desirability of integration as histori-cally presented by the black middle class. Moreover, the multi-class identitychallenges the legitimacy of class stratification within the black community.By affirming the value of the black poor and attempting to integrate low-income African Americans and their worldview, the multi-class residentschallenge the morality of historic and contemporary forms of race and classstratification.

The multi-class identity fuels a great deal of grassroots political action inthe USA. The cultural themes associated with multi-class identity help to

mobilize resources and shape the envisioned goal of development not onlyfor the community in this study, but for many urban neighborhoods. Theblack empowerment ideology is a prominent theme in black urban politics(Jennings, 1990) and serves an important function in providing the rationalefor the cultural strategies associated with the multi-class identity. Accord-ing to Swidler, the power of an ideology is in its ability to ‘offer a unifiedanswer to problems of social action’ (1986: 279). Although they never usedthe term ‘black empowerment’, the ideology was an organizing motif for themulti-class residents I interviewed.

Multi-class identity also exposes the individual and group tension thatresults from social mobility. Both as a group and as individuals, multi-classidentity attempts to minimize the tensions that arise from increasing stratifi-cation within the black community. Multi-class residents are acutely awareof the disdain with which the current stratification systems view their poorblack extended family and community members. Rather than unreflexivelyaccepting their new position in the class structure and distancing themselvesfrom those ‘less worthy’, the multi-class stand in solidarity and offer theirmaterial and symbolic resources as forms of support. Such redistributionreduces the degree of material and symbolic inequality within the group.

It would be useful to study the type of experiences that support orconstrain the development of a multi-class identity. What life factors makeone middle class person multi-class and another middle-class minded? Themost consistent finding I observed in my data was the importance of being









first-generation middle class. All of the multi-class residents I interviewedwere first-generation middle class. It could be that such a life trajectoryprovides individuals with the cultural strategies to function within both

worlds. However, there were also first-generation middle-class people in themiddle-class minded category. This suggests that individual mobility may bea necessary, but not sufficient cause in structuring class identity. Furtherresearch would be necessary to elaborate on the factors that produce thesecompeting class identities. Melissa Victoria Harris-Lacewell’s (2004)research suggests that black media consumption and participation in black

counterpublics might help explain the variance in class identities. As weplace increased focus on the position of the black middle class both withinand outside of the black community, it is important that we appreciate the

complex and interconnecting roles of race, class and culture in shapingbehavior.

Notes

1 For a fuller discussion of black habitus and how the black community’s patternsof socialization are a response to a larger climate of racialized oppression, seeCollins, 1991, 1998; Craig, 2002; hooks, 1984; Ladner, 1971; Leadbeater and Way,1996.

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KESHA S. MOORE is Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Depart-

ment of Sociology at Drew University, USA. Address: Department of

Sociology, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey 07940, USA. [email:

[email protected]]


06 class formations_ethnicities 2008 moore 492 517

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