The role of the Black Middle Class/ Rich in the Black Community

[acri1]

i know it won't happen but what i truly, sincerely wish is that more black middle class people would MOVE to the hood and give the rest more hope... give somebody in the neighborhood to look up to. let them SEE peers with the same skin color and diff aspirations so i aint automatically pegged as bein "white". the main reason that shyt happens is cuz of its such a disconnect. how could we you ever expect different when there's rarely a concrete example...

my moma was a teacher. i don't think we was doin it like that at all but i guess you could say we were middle class. i just graduated college this saturday and while i'm lookin for jobs, i'm REALLY hopin i get this 1 year full time volunteer opportunity in god knows where cuz they got the program in so many cities except for my own. after that i wanna teach and LIVE in the hood. it takes alot of sacrifice, but honestly thats the kinda attitude i think is needed alot more... i just wish more were willin to commit.

I agree, but at the same time, I can understand why a lot of black middle class people don't want to live in the hood if they don't have to. Especially if they're raising kids. If I had kids I'd probably want to raise them in a better neighborhood, have them go to better schools, etc., if I was able to afford it.

That said, I think black middle/upper class folks should make at least some effort to help out. What specifically that would entail kind of depends, but I think mentoring is a start.

 

[VICVALLIN]

i know it won't happen but what i truly, sincerely wish is that more black middle class people would MOVE to the hood and give the rest more hope... give somebody in the neighborhood to look up to. let them SEE peers with the same skin color and diff aspirations so i aint automatically pegged as bein "white". the main reason that shyt happens is cuz of its such a disconnect. how could we you ever expect different when there's rarely a concrete example...

my moma was a teacher. i don't think we was doin it like that at all but i guess you could say we were middle class. i just graduated college this saturday and while i'm lookin for jobs, i'm REALLY hopin i get this 1 year full time volunteer opportunity in god knows where cuz they got the program in so many cities except for my own. after that i wanna teach and LIVE in the hood. be an active/recognized part of it... it takes alot of sacrifice, but honestly thats the kinda attitude i think is needed alot more... i just wish more were willin to commit.

i've been saying that for years. poverty is a learned behavior and without someone to show a different way of living, you're doomed to live the life of your parents and your comtemparies.

 

[lachreyatarbabypits]

This is nothing new. When you rise to certain levels, you leave behind baggage. Thats how these successful black people feel. Those people in the hood are baggage and are just bringdowns. Why should you surround yourself with people lower than you if you want to go higher up the ladder? In terms of giving back to the community, fukk that, in a sense. Why because I found success I'm supposed to give back? nikkas need to stop using that "we made it" mentality. The only reason Nino Brown gave out turkeys was to increase his clientele, not because he wanted to give back.

 

[you're NOT "n!ggas"]

I agree, but at the same time, I can understand why a lot of black middle class people don't want to live in the hood if they don't have to. Especially if they're raising kids. If I had kids I'd probably want to raise them in a better neighborhood, have them go to better schools, etc., if I was able to afford it.

That said, I think black middle/upper class folks should make at least some effort to help out. What specifically that would entail kind of depends, but I think mentoring is a start.

exactly @ the bolded, thats why i said i know it won't happen/its a major sacrifice. imma try and do my part and hope it inspires the future to do the same

i've been saying that for years. poverty is a learned behavior and without someone to show a different way of living, you're doomed to live the life of your parents and your comtemparies.

word, i almost feel like it needs to be a movement... but community activism hasn't been the same for the black community since desegregation. really the entire country fell off after 60s-70s. we're in a sad state of affairs

 

[ogc163]

Opinion: Where is the black middle class? You don

 

[ogc163]

I dont think they have an obligation beyond their family because the question is how exactly should you help. The hood is economically depressed and smart business people dont start high quality business in economically depressed areas. If I were to start a high quality school in the hood for residents who is gonna pay for it? Look at Derrick Coleman he started that Black mall in Detroit to try and revive the hood economically and ended up bankrupt after career in which he earned over 100 million bucks.

Yeah I can see how many wealthy Black people can be indifferent because they feel as though they wouldn't know where to start in terms of helping out the community. While I can't be mad at indifference, calling out hypocrisy and collusion is another story. Black Chicago Divided - In These Times

 

[No1]

This is nothing new. When you rise to certain levels, you leave behind baggage. Thats how these successful black people feel. Those people in the hood are baggage and are just bringdowns. Why should you surround yourself with people lower than you if you want to go higher up the ladder? In terms of giving back to the community, fukk that, in a sense. Why because I found success I'm supposed to give back? nikkas need to stop using that "we made it" mentality. The only reason Nino Brown gave out turkeys was to increase his clientele, not because he wanted to give back.

