The Rage of a Privileged Class [Paperback]

Cose sums up the central problem for Blacks in the corporate world as follows: "[S]enior corporate executives and senior partners in law firms are ... expected to conform to a certain image. And though their positions may not require golden hair and blue eyes, they do require the ability to look like--and be accepted as--the ultimate authority. To many Americans that image still seems fundamentally incongruous with kinky hair and black skin."

In other words, even the most successful African Americas cannot escape the American racial paradigm, which perceives character, merit, and prestige through a distorting lens of color.

One minor weakness of the book is Cose's tendency to focus on African American men; women comprise a minority of his interviews. Also, while many white collar African Americans work in the less ruthless public sector, Cose gives them short shrift.

For the reader uncomfortable with free-market capitalism, some of the interviewees may come off as materialistic and self-interested "company" men whose assimilationist values are defined by White corporate America. Therefore, at times it may be difficult to feel compassion for some of the men. For example, many seem to assume their credentials and paychecks actually make them better people than "ordinary" folks and are frustrated that assimilation and corporate success has not earned them more privileged treatment. (It is ironic that about the time African Americans broke into the corporate world, it was becoming less hierarchical in organization and more egalitarian in style--e.g., laterally organized teams, "business casual" dress, use of first names for even senior executives, etc. These changes mean promotions do not necessary result in substantially higher prestige within the office environment.)

That said, the book is an important corrective to such works as W. J. Wilson's THE DECLINING SIGNIFICANCE OF RACE, which downplays the importance of race and racism in favor of a class-centered model. For you folks who feel your office is immune to racial discrimination and prejudice, I challenge you to read this book and see if you don't change your mind.

"What is there to be angry about?", one may ask. Our President enjoys the benefits which have flowed to him solely due to his Father's success at Yale. At the same time, he decries as "unfair" a Law School's use of race to assist in determining which members of this generation will get to enjoy the same benefit. One person is unabashed about his ability to enjoy the blessings of an accident of birth. Another is challenged and denigrated for the temerity of seeking a corner of the same benefit.

Sometimes, seeing someone else explain the problem makes it not necessarily easier to deal with, but easier to understand (I guess in some way that leads to being easier to deal with). Often as I read this, I thought "yeah".

If the "privileged class", those who by virtually every yardstick appear to be "making it" (and have the most invested in this society) have this much rage, the feeling which is pervasive throughout much of the throughout the rest of Black America is something which must be resolved.

Anyone who thinks that we have got this problem of race in America solved ought to read this book.

And Cose's book is filled with interviews and observations from Afro-Americans in banking, law, etc. who describe the destruction or paralysis of their careers for the same reason I left corporate journalism. All of this coupled with the lack of access to the level of capital some of our Caucasian counterparts get access to (Weill started on his road to becoming a man worth over $1 billion today by borrowing $30,000 from his mother in 1960 as his share in helping launch a financial services firm; $30,000 in 1960 is probably the same as at least $100,000 in 2000; and how many Afro-Americans can go to mommy or daddy for that kind of money?), makes for an intractablility to the Afro-American predicament that is rarely recognized in the on-going and exhausted study of the effects of race in this culture.

Add to this the preconcieved notion in corporate America that Afro-Americans simply aren't intelligent enough to handle "real work" as the subjects of Cose's book point out over and over again, and it makes a person wonder how an Afro-American can ever acheive his full potential. The insidious and subtle compromises we have to make in virtually all fields except basketball, rap, and football, are so daunting that I am now convinced that it is EXTREMEMLY DIFFICULT for any Afro-American to make a major mark in this culture and also escape major psychological damage.

The pity is that Cose's book is not treated as perhaps the most crucial examination now in published book form of the issue of why Afro-Americans have problems in this culture even after being provided the best educational opportunities. Indeed I had experience with some rather well-known neoconservatives who dismissed this book because Cose talked to, among others, personal friends in compiling his observations. That anyone would qualify that as a reason to dismiss his findings indicates the depth of the dissonance on this subject between intelligent Afro-Americans and a lot of allegedly intelligent and respected Caucasians. Which doesn't bode well for the future of race relations. Unfortunately, as a previous reviewer noted, the people who have read and will continue to read this book are principally the people who already know the extent to which it is telling the truth about life for even the most ambitious, intelligent, hard-working Afro-Americans.