3 - The Love Jones Cohort and Black Middle-Class Identity

Summary

Chapter 3 addresses how those in the Love Jones Cohort discuss being Black and middle class, and how the growth of the Black middle class is causing a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots in the Black community. Chapter 3 explains that the tension engendered by this divide takes the form of expressing a degree of responsibility to the larger Black community. Cohort members discussed how gender is a central component of how they experience being Black and middle class. The Cohort were hesitant about explicitly incorporating their SALA status/lifestyle as a key aspect of how they perceived being Black and middle class. Instead, the impact of their SALA lifestyle on their middle-class status was made explicit in their discussions of their lifestyles, wealth decisions etc.