Transcription
Now, how is it that the members of the black community, such as the celebrities, actors, and entertainers, from the lowest rung of the ladder, came to be the most influential members to the black community? Why are they there, and what caused them to get to that spot?
The explanation comes from a professor and sociologist, Dr. E.P. Fraser Franklin, in his 1957 book titled *Black Bourgeoisie*. And as we go through this explanation, I want you to listen very carefully because what we're going to go on is a journey. And in this journey, we're going to deal with some backstory on black American culture, and all this is going to lead us to our final destination of answering this question. But I need you to go through the full journey in order to get the understanding. And so, once you understand this history, then it'll no longer be a mystery.
And so, let's go in here to page 113 where it says this: There have been only two really vital cultural traditions in the social history of the Negro in the United States. One being the Gentile tradition of the small group of mulattoes who assimilated the morals and manners of the slaveholding aristocracy. So, the first of the two notable black traditions was the Gentile tradition, which placed high value on conventional family life, sexual purity, manners, education, and so forth. And this tradition was learned from the slaveholding aristocracy, or the nobility, or the elite, or the upper-class slaveholders, right? And so, this small group of mostly mulattoes took their culture from these people. And keep in mind that it says small because most of the blacks didn't have this culture. So, this was one of the cultures. Let's continue.
And the other, the culture of the black folk who gave the world the spirituals, which is the culture which developed as an adaptation to the slave environment. The first small group had the mind of the slaveholder, and the second mass group had the mind of the slave, right? Let's continue.
The Gentile tradition, or the one that came from the aristocracy, flourished especially in such large communities of free mulattoes as those in Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana. It was maintained by those mulatto families that had acquired, as part of their family traditions, the patterns of behavior which were associated with the ideal of the Southern lady and Southern gentleman. Some families took pride in the fact that a mulatto ancestor could not be distinguished in his physical appearance, dress, manners, and speech from his white half-brother. And they had these thoughts because they had bought into the idea that the traditional European features were superior to all the others. And so, in other words, they believed this to be true. Let's continue.
As a rule, these families formed a closed circle from which were excluded all who could not boast of similar ancestry and did not conform to the same standards of morals and manners. They were exceedingly self-conscious of their culture, which consisted of the enjoyment of English, and in Louisiana, French classical literature and music. Sometimes they maintained literary societies in which they could enjoy and foster their culture. Many of these families migrated before the Civil War to the North, where they formed a small upper class that boasted of its Gentile traditions.
After the Civil War, the free mulatto class continued to hold itself aloof from the masses of freedmen. The Civil War ended in 1865, and by that time, the masses of blacks were no longer legally enslaved. And the Negroes with the Gentile culture, they were trying to distance themselves from the masses because, at that point, they were culturally different people. Let's continue.
In Louisiana, the hostility of some members of this class to the newly emancipated blacks was so great that they opposed giving political rights to the freedmen. But generally, the free mulatto class and its descendants assumed, as far as possible, positions of leadership among the Negro masses. They did not break down the traditional barriers to easy social intercourse and marriage. Even in their religious affiliations, the descendants of the free mulattoes held aloof from the Negro masses. They generally affiliated with the Episcopal, Congregational, Presbyterian, and Catholic churches, while the Negro masses, as we have seen, were affiliated with the Baptist and Methodist churches.
The descendants of the free mulattoes became, after the Civil War, the core of a small class which undertook to maintain the American pattern of family life and conventional sex morality. So, the offspring of this class looked to maintain the values that they had developed over the years. And this was one of the reasons that they kept a distance from the Negro masses because if they would have started mingling closely with the Negro masses, then their culture would have been compromised, especially being that there were more in numbers coming from the Negro masses who were the carriers of the slave mindset. Let's continue.
In some small communities in the South, a single family with this social and cultural background would live in complete isolation rather than associate with the masses of Negroes. And why was that? For the reason we just went over. In their quiet, obscure lives, they expressed often their contempt for the black upstarts who, in their view, and often in fact, possessed neither morals nor manners. And again, this is why they attempted to separate themselves from the Negro masses, who had a very different set of morals and manners. And this is how people have always separated themselves before the European colonizer came along and started lumping people into these very large groups like black, white, Asian, and so forth, right? Groups that never initially agreed to be lumped in there together. Let's continue.
The attitudes of those who came to terms with the successful members of the rising black masses was expressed by a young mulatto college student who was a descendant of a prominent free mulatto family. When asked how she felt when a big, ill-mannered Negro male student addressed her rudely and tossed her about, replied, "Well, since I've got to live with these in-words, I might as well act like one."
