The Role Of Racial Identity In Karyn R. Lacy's Blue Chip Black

In this election cycle, race has played a crucial role in determining the outcome of the election, with both candidates making racial remarks in an attempt to appeal to black Americans. President-elect Donald J. Trump has gone under increasing fire for saying that black neighborhoods were “war zones” when referring to urban black neighborhoods. However Trump fails to appeal to the growing black middle-class, a racial class represented in Karyn R. Lacy’s ethnography Blue-Chip Black. Blue-Chip Black reveals the racial and socioeconomic undertones involved in navigating and maintaining the complex set of identities held by the black middle class. Although the economic climate has shifted since the release of this study in 2007, Lacy’s conclusions …show more content…
However, the dilemma parents are facing is how to promote racial identity while still constructing their middle-class public identity and status-based identity. Lacy refers to the development of separate black identities as “construction sites” where black middle-class parents have been quick to pass down black cultural capital to their children in what Lacy calls “the black tool kit” (Lacy, …show more content…
Lacy’s work in the subject matter is only the beginning of documenting real experiences and identities of middle-class blacks within middle-class communities. The importance of studies like Blue-Chip Black will only grow in importance over time as Lacy predicts suburban communities like Riverton, Lakeview, and Sherwood Park will only grow more normative as time goes on (Lacy, 232). Therefore, while Lacy’s study is comprehensive in analyzing the different identities that go into creating the black middle-class experience, more study is needed in middle-class communities to confidently make a conclusion about the collective black middle-class