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Reflecting on this marginal middle class from the perspective of the 1950s, Negro Sociologist E. Franklin Frazier wrote a scathing critique of what he called the black bourgeoisie. He derided its typical member as "half a man in a white man's country." The bourgeoisie, he concluded, "suffers from nothingness because when Negroes attain middle-class status, their lives generally lose both content and significance."
It is a different story with today's black middle class. Rather than being formed in segregation, they drew their inspiration from the civil rights movement, which destroyed legal segregation in America. This triumph imbued many blacks with a pride, confidence and political skill they had not known before. It also made them far less color-conscious than their middle-class predecessors. For many, in fact, black became "beautiful." Toughened by struggle, some of these blacks may now be the superachievers of American society. Sociologist Daniel Thompson argues that contemporary middle-class blacks are "105% Americans—the modern translation of the American spirit. The basic standard of success is the black person's ability to operate in both the black and white communities." Leon Chestang, assistant professor at the University of Chicago, believes that the black middle class is finally confronting and resolving its "twoness," that a new bicultural individual is emerging who can span the gulf between the races.
Span—but not necessarily integrate. The tendency among contemporary middle-class blacks is to view integration less as a desired end than as a route to better jobs, housing and education.
The white man is still regarded warily; a black can never be entirely sure what he is up to. Even when he is no longer overtly dominating, he is often thought to be pulling strings behind the scenes. "Many whites are still seen as 'the Man,' " notes Walter Hundley, director of Seattle's Office of Management and Budget. "The really basic control, the entry into professionalism or the middle class is through the white system, and that is the only way you are going to get there." In Phoenix, a black Air Force master sergeant who investigates cases of discrimination in the service asserts: "If you're a black, you can't be yourself and get hired. Whites want to see if you're a good boy first. You have to prove you are not one of the troublemakers, but a black who fits in—and even that doesn't mean they will let you fit in."
For all these suspicions, the new black middle class seems less obsessed with whites than the old bourgeoisie used to be. Says Oscar Weaver Jr., a supermarket owner in Liberty, Fla.: "The black middle class does not regard the white as an enemy but rather as a challenge." In general, blacks can take whites or leave them, and often at quitting time at 5 o'clock, they choose to leave them. As a black personnel recruiter in New York City says, "The only thing that keeps my head intact is the chance to get with other people now and then and talk that talk. It's a mental-health device, to be able to call the Man a m-f once in a while."