So, can people point me to reasons for this upsurge in usage? I mean, yes, I know, there's a long history behind the general phenom. But where did the loving embrace of the term "bourgeois" come from?
Take this blog, "Where Bourgeois Meets Ghetto" - <http://boughettonews.blogspot.com/>
This is the "about" blurb:
This is real thought-provoking commentary on pop culture. And you? You're probably bourgeois - and as such it is your job, your mission to help the ghetto among us. I will do my part in showing you what you're up against. That's right. "Helping us see the madness ... to stop it."
[...]
Is anyone criticizing this in any depth? Probably not since the taboo against "airing dirty laundry". but still... aiyiyiyi.
..............
My daily, behind closed doors experiences with my co-complexionists tells me that the notion of a divide between "bougie" and "ghetto" never died. It didn't even catch a cold. So, I don't think there's been an upsurge. Perhaps people are just more willing to put it out there for mixed company (Blogging does often inspire a false sense of intimacy).
As you know, the idea of being 'presentable' is very durable. My grandmother used to tell me: "you don't want to give white folks - who are already crazy enough - even more of an excuse to harass you." The message was clear: racism IS a serious obstacle and it IS unequivocally white folks' fault for being so damned difficult to deal with but...we must show them that we can be "civilized". If we do this, maybe they'll settle down and let us freely join in the American project. "Civilized" meant many things; for example, not being 'too loud' in restaurants or movie theaters (que someone, probably a list lurking 20-something wanker, to emerge and tell a story about loud black folks in movie theaters).
I'm sure many Roman slaves cherished similar illusions of emancipation via good behavior.
Of course, this hyper self-consciousness isn't limited to African Americans. I've known poor whites who reported feeling out-of-place in a Whole Foods or an 'upscale' mall. They've also experienced a pressure to 'act right' (we could separately explore the complex class/race issue - I've been in odd circumstances where retail outlets dissed and security shadowed obviously poor whites while catering to obviously middle income me - wheels within wheels). My Korean wife sometimes criticizes other Koreans for being too rustic in public.
So the feeling - and the ideas supporting it - are not unique.
Still, I believe African Americans to be especially sensitive to this because the words and actions of any one AA are generally seen as a reflection of the whole group. Maybe we can call this the 5 O'Clock News Effect. You know the drill: sensation driven local television news reports on a rape/murder/arson/"home invasion" - up pops a grainy picture of a standard issue surly black guy. Black viewers cringe, fearing that white viewers will nod their heads saying 'but of course'.
No doubt, this is internalized racism but it's also a bit of common sense wisdom developed within the supremacist envelope. Over the years, I've been backhandedly complimented by assorted white people on how 'articulate' and 'professional' I seem. Often, the unspoken second half of this praise is that I have these laudable qualities UNLIKE most blacks. A friend's mother once remarked: "he's not like the others". I appreciated her rough, inadvertent honesty even as I longed to see her garroted by merciless robots.
If a white guy robs a bank, other white guys feel zero concern about how that event will effect their social profile. Supremacy provides that luxury.
Who's criticizing the "bougie" vs. "ghetto" meme?
Aside from the folks at Black Agenda Report and people such as Dyson and Adolph Reed I don't know. It has long legs and, as we've seen from the support Cosby received for his rants, is more popular than we'd like to think.
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On second thought, instead of calling it the 5 O'Clock News Effect I think that the Sokolowski Imperative sounds better inasmuch as Wojtek, that rheumatic, swag-bellied rascal, has often expressed both implicit and explicit sympathy for the conquest of "bougie" over "ghetto".
.d.
-- "We're candies, not job applicants, give us a shot!"
...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/