Bourgeois like me.(Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class )(Book Review)

Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class By Lawrence Otis Graham HarperPerennial, 422 pages, $14.95

When Lawrence Otis Graham's book was published in 1999, it was greeted with controversy. The black upper class, while not exactly terra incognita, is certainly underexplored, with just a few exceptions like E. Franklin Frazier's Black Bourgeoisie. Add to this the continuing debate over Bill Cosby's criticism of the black underclass, along with the publication of Thomas Sowell's latest book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, and this becomes a good moment to read Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class.

Despite today's "constant cry for diversity," Graham notes in his introduction to the latest edition of the book (in which he discusses the controversy provoked by its publication), there remain "certain narrow stereotypes ... that people are simply unwilling to relinquish." In particular, the stereo-type of the indigent black American has been "embraced and accepted as an accurate and complete account of the black American experience." Graham's book "upset that stereotype," which "upset many people--particularly blacks." Sadly, says Graham, "there is no group that apologizes more for its success than black people."

The emotions unleashed by this book are somewhat surprising, since 95 percent of it is straightforwardly descriptive. There is an introductory chapter on the historical origins of the black upper class, and one chapter each on children's clubs; cotillions, camps, and private schools; historically black colleges and universities; fraternities and sororities; Links, Girl Friends, and other important women's clubs; Boule, the Guardsmen, and other elite men's groups; and traditional vacation spots. Graham then tours the major cities with substantial black elites, devoting a chapter each to Chicago, Washington, New York, Memphis, Detroit, and Atlanta. Among other things, the book is a Who's Who of American blacks. The last chapter discusses the phenomenon of "passing"--light-skinned African Americans who cross the color-line and live as white.

Whatever explicit judgments the book makes are unlikely to offend a conventional liberal. But let us count the ways in which the subtext of the book is politically incorrect: 1) law-abiding, hardworking, morally straight, grammatically correct blacks resent those blacks who do not share these qualities; 2) ethnic pride is fine, but working and ...