I don't know any black people who think like you and are actually at the top. African-Americans give back because there's always been a sort of shared identity and African-Americans have always been defined by those at the bottom. I will always give back because I know where these people are coming from and because every successful community has that mentality. You live in this false world where there isn't a large Jewish network, Cuban, Lebanese, etc. All successful minority or immigrant groups understand individual excellence and shared identity. I'm not saying you any one person anything, but you're doing a disservice to everyone who came before you if you have that mentality. In my humble opinion, it shows a lack of character.

How you do it is one thing. Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken you're still in college. You haven't achieved shyt yet, how are you speaking so authoritatively on how successful black people think? I've chilled with partners at big firms and people at the top corporations and even the most bougie black people feel that they have some duty to pay it forward.

"A lawyer left the hood, he never looked back..." I've always promised myself that I wouldn't be the person Nas was talking about. Because I know somewhere down the line someone looked out for me. Even if I didn't know it. But no one owes any one person on an individual level.

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

They're not obligated to help anyone other than themselves and their family. With that said, they shouldn't even look down upon a poor black person or question why they live as they do without having done anything to help or at least understand the problems at hand. It'd be great if a majority of wealthy black people invested in poor majority black neighborhoods and at the very least maybe it'll start with African immigrants and expand into Magic Johnson-esque shopping centers and different things like real estate and affordable homes for the original citizens of the neighborhood.

I think what makes something like this frustrating is because there have been examples and movements in which the poor were uplifted into better living conditions and crime was brought down. The crack era was truly a destructive force, but part of the only way for that to be healed is through the help of wealthier black folk investing and keeping the black dollar in black hands.

 

[ogc163]

 

[acri1]

Classism in the Black Community- Stanford- The Dialogue - YouTube

The classism that goes on in the black community is really...weird.

For example, you do have the upper class/upper-middle class black people that look down on lower-income blacks, especially those that live in the hood. I can't count how many assumptions people have made about me because I grew up in Detroit.

But then you also have plenty of middle class/upper-middle class black kids that go way out of their way trying to be "hood" and whatnot, I guess because they don't want to be accused of being c00ns/oreos/not black enough. That shyt was an epidemic when I was in college.

And of course you got the people that actually are poor and living in the hood that waste a bunch of their money on expensive clothes, shoes, etc. and try to do everything they can to look like they have more money than they do.


The whole situation is all kinds of fukked up.


And I didn't even get into the whole Africans vs. African-Americans thing.

 

[tru_m.a.c]

i know it won't happen but what i truly, sincerely wish is that more black middle class people would MOVE to the hood and give the rest more hope

why did they move out the hood in the first place???

wait, lets stop speaking in general terms

what city are you from? lets use a specific example for once on the coli

what hood shall we use???

 

[you're NOT "n!ggas"]

They're not obligated to help anyone other than themselves and their family. With that said, they shouldn't even look down upon a poor black person or question why they live as they do without having done anything to help or at least understand the problems at hand. It'd be great if a majority of wealthy black people invested in poor majority black neighborhoods and at the very least maybe it'll start with African immigrants and expand into Magic Johnson-esque shopping centers and different things like real estate and affordable homes for the original citizens of the neighborhood.

I think what makes something like this frustrating is because there have been examples and movements in which the poor were uplifted into better living conditions and crime was brought down. The crack era was truly a destructive force, but part of the only way for that to be healed is through the help of wealthier black folk investing and keeping the black dollar in black hands.

i agree, nobody is OBLIGATED to do anything. its all about the WILL to sacrifice. but again, i understand not everybody thinks the same way as me or even has the same interests. and yeah the crack era was a destructive force... compounded by the fact that it brought on the glorification of destruction

why did they move out the hood in the first place???

wait, lets stop speaking in general terms

what city are you from? lets use a specific example for once on the coli

what hood shall we use???

how this become about me personally??? i'm from dallas. they moved out the hood to do better for themselves/their own family. the hood doesn't really matter. i say it as a general term to describe the plight of the black community all over.

 

[OsO]

to whom much is given, much is expected.

 

[tru_m.a.c]

how this become about me personally??? i'm from dallas. they moved out the hood to do better for themselves/their own family. the hood doesn't really matter. i say it as a general term to describe the plight of the black community all over.

whoa b don't get all up tight, its a discussion

I said lets pick a spot specifically because its easy to have high level summations, cause all anybody talks about is feelings and nothing of factual susbtance

if they moved out the hood to do better for themselves, then why would they move back to the hood

and hood can be interchangeable with black community

 

[Mikael Blowpiff]

Just out of curiosity, when you talk about the black upper class are you talking about "old money" types like in Our Kind Of People or "new money" people that are actually semi-relevant to the world at large? I'm just thinking about this article in New York a few years back where someone from one of those Martha's Vineyard circles said that Michelle Obama was too ghetto and wasn't elite enough despite being the First Lady of the United States.