So, now at this point, we have members of the Negro masses who were attending school with other members from the mulatto class, and there was conflict. The mulatto class was stuck with the Negro mass, and we can see the frustration coming from this student here. And I'm pretty sure the Negro masses didn't like them either, right? Let's continue.
On the whole, the tradition of the gentleman has ceased to have influence on either the manners or morals of the Negro community. The tradition, they had stopped having influence on the Negro community, and later on, we're going to find out exactly why because it ties into the main topic of this video. In the Negro colleges, it is futile for teachers to exhort the students to behave like ladies and gentlemen. Futile means pointless. And why was it futile or pointless to get the Negro students to behave like ladies and gentlemen? Because at this point, the Negro masses had begun to take over, and the culture that they carried was nothing like the Gentile culture that some of the mulatto class had.
So, from here, let's understand some of the background of coming from the Negro masses and the culture that they had developed. The folk culture of the American Negro developed out of his experiences on American soil. Whatever element of African culture might have survived enslavement became merged with the Negro's experience in the new environment and lost their original meaning. The Negro was made in America, right? From the language, the food, the thinking, the dancing, the songs, right? And even the physical makeup, being a mixture of different people. And Dr. Frasier says that anything that survived that would have come from Africa was merged into this new environment, and it lost its original meaning, right? So, a new culture and a new people were created from this completely different experience. Let's continue.
From the beginning, the Negro had to learn the language of his masters, and there was no chance to preserve African languages except in some isolated areas, as, for example, along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia and the neighboring islands. The character which the Negro family acquired under the system of slavery was due to the exigencies of servitude rather than surviving African patterns of behavior. Exigencies meaning what was needed in a situation. So, the character of the Negro family, which included the woman heading the house, was needed under the system of American slavery, and it was not something that was of African origin. In a situation where no legal recognition of family existed, the dominant position of the woman in the Negro family was due to the concession that had to be made to the needs of the children, as well as to the attachment of mothers to their offspring.
Even in the matter of religion, there are no evidences of African survivals, as in the West Indies and in Brazil. Moreover, when the folk beliefs of the Negro are studied, it is difficult to disentangle the African elements from European folklore and practices and those folk beliefs which are a product of the American experience. The folk culture of the Negro was associated with the church, which has been the most important institution in the rural communities of the South. In fact, the community derived its name from the church, most often Baptist or Methodist, and the location of the membership of a particular church defined the limits of the communal life. It has been in the church that the Negro has found a meaning for existence, and it was the church that enlisted his deepest loyalties. The church set up and defined the norms and moral conduct and provided the necessary discipline to enforce its rules and behavior. It was in the church that the Negro spirituals, or religious folk songs, were born.
So, the church was the most important aspect of the Negro's life, and because it meant so much to them, they developed a deep emotional attachment to that institution, which still lingers today in many of the descendants of those people who make up the most religious group in America, right? These are the roots as to why the black Americans are the most religious, right? It's not because they found some truth or anything like that. It's because the church was the institution that was necessary for the people to get through the slave experience that they had because it offered at least some level of hope, right? Let's continue.
In these religious folk songs, the Negro attempted to find his meaning for his existence and at the same time an escape from his tragic fate. You see that it gave them some form of escape from the miserable condition that they found themselves in. It was a tool that they used for that time and place to serve that purpose. Let's continue.
The folk tradition of the Negro, like the Gentile tradition, has been dissipated or transformed as the result of migration and urbanization. During their wanderings, the Negro folk have created the blues, which tell of their disillusionment and nostalgic yearning for the sympathy and understanding of the world of the folk which they have left. The secular folk song of these black troubadours in American industrial society are living records of the reaction of the uprooted black folk in the world of the city. In the countless storefront churches of Northern cities, the Negro migrant has vainly attempted to cling to the traditional religious life of the rural South. Right, so some people just didn't want to give it up because it's comfortable for humans to do the same things that they're used to doing. And the church life of the rural South, it created this type of comforting effect in the people who moved into the city. Let's continue.
But more often, with the loss of his simple faith in the world of the city, he has sought salvation in various religious cults, some with nationalistic aims, which are indicative of his groping to find an escape from the white man's world. As the result of contacts with the public school, the children of the folk have sloughed off the folk beliefs of their parents and learned the secular, scientific techniques of survival in an urban environment. Thus, instead of their old resignation towards the world, the Negro masses are acquiring a confidence in the efficacy of their effort through the use of the ballot and in joining with fellows through the use of unions.
