BLACK BOURGEOISIE
A Counter Racist Book Review
by Josh Wickett
Author: E. Franklin Frazier
Publisher: Collier Books 195 Pgs.
Black Bourgeoisie is one
of the few books I find myself suggesting to White people as much as Black
people. Indeed in a perfect world I would be suggesting multi megaton books such
as the Isis Papers or The United independent compensatory code/system/concept.
But books like that put you on a collision course with a major piece of counter
racism code, which is: when truth is revealed regarding race, Black people
will be embarrass and White people will be offended.
Black Bourgeoisie actually does this albeit in a sorta academic kinda way. The
main premise of the book is that Black people exist in a world of "make believe"
based on their inability to acknowledge, confront and counter the system of
White Supremacy. Now the Author, E. Franklin Frazier uses more and different
words, but that's what he's really saying. The book is divided into two parts.
Part 1, "The World of Reality" is mainly a fact based objective analysis of the
condition of Black people both past and present, it contains much of the usual
statistical and historical data. Part 2, "The World of Make Believe" is where he
shows how "Black Culture" is really nothing more than our response to White
Supremacy.
A funny thing happened when I first read this book. I started with part 2
first; "The World of Make-believe." and as I read it I noticed that the author
kept using the word "Negro" instead of "Black." I thought this a rather antique
term so I flipped to the front of the book and saw the copyright of 1957 I was
stunned! Everything I was reading seemed so contemporary that I just assumed he
was discussing our present day victimization. He talks about the myth of "Negro
Business" whereby Negroes are encouraged to believe that they can create a
separate Negro economy not subject to the White Supremacy in which Negro
"Bourgeois" businessmen would exercise monopoly control over the "Negro dollar."
He talks about the "Negro press" in which relatively common or simple
accomplishments by Negroes are pumped up and blown out of proportion by Negroes
magazines like Jet or Ebony. He talks about wealthy professional Negroes who
hold memberships is two churches; one composed of light skinned professional
Negroes like himself and the other composed of his darker working class
"customers." He tells of things like Black people who buy pianos they can't
play, Expensive books they never read, rampant cultural "Anglophilia" ( a
current example of which is Tina Turner's fake English accent) and other
assorted pathologies all of which are crude attempts to compensate for their
victimization as non white people in a system of White Supremacy. Once again the
myth of Black people hiding information about themselves from White people is
exploded. Don't ever let ignorance of "Blacks" pass as an excuse for why White
people practice racism, they know everything about you.
I heard this book was very controversial and embarrassing to Black people when
it first came out and if you read it you will see why. Unlike McWorter's book
"Our Kind of People" in which he explores the history, behavior and lineage of
the Black upper classes, Frazier exposes the framework of White Supremacy as the
supreme motive force driving these otherwise bizarre Negro behaviors and
activities. With this book I finally understood why my father never took a day
off from work. As a relatively high ranking Black officer in the military, that
uniform offered him a degree of protection against being seen as just some
nigger, Plus never missing a day of work insulated him from the charge of
laziness that every Black person must overcome. It also may have contributed to
his chronic high blood pressure (please pardon my digression).
Black Bourgeoisie is the type of book that leaves you feeling "check mated."
Even if you are honest enough to acknowledge the effects of White Supremacy on
its victims, you still don't know how big it really is. Frazier shows through
the behavior of its victims, the true dimensions of racism and ultimately
exposes racism for what it really is--A System of White Supremacy
Frazier offers no solutions for "the problem" I guess that's our job. The world
of Make-believe he describes is not entirely of our own making. The White
Supremacists encourage and support Negro "feel good" culture such as; "we were
kings and queens in Africa", the Pyramids, Colin Powell... Like any junkie, this
world of make-believe serves as a narcotic that allows Black people to "sleep"
while the White Supremacist surgically craft a world of White Supremacy around
them. I got my "nigger wake up call" years ago and ain't been back to sleep
since, its truly an ugly scene and completely deliberate. Black Bourgeoisie
demonstrates an interesting phenomenon. I could be wrong but it appears to me
that Frazier's book about Black people attempting to compensate for the
existence of White Supremacy by creating a world of make-believe is a
compensatory act in and of itself.
There is no irony in being subject to your own objective analysis, its just the
"proof of the truth."
Get this book, read this book.
Josh Wickett
RWSWJ