What explains black class stratification?

Many people, when discussing the rise of the black middle class, tend to assume a monolithic black experience in degree and kind for each and every black American. Hence, these people then take that assumption and build the conclusion that blacks who have risen to middle class, as the general rule, demonstrated a superior effort, intellect, choices, responsibility or other and hence this explain why some blacks have risen to the middle and upper class while so many others are left behind.

Is this fair? Is being black in America akin to each black person having to go through life with an equal 50lb weight upon our backs that represents the weight of past and present racism? Does each black person inherit the same coefficient of friction against progress born from the weight of the past and present? The answer to these hypothetical analogies is no. Black people have never had a monolithic experience in degree, if not in kind of experiences. Thus, if we all do not and have not had equal resistance to our forward progress, does it not stand to reason that given an assumed equal effort, by each and every black, that class stratification is inevitable to occur because those with less resistance will move farther ahead than those with more? Of course it does...to the intellectually honest.

The truth is that the pounds black people carry varies from person to person. Even during times of slavery, field Negroes faced more resistance than house Negroes. There was also the free black man and women who had it better than the slaves. Hence, after emancipation, we were not all coming out of the gates even. Some blacks came from more brutal plantations than others, that separated families, whipped them more often, sexual abuse and the like, which scared them psychologically, putting them at a disadvantage in the competition of life and opportunities. They subsequently passed their economic condition, behavior and disadvantage to their children via socialization through emulation. It is not hard to see how economic disadvantage is easily passed on to the next generation.

There has also always been the light skin/dark skin phenomenon that manifested in light skin blacks facing less friction from whites than the pure looking Negro. When I say pure looking I mean dark with Negroid features. Also, there was the difference in Region, most profoundly, the North offered more opportunities than the South. In conjunction with all these varying environments and experiences is the fact that every human life is different in experience. No humans have the exact same experiences, in degree, kind, time and space, that one individual can say that they have walked in the same shoes of life as another. A life can be thrown off course or guided to prosperity from the butterfly effect of a single initial event or condition, which manifests a chain reaction of actions and reactions over time. Thus, two people with very similar backgrounds can have radically different life outcomes from a sigle event.

In light of these truths and probabilities, it stands to reason that an intelligent person would not and should not beleive that class stratification of blacks is due to the upperworldly mobil blacks demonstrating a superiority in effort, work ethics, choices and personal responsibility. It is just as plausible and probable that this can be explained by the different degrees of social and environmental impediments in the lives of black individuals and families. This is not to suggest that some blacks do achieve more than others by virtue of working harder, working smarter and being personally responsible, because many do separate themselves based upon that. However, one cannot assume this to be the general rule that explains the class separation in black America.

Those black people who come to adopt and promote this finger pointing at the black lower class are guilty of being “white like”. I say this because the fundamental reasoning of whites to explain social and class stratification is individual superiority or inferiority and not environment. White people, as a general rule, give little respect to environment in explaining social and behavioral condition. This is mainly because they want to see themselves as superior in human competition. Hence, one can have their ego enhanced by being of a higher social rank in the human competition that we all engage in. People do not want to have their rank and status tainted by the thought of an unfair advantage over others. Thus, they dismiss that the environment caused the separation of outcome, which indicts the individual or race whose behind of being genetically and or culturally inferior.

Fortunately, the masses of black people have not fell victims to this mindset, which is outstanding considering the fact that we are immersed in a white supremacy nation and mindset. That having been said, there are those few black people, mostly black conservatives types, who like to look down upon the black poor and underclass as lazy and irresponsible people who have no one to blame for their condition but themselves. In truth, what they are doing is EXALTING them selves in the juxtaposition. Each time they lament about the failures of poor blacks, they are highlighting their own successes. They do not come right out and say it, but that is what they are doing. I have been responsible, I have worked hard, I have made the right choices….look at me….I am somebody that white folks respect! Negro please! You likely just carried a lighter load than other black folks and or caught a lucky break.