Unearthing an Unspoken Rage : Ellis Cose Explores the Anger of Black Professionals Feeling Stymied by Racism

A hushed conflict simmers, a disquiet of a difficult sort, hard to discern, even harder to rectify. Underneath, however, it rages.

In his new book, “The Rage of a Privileged Class” (HarperCollins), Newsweek essayist Ellis Cose sees what he terms a broken covenant as the root of the often unspoken rage among many African American professionals. It is, says Cose, “a serious American problem: . . . the broken covenant of the pact ensuring that if you work hard, get a good education and play by the rules, you will be allowed to advance and achieve to the limits of your ability.”

Successful by outward appearances and ever striving, many African Americans box daily (and inwardly, most times) with a subtler hue of racism, discrimination and alienation set deep within corporate America’s concrete core. So many have found that no matter the background or the physical trappings--Coach bag, tony address, season tickets to the opera--somehow they will never be allowed the same perks and privileges afforded their upwardly mobile white colleagues.

Whether persistently passed over for promotion, locked into a “black job” (community affairs director, for example) or blatantly not invited to the country club, many black professionals choose silence, rather than make waves, and mark time until they explode.

Cose conducted a series of interviews with black professionals--many who hold Ivy League degrees, take home upward of $50,000 annually and excel in a myriad of professions from law and academia to journalism--to confront the sobering reality of the post-civil-rights landscape. Although some African Americans reaped rewards, thus gaining access to a once-off-limits world, Cose asks why “a full generation after the most celebrated civil rights battles were fought and won, are Americans still struggling with basic issues of racial fairness?”

Attempting to square promise with reality centers this flame of rage.

“Instead of ‘things’ happening, instead of careers taking off,” writes Cose, “blacks are being stymied. They are not running into a glass ceiling . . . but into one made of cement and steel . . . “

Cose forages for answers or, at the least, primes the debate.

Race does matter, its hold on public consciousness, not a phantom, but quite real. So, too, is the fear that vocalizing inequities could damage, if not cost, a career.

Question: At the heart of the book is the whole question of America’s difficulty addressing discrimination and racism. What do we have the most trouble talking about?

Answer: I don’t think we have trouble talking about race. I think we have trouble talking about it intelligently. . . . We tend to talk in stereotypes, or in sound-bites, or from behind huge defenses we’ve erected . . . . People don’t see the same reality. You almost get into this caricature of a conversation .

You have whites going through all kinds of contortions trying to prove that they aren’t racist . . . that what you think is racist isn’t racist. And then you have blacks going through the opposite sort of dance . . . . So you have people who . . . connect with somebody of another race as a representative as opposed to as a person .

Q: So many black professionals end up serving as cultural ambassadors or are seen as something as separate and apart from the rest of the race?

A: Sure. . . . Given the way things have worked in this country, it is much more likely that blacks are going to know whites, than that whites are going to know blacks. So you are forever having blacks put in this situation of having to sort of explain black people to white people. . . . Because of the misperceptions, because of the stereotypes . . . it’s no surprise that you have a hell of a time having an intelligent conversation.

Q: You write that “creating a color-blind society on a foundation saturated with the venom of racism requires something more than simply proclaiming that the age of brotherhood has arrived.” It’s often difficult for a person of color to explain just why such a society is not a realistic possibility.

A: Yes. And it’s so hard to cut through. Part of the reason why so many people who are white want to declare that society is color blind is because they are most commonly the ones who are blamed for being racist. To be a racist is to be a bad person--and they’re not bad people . . . they are “color blind . “ . . . People will say: “I’m not racist, but . . .” and the “but,” inevitably (precedes) something that you would think was racist. . . . But (since) they started off by saying “I’m not racist,” it’s like this magic incantation: All of a sudden it makes everything perfect.

*

Cose says he didn’t want to write a book that could be misconstrued as a treatise stating that the sole barrier blocking blacks from mainstream success was racism: “Because that’s too easy to dismiss. . . . It isn’t so. In a sense it’s a much more subtle reality.”

Although many black professionals he encountered looked at the chance to tell their stories as long-awaited catharses, some deny that discrimination has posed any real threat, or at least never cast a shadow over their own progress. The theory is that if you try hard enough, no wall is too high.

Author and professor Shelby Steele, lauded and vilified after his controversial collection of essays, “The Content of Our Character,” appeared in 1990, believes that perceived inequities are at times exaggerated, and that too much is passed off as a casualty of race.

“In the last 25 years the stresses of new freedom, which have greatly intensified black vulnerability, have led us . . . to claim more racial victimization than we have actually endured as a way of recomposing that unacknowledged vulnerability,” writes Steele, who, like Cose, is black. “This is not to say that we have not experienced victimization, only that our claims have been excessive.”

