Summary Of Blue-Chip Black By Karyn Lacy

Karyn Lacy’s ethnography, Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class, aims to reveal “how different groups of middle-class blacks make their identity choices.” In examining the process of identity construction for middle-class suburban blacks, she incorporates spatial analysis and the intersection of race and class in order to highlight intragroup divisions. In doing so, Lacy argues that the intersection of race and class influences the identity construction of the black middle-class in terms of how members “define themselves” and the distinctions they draw against others. Her attention to the cultural components of black middle-class identity and focus on this understudied group make her work successful, as it challenges
commonly held, largely false conceptions of the middle-class as not inclusive of blacks and a belief in the fixed nature of blackness (Hartigan 2010).

With educational background in sociology and African and African Americans studies, including a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard, Lacy is an expert in her fields of interest. In fact, Blue-Chip Black is the published form of her dissertation she authored as a graduate student at Harvard (Harvard 2000). Lacy’s treatment of her subjects, nuanced focus on the process of identity construction in the specific niche of the black middle-class, and methodology highlight the success of her work and its empirical relevance.
The Tripartite Black Middle-Class
Rather than focusing solely on differences between the white and black middle-classes, Lacy seeks to discover the internal divisions that exist within the black middle-class.
She attempts to define the black middle-class as it has evolved over the course of history: prior to the 1960s, black middle-class position was based on “the status that education conferred,” and the post-integration definition of the black middle-class comprised limited opportunity, including mainly working-class occupations, a phenomenon evident in the study of the black middle-class by sociologist Bruce Haynes in the suburb of Runyon Heights. Today, however, Lacy suggests a new definition of the black middle-class that differentiates it from the lower middle-class—a suggestion undergirded by the existence of variance in “socioeconomic indicators, lifestyle decisions, and…spatial patterns of middle-class
blacks.”

As such, Lacy proposes three groups that she uses to expose the heterogeneous nature of the black middle-class: the lower middle-class, in which individuals earn less than $50,000 (which she dispels as being over studied); the core black middle-class, in which individuals earn between $50,000 and $100,000; and the elite black middle-class, in which individuals earn more than $100,000. Lacy adds a spatial dimension to her research in her selection of three middle-class suburban sites around Washington, D.C. in which to perform her study: the majority-white Lakeview community in Fairfax County, Virginia, containing a population of core black middle-class residents; the predominantly black Riverton community located in Prince George’s County, Maryland containing core black middle-class residents; and finally, the majority-black upper middle-class community of Sherwood Park in Riverton. This division not only makes her subject-specific, but also sets Lacy up for analysis along the lines of culture and space, apparent in her use of the construction sites proposed by sociologists Cornell and Hartman (2007), in assessing the identity construction of the black middle-class. Furthermore, by acknowledging the structural advantages accrued to whites and the divisions within the black middle-class, specifically in the housing market evident in Lipsitz’s (2011) portrait of the “white spatial imaginary,” Lacy is able to move past the notion that blacks comprise a homogeneous group and into the heterogeneous reality of blackness (Hartigan 2010). This mode debunks the beliefs that blacks are inextricably tied to poverty and that race is totalizing by illustrating the ways culture shapes the significance of race (Hartigan 2010).
Studying Identity Construction in the Black Middle-Class
Lacy focuses on “boundary-work, the tool kit model, and construction sites” in her research on how middle-class blacks conceive of their identities. She finds that blacks in each of the three groups possess a tool kit containing status-based identities, class-based and racial identities, and suburban identities from which they selectively draw. Status-based identities are shown to be employed differently by the elite black middle class in Sherwood Park compared to the core black middle class residents of Riverton and Lakeview. In the former, status reproduction is the primary concern and, in the latter, status protection prevails. Exclusionary boundaries were found to be erected utilizing class-based identities in each of the three groups to highlight their middle-class status in contrast to poor blacks. Among Sherwood Park blacks, stratification distinguishes the elite group from their immediate neighbors in Riverton who earn less money. Because middle-class blacks in Lakeview are physically separated from the poor by a highway, they erect a weaker exclusionary boundary separating them from the black poor and are more likely to see them as individuals. In regards to public identities, middle-class blacks create exclusionary boundaries as a form of social differentiation from lower-class blacks and their associated stereotypes—tactics meant to curtail the chances of encountering racial discrimination in the white mainstream.

Inclusionary class-based boundaries in the forging of public identities are also aimed at reducing the likelihood of discrimination, specifically by attempting to establish social unity via blurring the line that separates the black and white middle-class.
Lacy finds that this is likely to occur while middle-class blacks are house-hunting, as revealed by her undercover real estate experiment posing as a home buyer. To create public identities, middle-class blacks also perform improvisation (autonomously negotiating race) and script-switching (demonstrating knowledge of middle-class lifestyles and indicating social position) as they move in between black and white arenas. These tactics of impression management evoke sociologist Erving Goffman’s concept of dramaturgy in which social life is analyzed in the context of stage production (1959). Furthermore, the artificial public identities crafted by middle-class blacks represent a form of cultural capital employed by members to manipulate social interactions to their advantage. Lacy proposes strategic assimilation to describe how middle-class blacks navigate the dual realm of the white mainstream and the black community using racial and class-based identities. Middle-class blacks in the study also sought to maintain ties with the black community. In contrast to the other two neighborhoods, Lakeview blacks had to actively seek out black social organizations as a result of the suburb’s majority-white makeup. Finally, suburban
identities are used to ally blacks with their white neighbors concerning issues that affect their communities at large.

In engaging these cultural strategies, Lacy departs from the notion that race can explain away social phenomena. She is ultimately successful, as her research reveals that middle-class blacks are active agents in their identity construction while simultaneously highlighting internal differentiation in the black middle-class. In suggesting an array of identities assumed by the black middle-class, Lacy moves beyond antiquated beliefs that consider blackness a fixed and strictly racial, nonnegotiable identity and recognizes the influence of cultural repertoires (Hartigan 2010).
Methodology
By performing ethnographic research in immersing herself in the daily lives of her subjects and conducting personal interviews, as well as utilizing various credible sources, scholars, and data, Lacy’s work is reliable. While her experiment with house hunting was eye opening, however, it does not constitute a significant sample. Furthermore, her personal bias as a black woman is limited, as her authority as a sociology expert curtails the chances of skewed research. To provide a more nuanced analysis, Lacy may have considered including a variety of races in her ethnographic study. Her analysis of empirical data suggests the heterogeneous nature of race in general, enabling her findings to be extrapolated to the study of race generally. By highlighting the importance of class in race and identity conception in the black middle-class, while simultaneously exposing the error-ridden divisions of class in America (e.g., dichotomous three-tiered middle-class as lower, middle, and upper), Lacy encourages an update to the class system that accounts for internal divisions and proposes a more nuanced study of race—a study that recognizes faulty class divisions and thus examines race through the context of culture.

Taken together, Lacy’s subject treatment, focus on identity construction, and methodology indicate the success of the book. In employing spatial analysis on an understudied group—middle-class blacks—Lacy reveals the ways that class matters in regards to race. She adheres to Hartigan’s (2010) tenets of a successful ethnography: she is attentive to the role of place, the performance dynamics of social interaction, and culture. Through her work, the socially constructed nature of race is highlighted, as space, class, and individual interpretation, especially through social boundary-work, shape how race matters. Her research touches on an additional core lesson in the class: race is a highly dynamic form of identity and must be studied as such, particularly through the lens of culture, often exposed via ethnography. (Hartigan 2010)