So, that was some of the background on the two different traditional Negro cultures that developed here in America. They developed under completely different circumstances, right? And they served different purposes. Understand. So, at this point, coming into the story, the Negro masses, they've moved from the South, the rural South, and they've moved into the cities. A lot of them, where their culture and their mindset interacted with this newly discovered environment. And so, they begin going to college, getting educated, making more money, and climbing up the economic ladder. And with this new dynamic, this is where things get interesting, right?
And so, let's go in here to page 125 where it says this: As the black bourgeoisie has grown in size and influence, Durham has ceased to enjoy the distinction of being its capital. Durham, North Carolina, was known as the first capital of the black bourgeoisie. The Negro communities in Chicago and Detroit have both claimed to become the center of the black bourgeoisie. In either case, the shift of the capital of the black bourgeoisie from a small Southern city to a Northern metropolis is indicative of the change in the character and outlook of this class. Although the younger generation of Negro businessmen in Durham had acquired more thoroughly than the pioneers the psychology of modern business, they were still influenced by the older traditions that had grown up in the Negro community. And the older traditions are referring to the morals and the values that were inherited from that aristocracy class, right? The one with the free mulattoes. This was the class of Negroes that developed their culture under the circumstances of being free, right? They were the first class of Negroes that we discussed. Let's continue.
They still conformed to the tradition of the gentleman, which lingered and shaped their morals and manners. They still felt some identification with the Negro masses, despite the fact that their interests might be opposed to those of the masses. This was due partly to the fact that they, as well as the Negro masses, lived under a system of rigid racial segregation, and this small group was forced to remain separate from the rest of the whites, and they were forced to live amongst the Negro masses. Here we go. Moreover, they were more closely identified with the institutions in the Negro communities which were supported by the masses.
On the other hand, the black bourgeoisie, which has become important in recent years (remember, this is in the 1950s), has tended to break completely with the traditions of the Negro. And this black bourgeoisie is the blacks that came from the Negro masses, the ones who were the carriers of the slave mindset and the culture, right? Remember, they began getting educated and making money, and this mass element of people, they became the new black bourgeoisie, which broke away from the traditions of the old black bourgeoisie. Let's continue.
As the system of rigid racial segregation has broken down, the black bourgeoisie has lost much of its feeling of racial solidarity with the Negro masses. In the metropolitan areas of the North, where there are increasing opportunities for employment and earning money, social mobility, which means primarily the attainment of middle-class status, has become a question of the amount of money which one has to spend, right? Not how thrifty or how much money a person could save, but how much money a person could spend. This was the mindset of this new black bourgeoisie, right? The ones who came with that slave mindset. Let's continue.
When a French sociologist, on a study tour in the United States, saw the emergence of the black bourgeoisie in Northern cities, he observed that they were really "colored Babbitts." And Babbitt means a materialistic professional or a materialistic business person, a person who spends without thinking, right? That's how the French sociologist described this new black bourgeoisie. Let's keep going.
The break with traditional values is seen in the changes in the canons of respectability among the older upper-class families in the Negro community, who really stood for a middle-class way of life. The canons of respectability required a stable family and conventional sex behavior. So, to gain respect amongst the old Negro class that had money, the ones who stemmed from the pre-Negro tradition, a person was required to have a stable family and practice conventional sex behaviors, meaning with a spouse, right? Here we go.
On the other hand, among the new black bourgeoisie, these values are regarded as old-fashioned virtues, and there is much confusion in thinking and behaving with reference to these values. Who is the new black bourgeoisie again? They are the descendants of those with the slave mentality, the ones that came from the shackles and the chains and developed a culture coming out of the pit, right? The people who developed a way of life from the slave environment, right? They didn't believe in those traditional morals and values that the old Negro bourgeoisie had, right? They labeled those as old-fashioned, right? So, if that was old-fashioned, then what was considered the new trend with this new black bourgeoisie? Let's see.
Divorces and scandals in family and sex behavior did not affect one's social status. Rather, the notoriety which one acquires in such cases adds to one's prestige. You see that a person having family issues and having sex with all types of people, this didn't present any problems, right? It didn't lower one's status. In fact, it raised it up. And remember that this book was published in 1957, and so this gives a very important key in understanding how the blacks ended up with the dominant value system that most of them have today, right? And it's a key to understanding your way while you're wandering on the path and trying to find your way, right? Let's continue.
The change in attitudes towards the old-fashioned bourgeoisie values is due largely to the fact that the new bourgeoisie is recruited from those elements in the Negro population among whom these virtues never existed, and that money has become the chief requirement for social acceptance. You see that these values and morals were never learned in the slave environment and developed in the slave culture. It's not like humans naturally understand that they should have conventional sex standards, right? Humans, when they're left to their own devices, they naturally want to do just like other animals do, and that's with minimal restrictions. Understand, conventional sex behavior, that's a cultural approach that's designed to tame the animal instinct within the human, right? And it's something that has to be taught, conditioned, and also upheld through expectations of the people and of the community.
