1 - Scholarly Debates on Defining the Black Middle Class

Summary

Chapter 1 engages the scholarly debates, discussions, and controversies surrounding how the Black middle class is defined. Chapter 1 paints the context for many of the key topics addressed by the Cohort in subsequent chapters related to how they view their middle-class status and how their class status interacts with their SALA lifestyle. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the distinction between class and status and discusses the range of scholarly and historical definitions and conceptualizations of the Black middle class over the past 120 years. Such debates raise pertinent questions on how class should be captured; if status is a more useful measure than class; whether Black middle classness should be defined separately from other middle classness; and, if so, why. Chapter 1 investigates issues surrounding gender and the role of marriage in perpetuating (or otherwise) the Black middle class and is highly relevant to the rise of the Love Jones Cohort where a substantial majority of its members are Black women.