Monday, November 24, 2008

The Coming Onslaught

With the arrival of the Obama administration, I think my town of Washington, DC needs to get prepared for something that it thought it was familiar with: the black overclass. Black folk with degrees out of the ass will be descending on the city trying their best to join the Obama team. I mean even the new White House Social Secretary has an MBA from Harvard (and a bachelor's from Wellesley).

Now DC is home to one of the most educated populations in the country. I always have to remind myself that only a quarter of the U.S. population has a bachelor's degree. But living in DC will skew one's perspective. I knew a number of administrative assistants who either had, or were working on, advanced degrees. Lord knows I've seen a number of job descriptions that include "Master's preferred." Yet, many of these new folks will probably be black folk.

I think I will call it the rise of the Huxtable Class or the Black Nerd Class. And that is the beauty of an Obama administration. This country has a real opportunity to beat back that multiplicity of negative stereotypes about black folk. Too many people are comfortable with those stereotypes, so much so that they think that telling someone that they don't see him/her as "black" is supposed to be a compliment. I doubt seriously that people don't see the Obamas as "not black"; for too many, the very fact that they are black prevented them from supporting BHO.

Huxtables and Black Nerds are about to be all over Washington (and hopefully the affirmative action assumptions will "die, just die"). They will also be comfortably black. Is the nation really ready for all of that? I know I am.

3 comments:

Fiona said...

Interesting. I guess I think of DC as a place that already knows there is a black upper class and a black intelligentsia. (like Chicago, New York, Atlanta...)

Maybe I'm wrong.

But what I'd *sure* like to see is the Obama administration descending on places like Omaha, Salt Lake City, etc., for political business. Imagine the reaction when the White House staff accompanies the President and that staff reflects the brightest talents of various groups, black folk included. It's going to blow some minds in Lexington, Charleston (WV), Altoona, etc.

Unknown said...

You go Free. Keep the "well spoken" thoughts coming.

Justin said...

So far, the visible face of the administration is more of the same, mostly people who rose to power with the Clinton's and Hillary herself in the highest profile position. Not quite the sweeping changes everyone thought they'd be getting.