Black Middle Class America: House Negro Mentality or Manifestation of Self-Identity

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Black Middle Class America: House Negro Mentality or Manifestation of Self-Identity For Hundreds of years a wall of separation has existed among the Black community. Whether it involved the skin color, hair length, nose size, or social standing, Blacks have always found someway to distinguish themselves away from the masses of their culture. In Malcolm X's essay "Message to the Grass Roots," and Shelby Steele's excerpt "On Being Black and Middle Class," Black separatism can be traced to the times of slavery. House Negroes wanted to disassociate themselves from the field Negroes. Today, the question is whether the Black community has let the house Negro mentality transcend through time to be emulated by the Black middle-class. Malcolm X clearly defines a house Negro as being absolutely loyal to his master. The house Negro thought more of his master's well being than the master thought of himself. Love was all the house Negro had for his master; who else would treat the house Negro as well as the master treated him. The house Negro wore the best clothes, had the best living arrangements, and ate the best foods. The master and the house Negro were one in the same, in their mentality. "What's the matter, boss, we sick," was the rhetoric of the house Negro (400). Every other word was "we", not "you" or "I" but "we." The house Negro never made any distinctions between the master and himself. When it came time to disembody himself from the field Negro, the masses, the "we" disappeared and the "you" and the "I" introduced itself. The "you" as in "you crazy for wanting to run away from the master," and the "I" as in "I would never think of leaving behind a life as good as mine"(400 ), was now the language spoken by the house Neg... ... middle of paper ... ...ass modeled the white middle class had no relevancy. It was the sense of meaning that the above value provided; the black middle class wanted to declare self-independence (266). Steele's middle class Black and Malcolm's House Negro may differ in the way they serve their fellow lower-class Black or field Negro, but they both share the same mind set. The middle-class and the house Negro's views on lower-class blacks and field Negroes were not a matter of hating lower-class blacks or field Negroes but of hating what they did not want to be (Steele 266). . Works Cited Steele, Shelby. "On Being Black and Middle Class." Revelations. 4th ed. Ed. Teresa M. Redd. Boston: Pearson, 2002. 265 - 66. X, Malcolm. "Message to the Grass Roots." Revelations. 4th ed. Ed. Teresa M. Redd. Boston: Pearson, 2002. 399 - 402.

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