And so, this was not the culture of the slaves. And so, when they were set free, their offspring came into the rest of the society with a particular set of values that shaped the way that they interacted with the new environment that they found themselves in. And so, as certain members from this group began to earn more money, they began to reinforce their inherited values on the rest of the black community. Now, watch this.
Among the professional classes in the Negro community, actors and entertainers are relatively numerous and have the largest incomes. Uh oh, here we go. The actors and entertainers, who very often have a low-class background in the social hierarchy of the Negro community, exercise a far greater influence upon the morals and manners in the Negro community than actors and entertainers in the white community. And so, these actors and entertainers were from the lowest class of the Negroes, or they were blacks that were the furthest down in the pit. And in terms of today, they would be equivalent to the blacks that are coming from the inner-city projects, right? The ones who become rappers, athletes, and entertainers. And they have much more influence on that community than what those types of people have in a community like the white community, or the Indian-American community, or the Vietnamese-American community, or the Chinese-American community. And they typically bring a set of values with them that keep that community going round and round in this never-ending cycle, right? And having people wondering what's wrong with those people, right? And they're also funded by many of the white folks, and both of them together, right? They eat lunch off of that community and suck the energy all out of that community, suck it dry, right? And they're the ones that are highly influential to the youth, just as they were in the 1950s when this book was written. Let's continue.
Their prestige is owing partly to the glamour of their personalities, but more especially to their financial success, which is due to their support by the white world. That's what we just talked about, right? They're funding it, and both of them together are eating off of that community, right? And it keeps that community because it keeps projecting those type of values, those type of morals in that community, and those type of deeds and actions in that community, and it keeps them suppressed while groups of them keep eating and coming up, right? And they're working together collectively, eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner off of that community, and that community stays down because they don't have the right values, morals, and the right culture to climb out of it, right? But they're working hand in hand. Let's continue.
The black bourgeoisie is also being recruited from the successful underworld Negroes who have gained their money from gambling, prostitution, bootlegging, and the numbers, right? It's coming from all the people whose home resides down in the underworld, right? Today, you can add the drug dealers to that list as well. Let's continue.
The old upper class in the Negro community erected an impenetrable barrier between themselves and Negroes who represented the sporting and criminal world. And why did they do that? So their offspring wouldn't be infected with those types of values and they wouldn't be influenced by those types of people. That's why separation is a very powerful tool when it's used for the right reason, right? It's a foolish thing to think that you can unite all people in all areas of life. It just doesn't work that way. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to separate from people, just like this older upper class of blacks did. Let's continue.
Since such Negroes were generally able to handle more money than the majority of Negroes, with the emergence of the new black bourgeoisie, the standards of consumption which the sporting and criminal elements are able to maintain have become the measure of success among the black middle class. The standards which they set are emulated by Negroes in the professional classes, doctors, dentists, and lawyers, and even teachers, as far as they are able to do so. But more important still, in order to secure the money necessary to maintain these standards, Negro professional men engage in the same rackets as the successful Negroes in the underworld. Consequently, among the black bourgeoisie, an expensive automobile, a palatial residence, and a yacht bring more recognition to a doctor than some achievements in medicine. And is that still true today in that community? And will it still be true in the next 70 years? Think about it.
At the summer resort where the black bourgeoisie gathered to display their wealth, the descendants of the old respectable families must defer to the underworld elements who, through their money, have risen to the top of Negro society. That's who has risen to the top of the black community. The lower-class underworld Negroes who brought certain values with them that they inherited from the pits of slavery, right? They took over the head of the black community, and it is they who have the largest influence within that community. So, I want you to think about that.
Having abandoned their social heritage and being rejected by the white world, the black bourgeoisie have an intense feeling of inferiority, constantly seeking various forms of recognition and place great value upon status symbols in order to compensate for their inferiority complex, right? Thinking that material possessions were going to gain them some recognition in the world, and that's just not the case, right? Material things, they're just material things, and that's how we need to look at them, right? They're just material things. And all the material things do enhance our comfort in the physical world. Obtaining them should never be placed in priority above the intangible possessions that come from within, right? Things like understanding, respect, peace, originality, integrity, sincerity, and empathy, right?
And so, I want you to think about this, and I want you to think about this entire lesson as you continue on your journey, moving into the free world. And so, I want to thank you for watching all the way into the end. My name is Brooklyn St. Michael, and I'll see you in the free world.