No, I have the guys in bowties take care of that business for me. They fax me at my girlfriend’s loft on Bunker Hill.

That story and your story both deal with an issue that we as a country must now face with Obama as President, and as someone said today about racial equality, “Now we can lay that burden down”. The issues of racial animosity are still with us,though I do think Obama’s victory has helped with that burden of race.
Now the real issue, the issue of economics and class will have to be dealt with and this is an issue that is fearful and an anathema to the powers that be in our Capitalist money oriented society.
It seems that anytime someone does bring the discussion of economic democracy into play the person is immediately criticized as a Socialist or of bringing Marxist theory into the discussion.
Working class people have been conditioned to react the same way when they are confronted with the question of economic disparity and the social class structure, they go into denial and point to some other country in Africa or Latin America and how worse off and poverty stricken it is compared to us.
And Browne your commentary on the Black middle class separation, physically and psychologically from their more proletarian brethren is a subject that we Mexican Americans also deal with, as a strange anxiety filled historical amnesia.
How conveniently so many of our family’s forget the struggles of poverty, the ugly truths of criminality, race mixing, illegitimacy, abandonment, homelessness, and all those things that happen to people while in the struggle for survival.
It’s curious how often, years later when a family has been moderately successful and the times are better and when it’s all about upward mobility, then the family history is revised and the truth is forgotten.
“Our people aren’t Mexican, they came from Spain, we are Spanish or Jewish or German or French, anything but a Mexican. Or, “Our people were from the upper class way back then, my great grandfather was a rich man until the Mexican Revolution stole it from him.

I once had a discussion with a prominent African American neurosurgeon concerning the class system, economics and the effect of desegregation on education and housing in the ethnic communities of Los Angeles.
The Dr. and I agreed that the end of legalized segregation in housing, education, and employment, oddly enough, in reality exacerbated segregation and poverty.
Whereas at one time in Los Angeles strict segregation mandated that the Black or Mexican American Educated upper and middle classes lived in their respective segregated communities, they therefore had goods and services provided that benefited not only themselves but the entire community as a whole. But when the ugly practice of political non-representation, legal segregation in housing, education, and jobs ended, then economic class distinctions became even more apparent.
Segregation became based not on race or ethnicity but on economics and the “have’s” became more separate from the even more impoverished “have not’s”.

The topic of economic democracy will become the focus of President Obama’s cabinet in the near future and that’s a good thing, for all of us.

I’d didn’t even intend on writing about class, it just sort of happened on this odd journey. I have been thinking about the issues of the haves and have-nots with Obama though, but every time I try to bring it up people would look at me like I am satan.

“You do think this is great? Can’t you just be happy? This is a nice thing don’t mess it up,” said my friend who lives in Marina Del Rey (she’s in DC right now) who lives in 500 dollar heels.

I don’t think alot of people understand the ocean between the classes in the African-American community. It’s huge and it’s a big deal. The should you use the N word or should you not and what it means if you use it or not, the natural hair vs straight hair, rap vs neo soul…it’s really in my opinion within the black community, class issues.

Are you being a “bad” black person, because you didn’t have enough money to live in a certain neighborhood and go to certain schools?

And in reverse are you a “bad” black person because you did have enough money to live in a certain neighborhood and you did go to certain schools?

Whose experience is more authentic and should it matter? Should everyone try to fit into a little box? Do we really need to be the borg in order to be successful? And which borg should we join if we do? Do we need each other or do we not? Is class the real connection between people or is it race?

And if someone has the resources do they have a responsiblity to fight for anyone else? Is that too much of a burden for the talented tenth?

And was that concept a flawed concept in the first place?

Who is anyone to decide what another person should be doing?

And what should everyone be doing? Is hanging out drinking a beer going to destory the world?

Browne

Did Bustard ask you why it took you so long to go get a croissant ?