Q: You touch a lot on the sense of alienation many middle-class blacks experience. What is at the root of it and how does it most commonly manifest?

A: Some of it isn’t that much different from alienation . . . blacks of any economic strata in this country (feel), which has to do with the whole sense of opportunities being denied or of inequities being present. I think some of it is fairly unique to people who are middle class, or at least to people who are striving for certain kinds of accomplishments. . . . They’ve invested heavily . . . yet still find certain doors don’t seem to open for them. I think that alienation is a little bit different than the people who sort of decided very early: “Hey, the game is stacked against me so I’m not going to play.”

Q: What are your hopes for racial parity in this country?

A: Certainly we’re not going to reach it in this generation. But I think if we abandon it as a goal then we are in effect saying that we accept a second caste system for blacks and that we accept ceilings on black aspirations and that we accept this severe racial stratification because we can’t do any better. I think its worse to accept that than to continue work toward ending it.

Q: In your research, did you find more people who still have a fighting spirit than those on the verge of giving up?

A: Sure. And it may very well be because most of the people I interviewed . . . were fairly successful, who even though they were still dealing with a lot of negatives in their lives, had clearly come quite far . . . . With black Americans in general, we are accustomed to dealing with all of these kinds of problems. We as a race have never decided en masse to give up. Clearly a lot of us have, but I think that as a majority, we’re far from that. *

Added to an already formidable load, Cose points out, the black middle class is often taken to task for not taking care of “its own,” or as the venerable church saying goes: “Lifting as you rise.”

As the underclass continues to struggle, pundits black and white, and agitators from the Left and the Right point to those who have ascended to provide relief or, at the very least, some semblance of a solution. This, Cose argues, only makes it that much more difficult to move racial dialogue out of a narrow and skewed arena.

The subject of race (especially when it comes to the discussion of the struggle of some African Americans) seems forever tethered to poverty and crime, as if inseparable. Media saturate us with depictions of the deplorable living conditions and hopeless existences that confine a segment of black America and, Cose concedes, they are as excruciating as they are demanding of our attention.

But, he stresses, “America can hardly afford to use the plight of the black poor as an excuse for blinding itself to the difficulties of the black upwardly mobile. . . . Moreover, one must at least consider the possibility that a nation which embitters those struggling hardest to believe in it and work within its established systems is seriously undermining any effort to provide would-be hustlers and dope dealers with an attractive alternative to the streets.”

The problems of one, he says, fail to cancel those of the other.

Q: Is there a level of resentment that exists on the part of the underclass in regard to the privileged who express resentment over racism, or not being able to get even further ahead?

A: I think it’s a bit more complex than resentment from people who are not able to get ahead. I think that we as a society have some serious problems with blacks who are successful, and I think that we particularly have problems with blacks who are successful in what is considered the mainstream because, first of all, there is this assumption that real blacks, authentic blacks are poor. So if you’re not and you’re doing OK, somehow you stop being black.

Q: Or you’re not black enough?

A: Right. So you hear a lot of this talk. There is a lot of resentment anyway, because there is a sense . . . on the parts of many whites that these people ought to just be grateful because they have somehow transcended the natural state of blackness. And I think there is also a resentment from a lot of blacks who feel that these people have somehow . . . abandoned them or sold out . . . . And certainly in some cases that might be true, but at the root of it is a lot of ambivalence about black success in this society. And I think that cuts across color lines.

Q: You observe that as the nation progresses, we’ve moved from a country concerned about the denial of civil rights to one obsessed with reverse racism and quota systems. How and why did that happen?

A: I think the sense of a lot of white people was that: “We’ve been working on this race thing for a long time. It must be solved.” But I think the other part of it is that a lot of . . . whites in general began to feel vulnerable--especially as we entered the perilous economic times and people started getting laid off from work, and started hearing that they had lost their job because of some affirmative action program . . . .

I think a lot of whites decided . . . that they were the ones who were being disadvantaged . . . . And from their vantage point it’s easy to see how they got there--when they are hearing from demagogues in their workplace that all these minorities and women are taking all the jobs. And since they don’t really see what’s going on clearly with black Americans, and since they certainly don’t hold themselves responsible for the bad things that are happening to black Americans, they feel abused.

Q: For those African Americans who are struggling through corporate America, what do you recommended as a tool for coping?

A: By trying very hard to get yourself rooted . . . having an identity that is beyond work. . . . For some people it means devoting themselves to community work. For other people it just means maintaining close contacts with people who they know accept them . . . I think that many people who are in that situation, who work in these corporations feel . . . they have to almost apologize for doing it, and sort of apologize for being what they are. And that’s just an unhealthy situation. I think people certainly need to convince themselves that they need not feel guilty because they are working in the white man’s corporation.